Notes on records

A column of free text, such as Comments, often belongs on the record as a note and not in a field. Every module that takes notes has two extra rows on Map fields, Note title and Note content. They are not fields of the record: the note is added to the record after the record is saved, one note a row.

The examples here are a Deals file of made-up companies with a Comments column.

Add a note from a column

Map a column to Note content the way you map any field: choose a column, give a fixed value, or write a formula. Note title is optional; with none, the note has no title. The AI knows these two rows when it drafts a map, and offers a free-text column such as Comments or Remarks for Note content.

Under the mapping the row says what it is: not a field of the record, a note added after the record is saved, that Zoho keeps its text as HTML, and that importing the file again adds the notes again.

• A row with no content adds no note. An empty or blank cell adds nothing, even where a title is mapped. (Zoho would take an empty note; Sloose does not send one.)
• Only a record the row made or updated gets a note. Where a row finds a record and leaves it alone (Skip it, a Update only when rule that held it back, or If several match: skip), no note is added to it.
• Subform files add none. A file that is the rows of a subform writes the subform and nothing else.
• Modules that are Zoho’s own record of what happened (Notes, Attachments, Emails, Calls, Tasks, Events, Activities) take none, and so offer no rows.

A formula for the note

A formula may read the row (row.Comments) and, as any formula over the row’s records, the records the row made (rec.Deal.id). It is worked out after the record is saved, so it can read what the CRM filled in too: a formula that reads a field the CRM makes itself, such as an auto-number, reads the saved record back first, with the read the after-save fields use. A formula that cannot be worked out for a row fails that row (below) and adds nothing for it; it is not left out in silence. Validate checks a formula like any other.

What Zoho does with the text

These are what a real CRM was measured to do, and they are Zoho’s rules, not Sloose’s.

• Zoho stores the text as HTML. An & is kept as &, a <script>…</script> is removed, and other tags such as <b> stay. The text is trimmed at both ends and a line break written \r\n is kept as \n.
• A title is at most 120 characters and the content at most 65,535, counted in UTF-16 units, as JavaScript counts: an emoji is two. A longer one is refused for that note alone: the record is still written. Sloose never cuts the text, since a shortened note would say something your file does not.
• The author is the connected user and the date is the time of the import. A note’s own date and author cannot be set, so a date or author column of your file is not carried over: put it in the content with a formula if you want it kept.
• Notes are added, never replaced, and Zoho checks for no duplicates. The same text added twice is two notes.
• A note does not edit its record: the record’s own workflow rules see nothing of it, and Zoho has no rules of its own for notes.

What it costs

Sloose sends up to ten notes in one call, and a call of up to ten notes costs one API credit of your CRM’s allowance, as a call of ten new records does. A note counts no row of its own against your plan’s rows per run: its row is the row of the record it goes to.

What Validate says

The three checks about a note are warnings, and none of them stops a run:

• A title mapped without content: a row with no content adds nothing.
• A title or content over its limit: the rows named, the first few and how many more (counted in the units above). Those notes are refused and their records are written.
• A note mapped for a module the file writes no record to: there is nothing to add it to.

A formula into either row is checked as every formula is, and the usual checks that block a run still apply: one that does not compile stops it.

Dry run

A dry run sends no note. Its log says, for each row, that it would add a note to the record after it is saved; a formula that needs the saved record is said to be known once it is saved.

When a note is refused or not answered

The record is written first, so a note that does not go in leaves the record and fails the row, in one of two ways. A note Zoho refused gives the row the Result Failed, and a note Zoho never answered gives it No answer (unless another failure of the row takes precedence). In the grid the row is failed either way, and Retry takes both. The grid says, for example, Deal note was not added: … and the results file’s Error column Note: … (Deal, Note: … where the file writes several modules), each followed by what Zoho said, or no answer came back, so it may have been written. The other rows’ notes stand.

• Retry failed rows adds the note again for a failed row, and only the note: the record is not written again, and the notes that went are not sent. A title or content over its limit is refused the same way again, so shorten it in the file first.
• A note Zoho never answered is not sent again blind, since sending it again may add it twice. Sloose reads the record’s notes and looks for one made by the connected user during this import with the same title and content as Zoho stores them, which it has not already counted as another row’s. If it finds one, the row is done. If it cannot read the notes, the row says so (no answer came back, so it may have been written), nothing is added, and Retry asks again.
• Resume does not add a note an earlier run of the chain already added.
• A formula that cannot be worked out fails the row, with the formula’s error in the Error column, and Retry works it out again.
• If the CRM’s API allowance for the day is spent, the run stops as for any write. The notes not yet sent are not added and their rows are not marked failed (the log names each); those rows need a run of their own.

Importing the file again adds the notes again

A note has no key, so there is nothing to find it by. Importing the same file a second time adds every note a second time. A Retry or a Resume of a run does not (above), but a new run does. If you meant to import a file once, remove the notes’ mapping before running it again.

Where it is in the API

An agent or the SDK adds notes through POST …/records/{module}/adds (up to ten items, each a note for a record, under an authorised run) and asks whether an unanswered note landed with POST …/records/{module}/{recordId}/added. Both are in the API reference; the notes appear in the resolved configuration as two fields marked addedAs: "note".