topic Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot in Tips, Tricks & Best Practices

Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

NJ_001 — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 20:42:44 GMT

Hello everyone,

I've set up a sales pipeline in HubSpot with the following deal stages: Form Submitted, Appointment Scheduled, Qualified to Buy, Closed & Won, Closed & Lost. My objective is to automate the movement of deals through these stages based on specific actions.

Currently, when a lead fills out a form, the deal appears in the "Form Submitted" stage and triggers a workflow that sends them a meeting schedule link. However, I'm encountering a challenge in automating the progression of the deal to the next stage, "Appointment Scheduled," after a meeting is scheduled through the form.

I've noticed that in the if/then branch of the workflow, I don't have the option to select form submission as a condition for moving the deal to the next stage. This option seems available only if I set the form submission as a trigger for a new workflow, but this doesn't help in advancing the deal through the stages of the existing pipeline.

I'm seeking advice on how to configure this process efficiently.

Ideally, once a meeting is scheduled via the form, the deal should automatically move to the "Appointment Scheduled" stage. Does anyone have experience setting up a similar workflow or can offer insights into how to resolve this issue?

Any suggestions or guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

Jonas_De_Mets — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 21:08:44 GMT

Hi

Not sure what you mean with the following as it's possible to update the stage of an associated deal?

"but this doesn't help in advancing the deal through the stages of the existing pipeline.

I'm seeking advice on how to configure this process efficiently."

You should be able to update a deal stage this with a contact-based workflow. The enrollment trigger would be a form submission "meetings" link and then you would set the deal stage/pipeline for all the deals associated with the contact. You would probably combine it with a branch / filter to only update associated deals that are in the "Form Submitted" stage.

Hope this helps!

Best regards,
Jonas De Mets
HubSpot Revenue Operations & Co-Founder @ Koalify

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Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

karstenkoehler — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 05:31:40 GMT

Hi @NJ_001,

What you're describing has to do with the workflow type. The workflow that creates your deal based on the form submission is contact-based. The workflow that you're trying to design to move your deal along is apparently deal-based. Contact-based workflows can reference form submissions, deal-based workflows can't.

You can update a deal stage from a contact-based workflow also. In a contact-based workflow, use the 'Set property value' action, then set it up as shown and adapt based on your deal stage:

Keep in mind that this will update all associated deals. This is typically not what people want. If there are older deals or if there is a chance that contacts come back to submit the form, then this automation would always move all deals either forward or back to the specified stage.

@Jonas_De_Mets, your suggestion to use an if/then branch won't work unfortunately, as this branch will simply check whether there is at least one deal in that stage. The workflow will then still proceed to update all deals, if true.

@NJ_001 the only workaround I'm aware of would be as follows:

From your contact-based workflow, update a deal property. For example, enroll contacts in your workflow when they book a meeting, then set a deal property (see screenshot above) of all deals to "Meeting booked", a single checkbox property.
In a deal-based workflow, specify enrollment criteria to only match the deals you want to update, e.g. by deal stage, and also check whether "Meeting booked" is any of Yes.
Proceed with the rest of the workflow.
At the end, use the "Clear property value" action to empty "Meeting booked", in case it's needed again for contact (step 1).

This is the fastest way to work around the limitation that HubSpot updates all associated objects. If contacts never come back to submit the form and this is 100% ruled out, you can skip the above - but from a decade of using HubSpot, I've learned to set up things in a way that they don't assume something won't happen.

Best regards

Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

NJ_001 — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 12:24:44 GMT

Hi @karstenkoehler

Thank you for the quick response. This was exactly what I was looking for.

So I made a contact based workflow that triggers when the meeting form is submitted and also set the enrollment criteria to meeting outcome scheduled. My only question is, does HubSpot automatically update the meeting outcome property once the meeting is booked? Or should my sales team do this manually?

Best regards,

Nathanaël

Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

karstenkoehler — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 12:27:36 GMT

@NJ_001 typically this has to be updated manually, unfortunately.

Glad I could be of help! 🙂

Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

NJ_001 — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 12:32:57 GMT

Is there a possibility for a workaround or automatic update on meeting outcome?

If not, thanks again for the help!

Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

Jonas_De_Mets — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 19:49:28 GMT

Hi @karstenkoehler,

Thanks for your correction!
I like the creative solution with the extra deal property.

Best regards,
Jonas

Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

benedison — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 21:14:11 GMT

Hey @NJ_001. I built a contact-based workflow that only had enrollment if criteria were met and just a simple internal notification to contact owner when form is submitted (because you have to have a second step after the condition). Then, I built a deal-based workflow that had the criteria of enrollment in the contact-based workflow. If true, then I moved that deal to the next pipeline stage. This might have been covered, but I didn't feel like this solution was presented.

Re: Automating Deal Progression in HubSpot

chighsmith — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:23:42 GMT

Hi @NJ_001

Thank you for posting to the Community! This is a great question.

Here are some approaches that I would recommend trying:

1. Use a contact-based workflow triggered by the meeting booked date property being known (or a specific form submission). Then add a "Update associated deal" action to set the deal stage to "Appointment Scheduled." This keeps your existing deal-based workflow intact while handling the stage update separately.

2. Alternatively, in your existing deal workflow, add an enrollment trigger or re-enrollment condition based on the associated contact's meeting booked date becoming known - then use an if/then branch to update the deal stage accordingly.

The key thing to check is that your contacts always have an associated deal, otherwise the update action won't have a record to write to.

On a related note, once those appointments are happening, keeping deal stages accurate through the rest of the sales cycle can get tricky, especially when next steps or timelines shift during calls. That's where HubSpot's Smart Deal Progression can help. It analyzes meeting transcripts and deal context to suggest CRM updates (such as deal stage, close date, and next steps) for reps to review and confirm after each conversation, keeping deals accurate without extra manual data entry. It's available on Sales and Service Hub Pro.

Hope that unblocks your workflow setup! Let us know if you have any questions 🙂

Cassie, Community Manager