Workflow challenge to set association label Company to Company

[PSterkenburg]

Hi all!

Workflow question 🤔

Problem:
We have a lot of customers that churn and then come back later, and due to challenges with our backend, this will create a new Company record when it happens. Meaning that we easily can have 5 records with the same domain, but of which 4 are actually churned 'customers' (or 4x the same customer).

Solution so far:
I have built all kinds of intricate deduplication, but it's not even stemming the tide and is messing up data more than it does good, again mostly due to the noise that backend system creates (it will get deprecated eventually)

So, new thinking needed:
I want to automatically set an association label 'Former Customer', Company to Company, when a new Company record is created on that same domain/customer.
At least so to make sure that one can always go back to the old records to check out what has happened.

However, I can't seem to build a logic in the workflow settings of Associate Label to catch this. I want to apply it when domain is the same, but our internal unique ID is different. 

How to go about this? I just can't seem to figure it out.

[harshadmpatel]

Hi @PSterkenburg,

I encountered a similar issue with one of our clients, but we were able to resolve it with the new update released by HubSpot.

Have you opted in and tried the "Manage CRM record associations with workflows" update in your account?

In this update, you can now do things that may help you!

1. Compare a domain name to identify duplicate records.
2. Associate them with the first company record (Former customer).
3. Append a new association label to the newly associated record.

So, most likely, I think it's workable for you! Check it out, and let me know if you need any further help on this!

[harshadmpatel]

Hi @PSterkenburg,

I encountered a similar issue with one of our clients, but we were able to resolve it with the new update released by HubSpot.

Have you opted in and tried the "Manage CRM record associations with workflows" update in your account?

In this update, you can now do things that may help you!

1. Compare a domain name to identify duplicate records.
2. Associate them with the first company record (Former customer).
3. Append a new association label to the newly associated record.

So, most likely, I think it's workable for you! Check it out, and let me know if you need any further help on this!

[kennedyp]

From the beta information in Product updates, the field comparison functionality only exists for single-line text, multi-line text, or phone number properties. So you likely would need to somehow store the object ID in a single line text field on the records. I think this could only be done via import. 

 

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @PSterkenburg,

It looks like you're already working on solving the duplicate issue at the source. I agree that that should be the priority.

---

@PSterkenburg wrote:

However, I can't seem to build a logic in the workflow settings of Associate Label to catch this. I want to apply it when domain is the same, but our internal unique ID is different.

---

Association workflow actions are currently not that sophisticated, unfortunately.

Could you elaborate why simply deduplicating the records based on the company domain is not an option?

Best regards

[PSterkenburg]

Hi @kennedyp and @karstenkoehler 

I would love to solve the duplicate problem at the source, but as our backend system functions right now, everytime a dedupe is run, it will just recreate the Company record, with some core information like our own unique backend Company ID and other basic Company information. There is nothing I can do about that right now.

So, for now this brings all the usual problems of duplicates, which is why I am looking at other ways to clearly identify it inside Hubspot, to help filter better.
Instead of removing them, just identify them all better, so we can keep our reps Views/Lists/Pipelines and everything clean. 

My idea is to start with:
1. rename the old, churned Companies (simply add 'Former Customer' in front of the name
2. Set an association label 'Former Customer'

On 2:
the biggest challenge here is that I need to compare values:

IF
(old Company domain
equals
(new Company domain)

AND
(Company ID old does NOT equal Company ID new)

AND
IF (old Company has churn identifiers AND new Company does NOT have churn identifiers) AND (no association labels Parent/Child exist))

THEN
set association label from old company to new company

Hope this explains a bit more 🙂 thanks in advance for any ideas here!

[Jonas_De_Mets · Accepted solution]

@PSterkenburg I believe Koalify can assist you in comparing values between duplicate pairs and detect how they could be associated using the Koalify primary duplicate ID (matching property).

Hope this helps! Let me know if you need some help testing it out!

[kennedyp]

Hey @PSterkenburg! This is a tricky one! 

Can you provide some context to how these companies are created? Typically the Company domain name is what deduplicates records, so the more we understand the creation process, the better we can suggest some workarounds here. It would also be helpful to better explain why the new companies are created in the first place as opposed to updating the current one. 

Best, 
Kennedy