--- title: "Events" url: https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/events/ description: "An Event in Catalyst Signals is the core element of capturing and describing any significant change or occurrence within an application." last_updated: 2026-09-28T11:04:26Z service: Signals type: general --- # Events Events are a fundamental part of Catalyst Signals, describing any significant change or occurrence within an environment or application. They encircle a broad spectrum of actions and triggers ranging from user interactions to external stimuli. These events, in turn, serve as another trigger for innumerable actions or workflows across different environments or applications. In Catalyst Signals, these events are pivotal in driving real-time processing, automation, and seamless integration of disparate systems and applications. With this tool, you can capture, process, and route these events to various endpoints called [Targets](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/targets/key-aspects/). Here are a couple of examples for an event: - In an **ecommerce marketing website**, when a customer places an order, the inventory management application is automatically updated. In this scenario, the event is the Order Placement. - In a **CRM application**, when a lead is created, the organization's website displays product recommendations based on the lead's details. In this scenario, lead creation serves as the event. ### Event Statuses To track the events within the Signals environment, they are categorized by their processing status. This represents the overall performance of an event, regardless of how many rules it is associated with or how many targets it is delivered to. The execution status of each rule and target can be found in the [logs help page](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/logs/). The overall event performance statuses in Signals are mentioned as follows: - **Received** - Events received in Signals from all types of publishers. - **In Queue** - Events received but not yet processed. - **In Progress** - Events that are currently being processed. - **Success** - For an event to be marked as a success, it must be delivered to every target, across all associated rules. - **Failed** - Events that failed to be delivered to at least one target, in any of the associated rules, will carry an overall status as Failed. - **Unmatched** - Events that did not meet the conditions configured in the rule filters or have no active rules or targets, and therefore were not processed. - **Unprocessed** - Events that are associated with an inactive publisher, rule, or target. - **Dropped** - Events associated with a deleted or disabled target or rule. > **Note** The overall Event Status is determined by the [Event Execution Statuses](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/logs/#comprehensive-event-capture), which track how an event performs across each rule and target it's associated with. - The overall Event Status follow this priority order: **Failed > Dropped > Success**. - If any execution is marked as **Failed** or **Dropped**, the event status will also be marked as **Failed** or **Dropped**. - If both **Failed** and **Dropped** execution statuses exist for an event, the overall event status will be marked as **Failed**, since it takes higher priority. ### Zoho Events The preconfigured services for [Zoho publishers](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/publishers/create-publisher/zoho-publishers/) come equipped with default events, each accompanied by its own schema. This automated setup streamlines event management by eliminating the need for manual schema creation. Events from Zoho services are received into Signals through the internal authorization process of Catalyst with other services.Therefore, you need not perform any authorization configurations for Zoho publishers. Events will be defined by default for **custom modules** created within [Zoho CRM](https://www.zoho.com/en-in/crm/). **Custom fields** are also synchronized periodically to ensure trouble-free integration with event schemas during event transformation and webhook creation in Signals. The supported services for custom fields synchronization include: - [Zoho Bigin](https://www.bigin.com/) - [Zoho Billing](https://www.zoho.com/in/billing/) - [Zoho Books](https://www.zoho.com/in/books/) - [Zoho CRM](https://www.zoho.com/en-in/crm/) - [Zoho Expense](https://www.zoho.com/in/expense/) - [Zoho Inventory](https://www.zoho.com/in/inventory/) - [Zoho Invoice](https://www.zoho.com/us/invoice/) [Click here for the full list of supported Zoho Publishers](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/publishers/create-publisher/zoho-publishers/) ### Catalyst Events A few Catalyst services are also supported as default [Catalyst Publishers](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/publishers/create-publisher/catalyst-publishers/) in Signals. Each Catalyst service comes with its own set of predefined events and corresponding schemas. These events are automatically listed when the service is added as a publisher, eliminating the need for manual configuration. This allows you to seamlessly capture infrastructure-level changes such as data updates, cache modifications, file actions, or authentication activities and route them through Signals for monitoring, analytics, or integration with downstream processes. > **Notes:** * [Generate Sample Payload for Custom Events](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cli/v1/event-generate/sample-payload-catalyst-pub/). * The default events of Zoho publisher are categorized into five main scopes: **Create**, **Delete**, **Update**, **Approve**, and **Reject**. Each scope represents a distinct type of action that results in generating and emitting events to the [targets](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/targets/key-aspects/). ### Custom