Can i export HS data and clean up and reimport without losing my original notes

Smart CRM & Sales Hub CRM
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Some of our data in HubSpot Companies or Contacts is not correct. Cities, Regions etc are in the wrong place. Lifecycle stage etc are incorrect. We now have a Sales Team that will ensure they use the system correctly which will enable us to potentially take on the Marketing platform.

I have extracted all the data into an XLS file, which can be saved as a CSV file and are working on correcting it all. HERE IS THE MAIN QUESTION, can i reimport this data? Will it delete all the notes on the existing data or just combine it as long as i retain the headers etc from the extract.

I hope this is clear but am rather desperate to get an answer please?

Kind regards,

Angela

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Hi, @AngTay. Any column headers in your import will update existing data, only for the properties in your .csv. If it’s not on the .csv, nothing happens to that existing value when you update via import.

If you’re asking, “If I pass a new Notes value in my import, will it append the existing value, or overwrite what’s there?”, it’ll overwrite what’s there. To keep old values intact, keep the old value from your export, add new notes to it, then make sure the entire (old + updated) value is part of your import.

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Q: Can i export HS data and clean up and reimport without losing my original notes?

Short A: It depends on a number of important factors and native HubSpot limitations.

Longer A:

Import Factors

- As @bradmin pointed out, the values of imported properties are REPLACED unless specifically instructed otherwise in the import file itself (e.g., to append multi-checkbox values to an already populated property you must prefix each value with a semi-colon ‘;’ -- this is only one example).

- HubSpot will not allow import into any of the following special HubSpot-managed properties.

  • Contact ID
  • Associated Deals
  • No. of Sales Activities

These are just a few of the many fields HubSpot uses to ‘manage’ data in the CRM. While they are revealed during export you cannot re-import these fields back into their original locations in the CRM. (by design)

Note: This is NOT an exhaustive list.

Native HubSpot Limitations (

very important

)

- The HubSpot notes section of the Contact Timeline is NOT a Contact Property, nor is it eligible for import. This means that notes in that section will NOT be exported.

- HubSpot CRM, in its virgin form, has no default Contact Property, Company Property, or Deal Property entitled ‘Note’.

- The Contact Property and separate Deal Property entitled, ‘Note’ which is created by the Shopify Integration is not directly editable via the HubSpot interface.

- If you create a custom property and name it ‘Note’ it will have no association with the notes you view in the Notes section of the Contact Timeline, Companies Timeline, or Deal Timeline.

Point?

You may want to carefully test your imports using very small sample sizes BEFORE attempting to apply your strategy to your production CRM.

While sales teams have been known to love us when we’re careful with the data, they’ve been known to occasionally become violent when we’re not. haha (kidding. ok, maybe not.)

Does that help solve your question?

Best,
Frank


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To fix the data on Companies/Contacts you can export the data into a CSV, fix it and reimport back using Hubspot native tool. Due to its limitations in not allowing export or import of the notes and other engagements, there is no risk you will delete those while importing back.

Here is an overview on importing contacts & companies into Hubspot: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/contacts/import-contacts-companies-deals-tickets-products