Duplicates Management in Company & Contact Creation from BO + Identify already created ones

[LoicMiret]

Hello,

I am quite new to Tech so please apologies if it seems obvious to you. Would be gretaful if some of you could give me some clue:

Context:

We are a company working on an app (BO / Back-office).

We are creating a Hubspot to manage the commercial part.

1. Companies and contacts are created in our BO in first place (and wil continue to be)

2. We seek to create them in API in Hubspot

3. Sales will also create Companies and Contacts on Hubspot

Problem:

1. How to manage duplicates (Contacts and Companies) when BO sends the request to create them and there already exist ?

2. How to track the number of Contacts and Companies creation requests from BO in API but that already exist in Hubspot (e.g: creation request tof a Company from BO but already exists in Hubspot: how do we identify that?) ?

ps: I work with a developer who understands code (but doesn't knos Hubspot yet) so we will be able to uderstand the answers if there may be.

Thank you very much !!

[Mike_Eastwood]

Hi @LoicMiret 

I would export the HubSpot IDs of both Contacts and Companies and save them in your Back-Office System (your developer will know what I mean).

Your developer can then use the HubSpot API to update Contacts and Companies using their HubSpot IDs.

HubSpot will de-duplicate a Contact based on email address. If a Contact does not exist (the API checks by email) the API will create a new Contact.

HubSpot will de-duplicate a Company based on domain name.  If a Company does not exists (the API checks by domain) the API will create a new Company.

Which is why I recommend using the IDs to update HubSpot using the API especially for the Companies.

And, I would also put your Back Office ID into HubSpot in a Custom property (as a sanity check).

Feel free to ask questions, or your developer can ask here too.

Have fun

Mike

[LoicMiret]

Hi Mike,

Thank you very much!! I get it better on deduplication.

On updating Contacts and Companies using their Hubspot ID: for Company/Contact creation in Hubspot (from the BO) is it the same process as we don't have data yet (therefore no IDs?)?

As for tracking number of "cancelled creations" of a Contact/Company (since the record would already exist in Hubspot and the API request from the BO would therefore be cancelled), does it have to do with Webhook ?

ps: I will invite him to this forum.

Thanks again!!

[Mike_Eastwood · Accepted solution]

Hi @LoicMiret 

When you push a Contact into HubSpot using the API method "Create or Update Contact" you get a response which includes the Contact's unique ID known as a "vid" (which you can save into your system) and a value "isNew" which can be true or false.

If you don't have Domain Names stored for your Companies then it's worth fishing for the Company before you add it via the API (in other words there is no "create or update" method for Companies).

My guess any use of webhooks would be in your system when a Contact is created, not HubSpot. Again guessing your webhook will call the HubSpot API.

...hard to know without specific details.

Cheers

Mike

[LoicMiret]

Thanks a lot Mike !!