Deployment Guide

Purpose

The purpose of creating a deployment guide for the EFCX connector in ZOHO CRM is to provide instructions and guidance for successfully installing, configuring, and utilizing the connector within ZOHO environments.

Intended Audience

This document is intended for any customer who want to deploy a ZOHO-Embedded EFCX connector.

Prerequisites

1. You must have installed the EFCX on your server before integrating with Zoho.

2. A Zoho CRM account is required.

3. The user must have administrative rights.

4. Expertflow Generic connector Library should be deployed. If not, see Expertflow Generic Connector Deployment Guide.

Pulling the Zoho Generic Connector from Git

1. Create a directory with name as mkdir zoho-connector or according to your ease.

2. Navigate to newly created directory by cd zoho-connector.

3. Pull the the code from the:

git clone --branch 0.0.0_b-yaml-files https://gitlab.expertflow.com/cti/zoho-crm-generic-connector-deployment.git

4. Run cd kubernetesto change directories. This is where all the YAML files are stored.

Setting Up Environment

Our server deployment is managed through Kubernetes, where the static files for the connector are hosted and the Zoho Connector runs.

Namespace

Create a namespace “expertflow” if it doesn’t exist.

kubectl create namespace expertflow

Configure Ingress.yaml

Zoho Generic Connector for EFCX should be accessible by a fully qualified domain name. Assign the FQDN.

sed -i 's/devops[0-9]*.ef.com/<FQDN>/g' zoho-generic-connector-ingress.yaml

Create Self-Signed SSL/TLS Ingress Certificates (optional if already present)

1. Create IngressCerts directory (optional)

• mkdir ingress-certs  
  

1. cd ingress-certs
   

• set the Variable name to your FQDN (e.g. projectsdemo.expertflow.com).
  The ${FQDN} variable in following commands will be replaced with the value you provided in this step

• export FQDN=<enter FQDN here>
  

• Now generate a secret with the following commands.

• openssl req -x509 \ -newkey rsa:4096 \ -sha256 \ -days 3650 \ -nodes \ -keyout ${FQDN}.key \ -out ${FQDN}.crt \ -subj "/CN=${FQDN}" \ -addext "subjectAltName=DNS:www.${FQDN},DNS:${FQDN}" 
  

• Create a Kubernetes secret in your required namespace. In our case it’s expertflow

• kubectl -n expertflow create secret tls hs-ef-ingress-tls-secret --key  ${FQDN}.key --cert ${FQDN}.crt
  

Configure zoho-generic-ingress.yaml

• Open the zoho-generic-connector-ingress.yaml file.

• Replace the hosts and host value with the FQDN on which you are deploying the application.

• Set the path with a unique name for your sap connector.

• You have to replace the value for UNIQUE_NAME with the path which you will use for your application.

Configure zoho-generic-deployment.yaml

• Open the zoho-generic-connector-deployment.yaml file.

• Replace the image with the updated tag.

• Updated tag is 1.0.0

Applying Kubernetes YAMLs

• Apply the service with kubectl apply -f zoho-generic-connector-service.yaml

• Apply the image-pull secret with kubectl apply -f zoho-generic-connector-imagePullSecret-expertflow.yaml

• Apply the Ingress with kubectl apply -f zoho-generic-connector-ingress.yaml. (For RKE2-based Ingresses using Ingress-Nginx Controller)

• Apply the deployment with kubectl apply -f zoho-generic-connector-deployment.yaml

Install Expertflow Extension

Follow these steps to install the EFCX Connector in Zoho CRM:

Step 1: Access Zoho Marketplace

1. Log in to your Zoho CRM account.

2. Click on Extension URL to install the Zoho-EFCX Extension.

Step 2: Install the Extension

• Click the Install button.

• A prompt will appear requesting permissions; click Accept All Permissions to proceed.

• Choose the installation scope:

  • Install for Admins Only

  • Install for All Users (Recommended)

  • Choose Profiles (If you want to limit access to specific user roles)

• Click Confirm to start the installation.

Step 3: Complete Installation

• The extension will be installed automatically, and you will receive a confirmation once it is complete.

• Navigate to Zoho CRM > Settings > Extensions to verify the installation.

Step 4: Change Base URL for an Installed Extension in Zoho CRM (if needed)

• Click on the Marketplace > Installed Extensions.

• Locate Zoho Generic Connector and click on it.

• Look for the Widget Configuration.

• Update Base URL of <Deployed Zoho EFCX Connector> with the new URL.

• Click Save and refresh Zoho CRM to apply the changes.

Set Variables in the Extension Settings

 Connect to VPN

In order to use the extension, make sure you are connected to VPN if your services access is restricted to a VPN connection. Otherwise, you do not need to connect to VPN.

SSL Certificates

Before using the extension, accept SSL Certificates for to avoid any issue.

Login agent

1. Open the extension using the phone icon on the bottom bar.

2. Once opened, enter agent credentials, and press login.