# Unknown user appearing on reports **URL:** \ **Category:** Reporting & Analytics\ **Tags:** professional\ **Created:** [April 18, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/unknown-user-appearing-on-reports/130160 "2025-04-18T14:33:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bakertc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Bakertc](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Bakertc)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/unknown-user-appearing-on-reports/130160/1 "2025-04-18T14:33:52Z")
TLDR: Don’t use Hubspot Teams, enumerate your users in filters on reports to avoid getting ‘Unknown User’. We are growing our BDR team so I have been trying to manage users under two buckets: AE Team and BDR team. However the implementation of “Teams” in HS is not working out quite the way I expected since you can’t select a team as an option on user-oriented fields like ‘created by’, etc., but I digress. The reason for this post is I figured out another short-coming of HS Teams. When I try to filter using Hubspot Team = BDR Team on reports like Activity Totals, I get this ‘unknown user’ column added. ![Bakertc_0-1744986637397.png](https://d2qpr2jzcazej7.cloudfront.net/original/3X/0/e/0ef79a35bff599f9c16c009cb5f8975356158d1e.png) When I drill down into it, I only find existing BDR team members, no unknown users. When I reported this, the AI generated the following: “Unknown User” typically appears on HubSpot reports whenever the system can’t match a record to a known HubSpot user. Several scenarios can cause this: ### 1. User Removal or Deactivation - If a HubSpot user was previously associated with data in the report but was later removed or deactivated from your account, HubSpot may show “Unknown User” instead of the original user’s name. ### 2. Missing or Incomplete Data - Contacts or activities might be logged without a valid user association. For example, an offline import or a record created through an integration missing owner data can appear as “Unknown.” ### 3. Permissions or Visibility Issues - Occasionally, if a user doesn’t have permission to see the user’s name (e.g., the user was assigned a role that’s restricted), the name field could display as “Unknown.” This is less common but worth verifying. ### 4. Connecting the Correct Owner or User - In the **Contact records** , check the **HubSpot Owner** property for blank or unassigned owners. Update as needed, then revisit the report to confirm the correct names appear. - If it’s an **activity or engagement** log, be sure the activity is associated with the correct user. ### 5. Re-save or Refresh the Report - Open the report at [Reports](https://app.hubspot.com/reports-list/2254131/1518229/) and click any “Edit” or “Actions” option. Adjust filters if needed, then click **Save**. This ensures the latest data is displayed. If these steps don’t resolve the “Unknown User” label, let me know. I’m happy to guide you further! _This message is AI-generated and may contain mistakes. Please let us know if you have any feedback or questions. [If you discover any errors in this message, report this content](https://share.hsforms.com/10yRI6mh4QfSN0NcBrsCPWA1h?feedback_ticket_id_53=22369855919)_. Did that help? No! I discovered that replacing the filter for Hubspot Team with Created by: and enumerating the users eliminated the Unknown User column. This basically defeats the purpose of Hubspot Teams and means I now have manually adjust every report on every dashboard that tries to group users by function whenever we hire or fire someone. ---
**Author:** ![Josh](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/josh/32/17115_2.png) [@Josh](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Josh)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 3:00pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/unknown-user-appearing-on-reports/130160/2 "2025-04-18T15:00:43Z")
Hi @Bakertc, Generally, I agree that there are flaws in how HS teams interact with reports. What type of report is this, and how was it created? I see that the left column is activity type, but the right column appears to by count of activities, yet the heading is user-specific. If you can direct me to the type of report and what tool you used to create it, I’d like to dig into this a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Bakertc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Bakertc](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Bakertc)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2025, 3:06pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/unknown-user-appearing-on-reports/130160/3 "2025-04-18T15:06:23Z")
The report was initially created as a canned activity report on KPI’s (HS template). When we started expanding our BDR team, I converted the visualization to a table: [cid:image001.png@01DBB051.D6581D20] ---
**Author:** ![Bakertc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Bakertc](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Bakertc)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/unknown-user-appearing-on-reports/130160/4 "2025-04-21T16:07:34Z")
Hi Josh, I’m happy to hop on a quick teams/zoom call if helpful. Cheers, TC ---
**Author:** ![Josh](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/josh/32/17115_2.png) [@Josh](https://community.hubspot.com/u/Josh)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 5:39pm UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/unknown-user-appearing-on-reports/130160/5 "2025-04-21T17:39:32Z")
Hi @Bakertc, Sure! Here’s my meeting link: [https://www.protocol80.com/meetings/joshc/hubspotcommunity](https://www.protocol80.com/meetings/joshc/hubspotcommunity) Josh