Hubspot CRM workflows - Integration Tests and CI/CD

[stheo]

Our team has recently created several Hubspot CRM workflows based on tickets and deals ( already deployed in production ), using a combination of custom code and actions. Because these workflows are critical to our business operations, it's essential that we thoroughly test them before deploying new changes to production. We're also looking for ways to make it easier for developers to make changes and automatically run integration tests.

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find much information about using CI/CD to automate the process of creating updating and deploying workflows, including both code and actions, to Hubspot sandboxes and production environments using (for example) YAML files.

Our goal is to establish a secure and reliable workflow change process. Currently, we're thinking about having developers make changes in a Hubspot sandbox, manually running integration tests ( by using hubspot client  and simulate the different steps through API)  using GitHub Actions, and then copying the changes to production if the tests pass.

Ideally, we'd like to use a version control system to manage workflow changes, with automated testing and deployment to sandboxes and production environments.

We would appreciate any guidance or advice on how to achieve this, as well as any insights from teams who have dealt with similar challenges in the past.

[danmoyle]

@stheo I'm sharing this with the developer team and other smart people where I work. Hopefully I'll have something to share. 

At first glance, doing this is in a developer sandbox and rebuildng what works in a main portal makes the most sense to my logical brain. But I'll check if there's a different thought or additional insight to consider.

PS - My first thought was "you want to automate building automation? seems very meta lol." 

[ArdenM]

Hey @danmoyle,

Similar to @stheo's concerns above, my team and I would much prefer to be able to work in the sandbox and then deploy changes (ideally through a change management system like Git) into production without having to manually rebuild any changes back in production; which is prone to errors and potentially highly intensive.

This is a standard feature on at least Microsoft Dynamics, ZohoCRM, and Salesforce, so it's far from an unusual request to be made of a CRM product. Less "automating building automation" and more about being able to actually move metadata back from the sandbox into production directly.

I apologize if this comes across as aggressive, I know that you personally aren't responsible for this feature not being available in HubSpot, but I really wanted to stress that it's far from strange for stheo to be asking for this, and many other folks are after this as well as teams work towards maturing their CRM administration.

[danmoyle · Accepted solution]

Hi @ArdenM - you don't come across as aggressive. It's always good to learn other perspectives. I've been using HubSpot since 2010 - a long time. And while I do use other systems from time to time, HubSpot has been my home and it does pretty much everything I need it to do. Not perfect, but really good. 

But it's also not for everyone, or every company. Nothing wrong with that. 

My thought is this though: There's a difference between having automation created automatically, and using a sandbox as you've descrivbed. In fact, HubSpot does have sandbox capability. And from what I know, you can build workflows there. However, I'm not sure how easy it is to move from sandbox to a production space. 

Good to chat through it! 

[stheo]

Hello! Is there any update? 

[danmoyle]

@stheo no unfortunately. Anyone I work with and speak to creates HubSpot workflows manually. Sorry I didn't have a better answer for you. Thanks for prompting me to come back though. 

[stheo]

@danmoyle no worries. Thanks for letting me know! 

Just one more question based on my first post . Is there any possibility to find any kind of best practises regarding writting integration tests for our CRM Hubspot workflows? I mean if there is any approach that you could share ( regarding Hubspot ) . We are considering of testing workflows through hubspot client api and Jest . In case there is any example project it would be helpful.

[danmoyle]

@stheo I'd definitely use a sandbox if you're concerned about testing in a live environment. Add a bunch of test emails like your own employees. 

I'd also check out this HubSpot blog article: Workflow Testing Methods: Feel Confident Turning on Your Workflows. I think it has some good tips to consider. 

[stheo]

@danmoyle We already use sandbox for testing and I thoroughly checked the article. It is helpful but I was looking more on how to simulate the test cases (avoid to test manually) and ensure that future changes will maintain the whole business logic. Because when you have multiple workflows for a process it is important to make sure that any change you implement in one of them does not affect the others and the final result. So by having automated tests you know that everything works as it should after your changes (you didn't break anything). And based on that I wanted to check whether other teams implement any kind of integration tests approach for hubspot and whether there are best practices ( For example create tickets with hubspot api , changing status and then (after workflows triggered ) assert the outcomes with a testing framework like Jest ). Anyway, thanks so much for your answers. We appreciate it! 🙂

[stheo]

@danmoyle these are great news. we are looking forward to your suggestions !

PS - very meta indeed 😛