How to list groups in Zoho Desk Help Center

Listing groups in the Zoho Desk Help Center is straightforward once you have your Help Center ID and the correct OAuth scopes in place. This guide walks through the available API operations and how they relate to each other.

Why this matters

Help Center groups let you organise end-users into logical segments — for example, by company tier, product line, or support entitlement. Knowing how to retrieve those groups programmatically lets you build dashboards, automate user provisioning, or audit membership without clicking through the Zoho Desk UI. As independent expert support for Zoho (not official Zoho support), Beam Help documents these patterns so your team can move faster.

Step-by-step

Step 1. Confirm your OAuth scopes.

Before making any Help Center API call, verify that your connected OAuth client includes Desk.basic.READ at a minimum. Without the correct read permissions the API will return an authorisation error. A well-configured scope set also includes Desk.settings.READ for broader Help Center access. ^[3]

Step 2. Locate your helpcenter_id.

Every Help Center endpoint requires a helpcenter_id path parameter. You can find this value in the Zoho Desk admin panel under Help Center → Settings, or by calling the organisations endpoint to inspect the portal metadata. Store it somewhere accessible — you will need it for every call below. ^[7]

Step 3. List all groups in the Help Center.

Send a GET request to the following endpoint, substituting your actual Help Center identifier:

GET /api/v1/helpcenter/{helpcenter_id}/groups

The operation is named list_groups and accepts an optional p parameter (used for pagination). The response returns the full collection of groups configured under that Help Center. ^[7]

Example Python call:

groups = desk_client.list_groups(helpcenter_id="your_hc_id")

Step 4. (Optional) Drill into a specific group's membership.

Once you have a group_id from the previous response, you can retrieve every user belonging to that group:

GET /api/v1/helpcenter/{helpcenter_id}/groups/{group_id}/users

This operation is named listusersinagroup and also accepts a p pagination parameter. Use this when you need to audit who belongs to a particular segment or synchronise membership with an external directory. ^[8]

Step 5. (Optional) Look up groups for a specific user.

If you already know a user_id and want to see which groups that individual belongs to, use the reverse lookup endpoint:

GET /api/v1/helpcenter/{helpcenter_id}/users/{user_id}/groups

The operation is listusergroups and again supports the p parameter for paginated results. This is particularly useful when validating access rights for a single end-user. ^[6]

Step 6. Handle pagination.

All three endpoints accept the p parameter. Increment p (starting from 1) until the response returns an empty list or a count below your page size, indicating you have retrieved all records. [^6, ^7, ^8]

Common pitfalls

• Missing helpcenter_id: This is a required path parameter on every call. Passing an incorrect or stale ID will result in a 404. Double-check it against your Zoho Desk portal settings. ^[7]
• Insufficient scopes: If your OAuth token was generated without Desk.basic.READ, group endpoints will be inaccessible. Re-authorise the connection with the full scope list to resolve this. ^[3]
• Confusing portal ID with Help Center ID: The deskportal slug used to build browser-facing URLs (e.g. https://desk.zoho.com/agent/{portal}/...) is not the same numeric helpcenterid required by the API. Keep both values on hand. ^[4]

What to check

• Confirm the helpcenter_id you are using matches an active Help Center in your Zoho Desk organisation, not a deleted or draft portal. ^[7]
• Verify the OAuth token in use includes Desk.basic.READ (and optionally Desk.settings.READ) before making group-related requests. ^[3]
• After retrieving groups, cross-reference at least one groupid against listusersina_group to confirm the membership data is populated and not empty. ^[8]