Avoid Activity Updates Triggering Zapier

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Hi!

We currently use Zapier to integrate HubSpot with a number of other systems, most notably Moodle, Mailchimp, WooCommerce, and Stripe. We have a specific list of around 10 properties per contact that need to be kept in sync across several systems. We are able to do this with Zapier.

Unfortunately, the Zapier trigger we use “Contact Recently Created or Updated in HubSpot” triggers not only when properties change, but also when a contact has an activity added (e.g. was sent MailChimp email). The result can be 10,000s of zaps a day when really we only need a few hundred at most. We cannot use “New Contact Property Change in HubSpot” as that only monitors a single property and we need to monitor several.

Is there any way to add a filter to Zapier to filter out all updates that are due to an activity and not due to a property change?

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Hey @marekzp

Welcome to the Community!

I’ll invite a few experts to this conversation that might have some ideas to share with you.

Hey @danmoyle @lynton @Josh what would you recommend in this case?

Thanks

Sharon

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Thank you, @sharonlicari ! I am looking forward to their replies. I might add that I tried to do something a bit hacky. I created a new field (“core_properties_updated”) and update that property as a hidden field in forms that update those core properties. However, I cannot even get the “New Contact Property Change in HubSpot” Zapier trigger to trigger and I have tried with different fields. :disappointed_face:

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I am having exactly the same issue and it is killing my zap count. 389 today alone… There MUST be a way to deal with this!

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Hi @KrisDoane,

Thanks for reaching out, and I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’re running into with the zaps.

I wanted to invite our subject matter experts to this conversation to see if they have seen this kind of behavior before.

Hi @Olivia_Bagnall, @StjepanGrcic, @MandyDROS, @HubDoPete - Do you have any recommendations for @KrisDoane? Thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

I would also recommend contacting Zapier Support or the Zapier Community for assistance with this as Zapier is the creator of the platform, and will have more insight on why these zaps are created.

Thank you,

Kristen

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Hello @marekzp !

Nice to meet you!

I love solving Zap issues.

Here are a couple of solutions - let me know if I missed something and you need more help by either commenting in the community or on the Loom video!

@kvlschaefer , feel free to share this further in the community if this is a common questions!

@marekzp , if this solves the issue for you please mark this as a solution as that helps others find us and help them to solve their problems!

@KrisDoane , I hope that this helps you, too!

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Awesome! Thanks for your help with this one, @MandyDROS!

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Hi @KrisDoane and @kvlschaefer

Kris I understand your pain, as Zapier Zap triggers have limited control compared with the many conditions you can fine-tune in a HubSpot Workflow trigger.

If, like in the original question, you are monitoring a set number of core HubSpot Object properties, I recommend combining the power of HubSpot Workflows Triggers with the power of Zapier 3rd party sync.

  1. Create a HubSpot contact property:
    1. called “Core Properties Zapier Sync”.
    2. You could leave it as free text but I recommend making it a drop-down with potential values of “Required” and “Done”.
    3. Don’t display it on forms.
  2. Create a HubSpot contact workflow:
    1. Set the trigger to detect if ANY of the core contact properties are updated
    2. Use a workflow step to set the property “Core Properties Zapier Sync” = “Required”
  3. Create a Zapier Zap:
    1. based on the HubSpot trigger “New Contact Property Change”
    2. be sure to read ALL the core contact properties that you want to sync to other apps
    3. make the first action a filter, that only continues if “Core Properties Zapier Sync” = “Required”
    4. Sync the core HubSpot properties to all your 3rd party apps that you need to.
    5. and finally, update the HubSpot Contact Record to set “Core Properties Zapier Sync” = “Done”

This technique works well generally - when you want HubSpot to detect finely tuned conditions - then set a big red flag for other apps to react to.

Let me know how you go!

cheers

Pete

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Thanks so much Pete! This seems perfect. I have it on my todo list to play with very soon, I will let you know.