Events To receive custom events in Signals, the REST API key for these events has to be configured within the custom publisher application. Additionally, a sample payload of the specific event is required to generate its schema. Catalyst Signals offers two methods for adding event payloads to generate schemas: - **Live Event Payload**: You can use the URL provided in this method to capture the payload of an API call and populate it with the necessary keys to use it as an event schema. > **Note:** The URL provided for capturing an event payload is only valid for **15 minutes**. - **Manual Event Payload**: In this method, you need to manually provide the payload to generate the event schema. [Instructions for creating custom events and schemas for custom publishers](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/publishers/create-publisher/custom-publishers/) > **Note:** * You can create and configure up to **200 events** across all publishers. This threshold is configured for baseline and standard scenarios only. We strongly urge you to email us at support@zohocatalyst.com with your requirement to increase this soft threshold. * Learn more about [generating sample payloads for Custom Events](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/cli/v1/event-generate/sample-payload-catalyst-pub/#sample-payload-for-custom-events). ### Event Schema Event Schema contains the metadata of the events to provide additional context and information about the event. You can also edit the event schema and tailor it to your requirements to further trigger the workflows in the target environment. [Learn how to extract or transform an event schema](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/targets/event-body-setup/event-transformation/) Although this has been auto-generated by Catalyst Signals, let us analyze the default keys of an event schema to understand the processing of the events. **Event Schema** ```json { "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema#", "type": "object", "properties": { "rule_id": { "type": "string" }, "target_id": { "type": "string" }, "version": { "type": "integer" }, "attempt": { "type": "integer" }, "account": { "type": "object", "properties": { "org_id": { "type": "string" }, "project": { "type": "object", "properties": { "environment": { "type": "string" }, "name": { "type": "string" }, "id": { "type": "string" } } } } }, "events": { "type": "array", "items": { "type": "object", "properties": { "data": { "type": "object" }, "id": { "type": "string" }, "time_in_ms": { "type": "string" }, "source": { "type": "string" }, "event_config": { "type": "object", "properties": { "api_name": { "type": "string" }, "id": { "type": "string" } } } } } } } } ``` Here is a sample event payload generated based on the schema for your reference. **Sample Event Payload** ```json { "rule_id": "123456789", "target_id": "98765432", "version": 1, "attempt": 1, "account": { "org_id": "87359421", "project": { "environment": "DEVELOPMENT", "name": "Project-Rainfall", "id": "12950000000020015" } }, "events": [ { "data": { }, "id": "b05f449e-7eb0-4e7f-a40f-662820729d20", "time_in_ms": 1721312979144, "source": "publisher_id:12950000000021006/service:zohocrm/account:87394113", "event_config": { "api_name": "Lead Created", "id": "12950000000021007" } } ] } ``` #### Default API Keys in Schema
S.No. API Name Data Type Description
1 `rule_id` long string This is the unique ID of the [rule](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/rules/key-aspects/) upon which the event has been generated.
2 `target_id` long string It refers to the unique ID of the [target](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/targets/key-aspects/) to which the events and their details are delivered.
3 `version` integer The key represents the version of the event schema in Catalyst Signals.
4 `attempt` integer It denotes the current number of attempt for the event to reach the target. Attempts greater than one corresponds to the [retry count](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/targets/key-aspects/#retry-policy) configured in the rule.
5 `account` object This comprises the following catalyst account details:
  • **org_id (string)** - The key refers to the [Catalyst organization](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/getting-started/catalyst-organizations/) ID using which the events are configured.
  • **project (object)** - It contains the name **(string)**, **environment (string)** and **id (string)** of the [Catalyst project](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/getting-started/catalyst-projects/) used to access the Signals service.
6 `events` array This is an array of objects. Each object in the array refers to one of the configured events of the [publisher](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/publishers/key-aspects/). The following are the default keys present in the objects of this array:
  • **data (object)** - The object contains the event details.
  • **id (long string)** - It represents the unique ID of an event for this particular occurrence.
  • **time_in_ms (integer)** - This key denotes the time of event generation in milliseconds.
  • **source (string)** - This contains the publisher ID, service name, and its account ID separated by a slash (/).
  • **event_config (object)** - This comprises of the **id (long string)** and **api_name (string)** of the event.
> **Note:** * The keys within the **data** object differs for each and every event as it represents and describes the event. You can **add/remove keys** within the data object depending on your requirements. * You can also remove the default keys from the schema. [Learn how to customize the event schema](https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/signals/help/targets/event-body-setup/event-transformation/)