About the application

The Student Management application comprises of the following forms :

• Student Form to enter the name of the students and the country they belong to.
• Course Form to enter the name of the courses offered.
  
• Student Course Form to enter the course details enrolled by each student. 

The Country Chart view  displays a 3D Bar Chart which depicts the total number of students enrolled in each course for the selected country, as shown in the image below.  The bar chart is created by passing the required data as parameters to the Zoho Sheet chart API.

To learn about the steps in creating a chart in Zoho Creator using the Zoho Sheet API, refer this Wiki Page.
Creating charts using Zoho Sheet API

1. To set default values for form fields

The default values for form fields can be set by passing additional parameters to the form URL.  For example, to automatically load a value for Employee ID field in http://creator.zoho.com/zchelp/employee-manager/#Form:Employee the default values is passed as querysting(Employee_ID=1234) to the url, where Employee_ID is the script name of the field in your name.

The form url with query string will be,
http://creator.zoho.com/zchelp/employee-manager/#Form:Employee?Employee_ID=1234

The url to view and edit individual record using its record ID is given below. This will display the zoho creator form in edit mode.

Refer the topic Editing Records via Record ID for more information.

3. To set criteria for a view

The criteria for a view can be passed as part of a query string to a view url. Multiple criterias can be specified by appending it along with the URL using '&'

The URL format for setting criteria with "=" (Equal) operator is given below:

where, FieldName1 & FieldName2 are the Deluge script names for the field in the form and multiple criterias are specified by appending it along with the URL using '&'

Example: 

The view http://creator.zoho.com/zchelp/employee-manager/#View:Employee_View lists all the records in the Employee View. To  view records with Name EQUALs Henry and Employee ID EQUALs 1234, we need to pass the field name and value as querystring.

The complete  url for this example is,
http://creator.zoho.com/zchelp/employee-manager/#View:Employee_View?Name=Henry&Employee_ID=1234

The URL format for setting criteria with operators other than "=" (Equal) is given below: 

 where,

FieldName1 & FieldName2 are the Deluge script names for the field in the form.
FieldName1_op & FieldName2_op are parameter names for the operator (fieldname appended by _op).
constant is the value assigned for each operator. Refer the table to view the list of all operators and their constants.
 

Example1:

The view http://creator.zoho.com/zchelp/employee-manager/#View:Employee_View lists all the records in the Employee View. To  view records with Employee ID GREATER_THAN 1235, we need to pass the field name, value, parameter name for the operator and its value as querystring. The parameter name for Employee_ID is Employee_ID_op and the constant for GREATER_THAN is 21.

The complete  url for this example is,
http://creator.zoho.com/zchelp/employee-manager/#View:Employee_View?Employee_ID=1235&Employee_ID_op=21

Example2:

The URL to view records with EmailID ENDS_WITH zoho.com and Roles CONTAINS Supports,
http://creator.zoho.com/zchelp/employee-manager/#View:Employee_View?EmailID=zoho.com&EmailID_op=25&Roles=Support&Roles_op=26

Note:

For some operators like EMPTY, NOT_EMPTY, YESTERDAY, TODAY, NEXT_YEAR, TRUE, FALSE, etc. the criteria value need not be specified. For example, the following URL will display records from the "Employee_View" whose "Date of Joining" falls on the "CURRENT_YEAR".

http://creator.zoho.com/zchelp/employee-manager/#View:Employee_View?Date_of_Joining_op=52 

• Add data through onlilne HTML forms from your PC or from your mobile
• Add records through email
• Add records by importing from Excel file
• Add records by executing Deluge script
• Add records using Zoho Creator APIs

1. Add record through online HTML Forms 

Zoho Creator provides drag-n-drop Web Form Builder to easily create custom HTML Forms in minutes. You can access the online HTML form from your PC or right from your mobile. The data submitted through these forms will be directly added to your database. Here is a sample form created with Zoho Creator.

If you do not like the default positioning of the form fields, you can customize the same using the Zoho Creator Client API and create your own custom form.  The Client API allows field level embedding to customize the look of your HTML forms to suite your website. Each field in the form can be individually positioned, providing a perfect fit and finish to your web page.  

