writing hubspot data via workflow to excel

[karien]

is it at all possible to create text, excel docs, via a workflow extracting hubspot data relevant to the record?

[coldrickjack · Accepted solution]

Hi @Karian,

Admittedly I am not overly familiar with the APIs available for Microsoft excel, they do offer a Javascript API but technically speaking yes this should be possible. There are three options that you could consider:

1) Custom Coded Workflow Action (Operations Hub Professional): Custom coded workflow actions are a feature exclusive to Operations Hub Professional. They allow you to write your own bespoke code directly in the workflow itself. This can be done using Javascript or Python (currently in beta). Below are some links which may be beneficial to you and help you understand how this feature works:

• Custom Coded Workflow Action Masterclass Series
• 3 Ways to use custom coded workflow actions

The advantage of using a custom coded workflow action is that you don't need to worry about hosting the actual logic. It lives on HubSpot so to speak. AWS Lambda to be precise. In addition to this it can pass data back to the workflow so that you can copy it to properties and reference further on in whatever process you are building. Worth noting that there are certain limitations that may impact you if you go down this route:

• Actions can only use 128MB of memory otherwise they will fail.
• Actions can only run for no more than 20 seconds otherwise they will fail.
• There is only a predefined number of supported libraries that can be used.
• oAuth 2.0 is not a supported means of authentication.

2) Custom Workflow Action (Any Professional plan): Custom Workflow Actions (not to be confused with Custom Coded Workflow Actions) is another option to explore. The best way to think of it is like a webhook that you can easily configure the payload of. The logic lives on your own infrastructure. HubSpot built their own native Google Sheets integration using this API. (To give you an idea of what is possible). 

3) iPaaS - Zapier: Using a third party like Zapier you could write to excel as and when certain events occur in HubSpot. Benefit to this approach is that you don't need to build and maintain your own custom integration. There are cost factors to consider though but Zapier is quite competitively priced. There are other iPaaS systems to look at also like make.com.

I hope this helps give you some idea of how to go about what you are trying to do!

All the best,

Jack

[coldrickjack · Accepted solution]

Hi @Karian,

Admittedly I am not overly familiar with the APIs available for Microsoft excel, they do offer a Javascript API but technically speaking yes this should be possible. There are three options that you could consider:

1) Custom Coded Workflow Action (Operations Hub Professional): Custom coded workflow actions are a feature exclusive to Operations Hub Professional. They allow you to write your own bespoke code directly in the workflow itself. This can be done using Javascript or Python (currently in beta). Below are some links which may be beneficial to you and help you understand how this feature works:

• Custom Coded Workflow Action Masterclass Series
• 3 Ways to use custom coded workflow actions

The advantage of using a custom coded workflow action is that you don't need to worry about hosting the actual logic. It lives on HubSpot so to speak. AWS Lambda to be precise. In addition to this it can pass data back to the workflow so that you can copy it to properties and reference further on in whatever process you are building. Worth noting that there are certain limitations that may impact you if you go down this route:

• Actions can only use 128MB of memory otherwise they will fail.
• Actions can only run for no more than 20 seconds otherwise they will fail.
• There is only a predefined number of supported libraries that can be used.
• oAuth 2.0 is not a supported means of authentication.

2) Custom Workflow Action (Any Professional plan): Custom Workflow Actions (not to be confused with Custom Coded Workflow Actions) is another option to explore. The best way to think of it is like a webhook that you can easily configure the payload of. The logic lives on your own infrastructure. HubSpot built their own native Google Sheets integration using this API. (To give you an idea of what is possible). 

3) iPaaS - Zapier: Using a third party like Zapier you could write to excel as and when certain events occur in HubSpot. Benefit to this approach is that you don't need to build and maintain your own custom integration. There are cost factors to consider though but Zapier is quite competitively priced. There are other iPaaS systems to look at also like make.com.

I hope this helps give you some idea of how to go about what you are trying to do!

All the best,

Jack

[karien]

@coldrickjack thank you so much for the extensive explanation. 

[JBeatty · Accepted solution]

Just to add to this, if you go the route of Custom Code Actions, you could create xlsx files via a library like SheetJS or any of the other similar libraries, then go ahead and upload them directly to the HubSpot file system via the files API

[karien]

@JBeatty thx so much for this practical advice

[coldrickjack]

Good call @JBeatty! 👍