[closed] AMA: Successfully Migrating and Merging Multiple HubSpot Portals | March 18 - 22

[johnelmer]

 

If you are considering moving HubSpot data and digital assets from one existing HubSpot account to another, this AMA is for you!

A surprising number of companies find themselves owning multiple HubSpot accounts. Until HubSpot introduced the Enterprise tier with business units, multiple portals was the status quo. Today, this cumbersome setup can be replaced with a single Hubspot portal.

Hi, I’m John Elmer and this is my AMA on Merging Multiple HubSpot Portals.  I have the privilege of working with both the fantastic HubSpot technical consulting team at Bayard Bradford and the amazing HubSpot app developers at Datawarehouse.io! Together, these talented people are responsible for hundreds of successful migrations between HubSpot portals using the certified HubSpot to HubSpot Portal Migrator app in the HubSpot App Marketplace.

Here are some scenarios in which migrating data from one HubSpot portal to another makes sense:

• A newly acquired business has their own HubSpot account. As the new business is integrated, consolidating their HubSpot portal with your company's existing portal can greatly simplify data management, reduce total costs and improve productivity and reporting.
• Your company is selling a division or business unit. This is the reverse of the previous situation. The acquiring company will probably want all of the CRM data for the division they are buying. 
• Your company started using HubSpot before the Enterprise Suite became available. The Business Units add-on makes integrating multiple HubSpot portals an attractive option. 

Here are some questions you can ask about HubSpot to HubSpot Portal Migrator app from Datawarehous.io: 

1. What HubSpot data is automatically migrated by the app?
2. What data or digital assets can not automatically be migrated from one portal to another using HubSpot APIs?
3. How does the HubSpot to HubSpot Portal Migrator app prevent duplicates from being created in the destination portal?
4. How do you ensure data security during the migration process? 

Looking forward to your questions!

[sharonlicari]

Hey @johnelmer  

Thank you for hosting this AMA, my question is: What data or digital assets can not automatically be migrated from one portal to another using HubSpot APIs?

I'd like to invite this conversation to @BSmith08 @Jonas_De_Mets @Bryantworks @Josh @SOwen @StevenBakker.

Thank you

Sharon

[johnelmer]

@sharonlicari  There is an important distinction between CRM data and digital assets, so let's start by defining the terms: 

CRM data is any type of data that is stored in the HubSpot CRM database in a standard or custom property.  

Digital assets are things like templates, workflows, settings, web pages, etc. 

At present, the following HubSpot CRM data cannot be migrated automatically due to HubSpot API limitations:

• Marketing email campaign data
• Historical web traffic data
• Properties with the same name but a different type in each portal
• Active lists that reference data that is not migrated.
• Deactivated users that still own records

When it comes to migrating digital assets, here is the list of items we consider to be digital assets (your list may differ) that cannot be automatically migrated as of January 2024:

• All settings in the back end of HubSpot 
• Meeting links
• All connected apps 
• Domains
• Email integrations (O365 or Google)
• Target accounts
• Conversations inbox setup 
• Documents (under Sales)
• Landing pages
• Thank you pages
• Emails
• Blog posts
• Lists
• Campaigns
• Email subscriptions
• 301 redirects
• Sequences
• Templates
• Saved views

Note that we have not included HubSpot CMS websites in this list. We are not aware of any service that can automatically migrate a HubSpot website from one portal to another. (If someone knows of a reliable service for this, please let us all know.)

[MSherman]

If a newly acquired business does not have it's own Hubspot account, is there a best practice for importing this data? Is there any advantage to creating a smaller Hubspot instance in order to format this data as desired, then importing? If you were going to use Business Units, would you set those up first, before importing?

[johnelmer]

@MSherman Three questions in one! Ok, here you go:

1. Data import best practices: Here are a few of the key ones we use (I'm sure there are more) First, take a deep dive yourself into the database schema of the target portal. Know how the properties and data are related. Second, to automatically prevent duplicate records from being created on import, make sure each contact has an email address and/or company domain. Third, you can create associations between properties in HubSpot upon importing, so if contacts need to be related to companies, be sure to include that in your files. There are example templates available on the HubSpot academy and instructions on how to import here:  https://knowledge.hubspot.com/import-and-export/set-up-your-import-file

2.  Using a "test" account: Doing an import into a test account could be helpful to ensure you are doing it properly, whether that is in a "smaller" HubSpot instance, a sandbox (enterprise portals only), or in production with just a few records (5-10).

3. Setting up business units: If using Business Units, it would be a good idea to set them up beforehand. You can import contacts and associate them to the desired business unit after the business unit has been set up. To do this, include a column in your spreadsheet labeled "Business Unit" with the value in the row that matches the desired value in HubSpot.

[dsecareanu]

Hi @johnelmer,

Is there a way to just move some parts of a demo portal into a new or existing customer portal, taking into account not overwriting what's already there? The use case would be to migrate some custom properties, lists, workflows, and other similar assets, but choosing which ones of them to migrate (copy), depending on what already exists in the destination portal.

Thanks!

[johnelmer]

@dsecareanu  Thanks for kicking off the Q&A! Let's break down your question:

Custom Properties: You can use the Pro version of the HubSpot to HubSpot Portal Migrator app to migrate selected custom properties by utilizing the option to migrate selected Property Groups. This would allow you to bucket together the properties that you wanted to migrate.

Lists: The Migrator app does not allow you to get granular in selecting lists. Lists are bulk migrated, but you can delete unwanted lists post-migration.

Workflows: Stay tuned! Workflow migration is coming soon in the HubSpot to HubSpot Migrator.  Other apps are available (ie Supered) for this task.

The Migrator app can't read what exists in the destination portal, so filtering based on the destination portal isn't currently possible. But the app user can filter what is migrated as long they understand what exists in the destination portal.