topic Re: To many contacts in the same record in APIs & Integrations

To many contacts in the same record

hiltonrrn — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 13:38:10 GMT

Hi there!

I'm working for a company that is a Hubspot partner. I'm facing a problem with one of our client's APIs.

They report a large number of contacts stacked in the same record. I sought help from Hubspot support, showing some examples of contacts in this situation. They claimed there were some contacts with the same cookie code, which was causing the problem.

After a meeting with the customer's TI, they claimed that they followed the Hubspot documentation (https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/methods/forms/submit_form). I asked them to double-check the API code to search for a possible cache in the request array.

Again, they claimed that there was no problem with that. As I do not have access to the client API code, and I can not even see the "raw" request that is sent to Hubspot, the Hubspot support team has given me the developer forum as a possible solution.

Could any developer help me?

Thanks

Re: To many contacts in the same record

IsaacTakushi — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:25:21 GMT

Hi @hiltonrrn,

Unfortunately, we don't have more visibility than you or HubSpot support. From your description, I too would suspect that the cookie is being cached.

I'm more than happy to take a look at the form submission JSON for some example contacts, but all I'll likely find is the same hutk value passed with each submission.

Re: To many contacts in the same record

hiltonrrn — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 16:44:25 GMT

Hello @Isaac_Takushi,

Thanks for the reply. Below we have a example of the JSON's client request to Hubspot:

{
"lifecyclestage":"lead", 
"email":"asdasd@asddas.com", 
"data_nascimento":"1995-08-25", 
"firstname":"Anderson", 
"lastname":"Sensolo", 
"sexo":"Masculino", 
"phone":"+55 (49) 99992-2620", 
"zip":"89600000", 
"city":"JOAÇABA", 
"state":"SC", 
"address":"DR. SERGIO DALLANORA, nº 267, BRISAS DO VALE", 
"bairro":"FLOR DA SERRA", 
"cpf":"08575987917", 
"rg":"5831827", 
"campus":"Campus de Joaçaba", 
"curso":"Ciências Biológicas - Bacharelado", 
"cod_aluno":"272273", 
"hs_context":{
	"hutk":"5aeb6266be45ee46db2eab4f57898919",
	"ipAddress":"0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1",
	"pageUrl":"https://educare.unoesc.edu.br/inscricao/contato",
	"pageName":"Documento"
}

}

I'm at your disposal to clarify any questions. I'm also have de JAVA code of the client with me. If you are interested, I can send it to you. Just tell me how, ok?

Thanks again.

Cheers,

Re: To many contacts in the same record

IsaacTakushi — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 16:25:01 GMT

Hi @hiltonrrn,

Thank you for that example. I forgot to ask before, but could you share the following?

Your client's Hub ID.
The HubSpot support ticket number.

Re: To many contacts in the same record

hiltonrrn — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 17:02:16 GMT

Hi @Isaac_Takushi,

Thanks for the reply! Heres the information:

portal id: 4160353

Hubspot support ticket number: 2033504

If you need any other informartion, I'm at your diposal.

Cheers,

Re: To many contacts in the same record

IsaacTakushi — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 21:37:06 GMT

Thank you, @hiltonrrn.

The ticket's in Portuguese, so I'm checking with my colleague who helped your customer regarding the key points covered. I'll also investigate a few examples.

As you say, though, it's likely that they're either caching the hutk cookie token value or the cookies are somehow being shared between visitors. See this article for some examples.

Re: To many contacts in the same record

IsaacTakushi — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 17:01:19 GMT

Hey, @hiltonrrn.

I confirmed that the overwriting behavior is caused by the same hutk cookie token values being passed through multiple Forms API submissions. As I touched on, this could be due to any number of factors, including caching in your client's code, visitors using the same computer, or forwarding marketing emails to each other.

Do you know whether your customer is only having this issue with particular forms? If so, we could do some testing on those forms in particular to see whether the caching hypothesis holds any weight.

Re: To many contacts in the same record

hiltonrrn — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 18:25:18 GMT

Hello @Isaac_Takushi,

Again, thanx for the reply.

They have only one form integraded with Hubspot through the API:
https://app.hubspot.com/forms/4160353/editor/140f9c52-1db4-42cc-982a-6fffe3096fad/edit/form

There are other forms, but those forms are originally in Hubspot landing pages.

They are using this form to create and update contacts.

I'll wait for your analisys. Any other information you need, I'm at your disposal.

Cheers,

Re: To many contacts in the same record

IsaacTakushi — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 13:23:30 GMT

Apologies for the delayed response, @hiltonrrn.

Thank you for a link to the form in HubSpot. I should have specified that I also need a link to where I can fill out this form and trigger the submission through the Forms API.

Can you confirm that it's this signup page?

If so, I am attempting to do a test submission, but the form is not accepting anything I put in for "CPF."

Do you know what this field is intended to collect? Is there some test value your client can give me to use?

Re: To many contacts in the same record

hiltonrrn — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 18:57:13 GMT

Hello @Isaac_Takushi,

Thank you for the reply. No problem, here the singup page's url:

https://vestibular.unoesc.edu.br/escolha-seu-curso

The CPF field in Brazil, is almost equivalent to the Social Security Number, in US. Unfortunelly, you can't use random numbers for this field, cause exists a logic to get a unique and valid CPF number.

I have a Chrome plugin that generate valid CPF numbers to test form applications in Brazil. I generated some CPF test numbers for you:

895.975.758-68
911.883.042-08
617.317.727-77
757.564.615-90

They are all valid test numbers and don't belong to no one here in Brazil.

If have any difficulties to full fill this form, just let me know. I believe that the client CRM sends a request at the moment of submit this first form, I'm not shure.

If you need anything else, I'm at your disposal.

Cheers,

Re: To many contacts in the same record

IsaacTakushi — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 21:03:43 GMT

Thank you very much, @hiltonrrn!

I tested the form with the CPFs you provided and successfully created three test contacts:

I cleared my browser's cookies in between each submission and none of my submissions overwrote the same contact record.

This suggests that your client's code may be performing properly and there isn't caching.

That said, contacts like this and this have been overwritten several times because the same hutk cookie token value was passed through the form.

The only other ways this would happen are outlined here.

I suspect either students are sharing the same computer (this is not uncommon for school or university computers) or they are forwarding the HubSpot emails they receive to friends before their friend submits another form.

What does your client think of these possibilities? Our tests haven't yielded any issues with the Forms API, so the cookies must be shared between contacts somehow.

Re: To many contacts in the same record

hiltonrrn — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 17:45:11 GMT

Thank you @Isaac_Takushi,

I'll forward your reply to the client and I'll wait for their feedback.

Anyway, thanks for your time. If there anything else, I'll post here.

Cheers,

Re: To many contacts in the same record

IsaacTakushi — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 17:46:13 GMT

Happy to help, @hiltonrrn!