Can I create a meeting without inviting the contact?

[steveyoungburns]

Can I create a meeting with a contact without sending them a meeting invite? I want the meeting attached to the contact record so I can see it as an activity, but I don't want to put an invite on their calendar. 

[Mike_Eastwood · Accepted solution]

Hi @steveyoungburns 

You can create a meeting - with your Contact's email as an attendee - in your Gmail calendar and *not* send them an email invitation to the meeting. Gmail Calendar syncs with HubSpot (I assume Outlook does too).

Alternately you could simply log your meeting in the CRM on the Contact. That way it's only ever in HubSpot.

Mike

[DanielCENTURY]

I'm upvoting @steveyoungburns as I find myself in a similar use case. 

We're partnering with a third party call centre whose reps will be booking demos for our own sales guys, with our target prospects. The call centre rep would input the prospect's details while on the phone, for it to appear in their calendar, along with internal call notes for our sales rep to review. Then it dawned on me the prospect will see the internal notes and there's no way around this that I can find. I agree with Steve and @HMst  that there should be a button that says "don't send to attendees." 

[MWojcicki]

You can add yourself as an Attendee and remove your Contact as an Attendee. You'll still get the meeting showing up on HubSpot and Google Calendar but your Contact won't receive the notification or notes.

[steveyoungburns]

Still seems like a workaround. There should be a way to choose if the attendees receive the meeting notes and whether to keep the notes internal or not. If you do what MWojcicki proposes, you do create a meeting but the meeting is not attached to the attendee, which is the purpose of my question.  

[Mike_Eastwood · Accepted solution]

Hi @steveyoungburns 

You can create a meeting - with your Contact's email as an attendee - in your Gmail calendar and *not* send them an email invitation to the meeting. Gmail Calendar syncs with HubSpot (I assume Outlook does too).

Alternately you could simply log your meeting in the CRM on the Contact. That way it's only ever in HubSpot.

Mike

[steveyoungburns]

How do you create the meeting with the contact but not send them an email invitation? I thought I did this by unchecking Attendees, but that sends an invite. 

[steveyoungburns]

Sorry for multiple replies. I played with it again. I unchecked the attendee, but left Associated with record checked. This put the meeting on my calendar but did not include the contact in the meeting, and did not send an invite, but did leave the meeting in the contact's record.

[Alpha]

I think this will work for me. I have all my meeting associated with Deals. So i associate the meetings with them and leave the attendees unchecked. I think this will work!

[ErikGron]

Hi

I´ve played with the different suggestions but either I didn´t understand correctly or they don´t fit with what I need. I understand that you can create any event on your gmail and if you don´t assign any attendees it will fill your agenda. But I prefer working from the CRM insted of gmail. So, if I´m following the contact´s timeline and decide to, for example, visit again this guy who´s my customer, I will decide there to post a new meeting. As all my contacts have a valid email, I cannot avoid sending them a calendar invitation after this. Also, if I have any personal records I write to focus during the meeting, this contact will get them when they open the calendar invitation. Has anyone found a way of solving this without entering the information twice (first on google calendar, then on Hubspot). Hope I´m clear, thanks!

[steveyoungburns]

Bump - still an issue. Hello @hubspot? 

[SlightlyInsane]

My work around was to create a email replace customers with that create a new field and put actual customers email there so every meeting sent invite to dummy email haven’t tried to change it back after that might work too

[HMst]

I have read a lot of work arounds and think there's an easy @hubspot solution.  My issue is similar in that I want to log the results of the meeting (replacing the meetings logistical information from the calendar) with the actual notes, but cannot do this without sending out to attendees (and they are internal notes I don't want public).  I don't understand why there isn't an option to edit the original meeting from the calendar, save and a button that says don't send to attendees .  That would solve most of these issues ive seen on the string.  If I edit the meeting details in advance Im going to do it in Outlook anyway, not hubspot - even if booked through hubspot.  Right now I have to log a second meeting for the notes which messes up my activity reporting.

my two cents.

[ErikGron]

Yeah, I also thought about that, but it seems that if you do change the primary email into a dummy one, you´ll loose some of the functinoalities that really help you saving time. I.E., having all your conversations with that contact on Hubpsot when integrating with Gmail/Outlook. 

There is an idea posted that has been submitted 9 months ago and is on the dev pipeline from what I´ve read on the Ideas Forum.

Anyone from @hubspot who would like to comment on this?

[steveyoungburns]

Agreed that I think you would lose some of the functionality that makes Hubspot work. I'd love to see Hubspot chime in here with an update. @hubstpot 

[jennysowyrda]

Hi all,

Currently the best option within HubSpot will be to follow the recommendations suggested by @Mike_Eastwood.

If you would like to see this functionality expanded upon in the future, I would recommend following the idea where this has been requested.

Thank you,
Jenny

[steveyoungburns]

@jennysowyrda are you saying I should go back to @Mike_Eastwood's original suggestion to log the meeting? That's really just a workaround, not a solution. Has Mike proposed a better solution elsewhere in the forums? If so, will you please post a link to that post or discussion? Thanks. 

[jennysowyrda]

Hi @steveyoungburns,

I would recommend using Mike's suggestion as a workaround and following the idea to implement the specific functionality you are looking for. 

Thank you,

Jenny

[steveyoungburns]

I have no choice but to do what Mike suggested. Are you saying - by not saying that you have a better solution - that Hubspot has no intention of addressing this shortcoming?

[Mike_Eastwood]

Hi Steve

I just ran some more tests and found even if you don't send email invites the calendar event shows in the other persons calendar... and in HubSpot.

Therefore the only way I can see it working is if you use the "Log Meeting", set a date (which can be in the future) and description.

Have fun

Mike

[Bmacuser]

I checked that case. if you remove the attendee you cant save the meeting anymore. i think it was working couple weeks ago. maybe hubspot changed something. The way to setup the event is just a workaround because you need to have the email of the record to add so its synct with that account. Would be great if hubspot allows even without sending emails the event. The benefit just to have it in your own calendar is vital....

[Mike_Eastwood · Accepted solution]

Hi @steveyoungburns 

When I did an acutal test in Gmail it gave me an endless loop when I hit Save...  "Do you want to invite the guests". No. "Do you want to contiue editing". Yes. Save & repeat.

So I would log the meeting in HubSpot.

-Mike