2.  Add record through Email 

Every form in Zoho Creator has its own email address, so you can just sent an email to submit form data. Zoho Creator checks for form updates via e-mail, once in every ten minutes. The data submitted through e-mail will be directly added to your database. Refer the Help link for more information. 

3. Add record by importing from an Excel file

If you want to create an online database application from your .XLS files, you can paste data from these files and directly create your application with Form and Data. Comma separated values (.csv) or Tab seperated values (.tsv) stored in other file formats can also be used to create your application with data. Refer Help Link for more information. 

You can also add new records to an existing application by importing data from a .xls, .csv, .tsv file.  Refer Help Link for more information.  

4. Add record through Deluge Script 

• Add data submitted from different Stateless forms in one main table. Refer Stateless forms for more information.
• Add a record to a form by invoking a Custom Action in the view. Refer Tips & Tricks for more information.

5.  Add record using Zoho Creator APIs 

Zoho Creator - RPC Web API allows client applications to add record to a Zoho Creator form, using the HTTP POST method. You can add multiple records to multiple applications and multiple forms, at a time.    

The Deluge postURL task can also be used to add a new record to another Zoho Creator application, using Zoho Creator API.  Refer Add Record using API, for more information on using the POST URL task with Zoho Creator XML RPC API.

Here are the steps in creating a Search Interface in Zoho Creator:

• Create a Search Form with the Fields that would make up a Search Dialog. A search Form is basically a Stateless form, that does not store data in the ZC database. Refer  Stateless Forms for more information on creating Stateless forms.

• Add a Custom Button to the Stateless Form. 

• Create the required HTML view with parameter, e.g. searchParam to pass the search key (specified in the above Search form).
  

• Write the code for this view to retrieve the records from your Table whose value matches the passed parameter. 

• Add on click script to the Stateless form to display the HTML view, on click of the Search Button, as shown below:

• The on click script, uses the OpenURL Deluge task to redirect the stateless form to the HTML view.
  

• Click Save Script to update the script. In live mode, the Employee Search view will be displayed on click of the Search button.

• Specify a label name, for example, "Department"
• Import data from Employee Manager - Department - Department Namewhere,Employee Manager is the application name, Department is the form name,Department Name is the field whose data is imported.
• Display as Dropdown/Radio-button (Single select) 
• Click Done to update the changes

• Specify a label name, for example, "Roles"
• Import data from Employee Manager - Roles - Role Namewhere ,Employee Manager is the application name, Roles is the form name,Role Name is the field whose data is imported.
• Display as a multi-select lookup.
• Click Done to update the changes.

You can create combined views that display the required fields from one or more related forms. For example, we created three forms - Employee form, Department form and Roles form and created relationship across these forms using Lookup fields. To create a combined view,

1. From the View tab, select the view which contains the Lookup field. In our example, the Employee form contains the single-select lookup field "Department" from the Department form and multi-select lookup field "Roles" from the Roles form.
   
2. Select the Column Properties option displayed on the left-side of the view.
   
3. The lookup fields will have the related fields as link. Click on the related fields link to display all the fields in the related form.
4. Select the required fields to be displayed from the related form. Here, we have selected the related field "Mail alias" from the Department form, as shown in the screen-shot below.
5. Click Done to update the changes.
   

We received several requests from our users on the subform functionality in Zoho Creator. Subforms is certainly in our High Priority list and will be available in the near future. As a workaround, we have put up a sample application that provides the subform functionality (accessing subform within the mainform), using Deluge Scripting. 

About the Meeting Tracker Application

The Meeting Tracker application comprises of the following forms:

• The attendance details for each meeting can be viewed by selecting the  button, as shown below.
  

Now let us learn how the custom buttons Add Attendance and View Attendance are added to the Meetings View. The Add Attendance and View Attendance are called custom action buttons.  "Custom Action" is a feature integrated in ZC Views to enable users to invoke a specific user-defined Function on selected records in a view.

In this application,  "Add Attendence" custom action invokes the function that will display the "Add Meeting Attendence Form" . Similarly, the "View Attendance" custom action invokes the function to display the Attendance view.

(The same steps can be followed to configure the View Attandance custom action, to view the attendance for each meeting).

a. Defining the Function:

1. Select Script -> Function tab and define a new function by selecting the New button.

2. In the Function dialog, specify the function name, namespace, return type and arguments to be passed to this function. In this example, we define a function named "addattendance" that will display the "Add Attendance" form for the selected record in the view. Hence, return type is specified as void and the record id is passed as argument to the function.

3. Click Done to add the function.

4. Drag-n-drop the Open URL deluge task to the editor-area.  The OpenUrl task redirects the form to a specified URL. Specify the URL string as given in the application.  In the the url string specified,

((((("http://creator.zoho.com/";;;;; + zoho.adminuser) + "/") + zoho.appname) + "/form-embed/Add_Meeting_Attendance/meetingid=") + input.id) + "",

- Add_Meeting_Attendance  - is the name of the form to be displayed
- meetingid  - is the name of the field in the Add_Meeting_Attendance form
- input.id - id is the function argument which will pass the value of the selected record ID and update it in meetingid.

5. Click Save Script to update the changes.

b. Configuring the function "addattendance" as Custom Action in the Meetings View

1. Select Views -> Meetings and click on Custom Actions from the left-side tree.
2. Specify the Action Name, the action display type and the function to be configured.
3. Click Done to update the changes.

The above configuration will add the Add Attendance custom action button to each record in the Meetings View. When the button is clicked, the form Add Meeting Attendance is displayed for the selected meeting.

To view the Functions and the scripts added to the application,

• Copy the application by selecting More Actions -> Copy Application link displayed in the top-right corner. The application will be copied to your account and displayed in your Home page as "Copy of Meeting Tracker".
• Select the Edit button and click on Script -> Function tab to view the functions added to the application.
• Click on Script -> Form tab and select the the Add Meeting Attendance from the Form drop-down box.. The "on add -> on load" script is added to this form to display the Meeting name of the selected meeting in the Pick Meeting list-box.
  

Help Doc -> Deluge Reference -> Functions and Custom Action.
Help Doc -> Deluge Reference -> Open URL

A simple but oft repeated query in Zoho Creator Help/Forums is how to dynamically hide and show fields in ZC forms. In this blog, we present how-to-do tips on using the Hide/Show functionality to create smart forms that hide irrelevant information from the user or adjust as the user is entering information.

a. Hide/Show fields based on value selected in another field

- In the "Sample1" form given below, the text-field "ResearchQuestion" is hidden when the form is loaded. It will be displayed only if the value of the field "Type" is selected as "Research".

To achieve this,

- Select Form Actions ->  On Add -> On Load block in Script builder. The on Add -> on Load script is executed when the form is loaded to add a new record.

- Add the Deluge task hide ResearchQuestion, as shown in the screen-shot below and click Save  Script to update the changes.

(You can drag-n-drop each task to the editor area and use the Edit button to configure field names, variables and expressions using the Deluge Expression builder)

To display the field ResearchQuestion only if the Type is selected as "Research",

- Select Field Actions -> Type -> On User input block in Script builder. The Field Actions -> on user input script is executed when the Type field value is changed.

- Add the If condition and statements to display the field only if the Type field is selected as "Research", as shown below. Click Save  Script to update the changes.

The ResearchQuestion field is displayed if Type is selected as "Research", as shown below.

b. Hide/Show fields based on login user

Sometimes you may want to restrict access to certain users only to specific fields in your form. This can be achieved using the Deluge variable zoho.loginuser, which returns the name of the login user and the  Hide <fieldname> deluge task, within a If condition.

For example, assume you want to restrict edit access to the Name and E-mail field only to the HR Manager, whose login user name is "HRAdmin". 

To achieve this,

- Select Form Actions ->  On Edit -> On Load block in Script builder. The on Edit -> on Load script is executed when the form is loaded to edit an existing record.

- Add the If condition to check for the login user name and the If statements to be executed . The If statements will be executed if the login user name is not "HRAdmin". (i.e) the Name and E-mail field will not be displayed for editing, if the loginuserid is not "HRAdmin".

- Click Save  Script to update the changes.