How to allow contacts to update their own details?

[Colas]

Is there any way to send my contacts a form where they can update their mailing address?  (Or even better, be able to view their existing mailing address and be able to edit it to their liking?)

Thanks ! 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Colas,

It is. If you want this to be consistent with the look and feel of the rest of your page however, you'd embed the form on a landing page.

Best regards!

[brown2020]

How do you prevent someone who receives a form from entering someone else's email address, which then updates the wrong contact record in HubSpot?

Having tried this a few times and in a few different ways, it seems like this is a pretty big gap in HubSpot security and the authenticity of our data in HubSpot.

For now, we are stopping using forms at all until we can better understand the best practices for ensuring the that the person filling out the form is who they say they are. 

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @Colas,

In that case the form will not pre-populate – but the contacts can of course still put their information into the form and if they're using the same email address, their contact record will be updated accordingly.

Best regards!

[SWilsonA4u]

Hi @karstenkoehler and @Colas 

Reading this thread with interest as I am working on this at the moment. I have 1 question for your consideration and 1 suggestion on the post above.

Question

I'm considering building a landing page that contains contact field personalisation and embeds a form to the side that shows the corresponding fields. This was I was hoping would present the current field value and then I’d direct the contact to update what needed updating on the form if needed. I guess though thinking this through this will only work if the client has cookies to populate and if the field populates on the contact token it will also populate on the form too. Is this right? 

If so is there a way round this by making it a private page and/or having a login? I’m not sure if it worth pursuing this or not?

Only other way I see it possible is to send an email populating the fields and embedding a form but I don’t believe you can embed a form in an email as it won’t accept scripts.

Suggestion

If you do as Karsten suggests above and present a form that is potentially blank (if contact doesn’t have a cookie) If you make the email field mandatory and have the form set to always create a contact for new contacts, this way you will always be updating the contact details in your database as the form will know which record to update. You could then;

1. Send an automated email thanking the contact for updating their details and using tokens confirm back the new details that they have entered creating audit trail, important if they enter their details incorrectly. You can also use this to alert any departments internally that would be interested if a contact updates something like a mailing address or company name for example.
   
   
2. Set up a task to review any new contact records that are created by the form (or that form on a certain landing  page) As you should really only have existing contacts using this form their shouldn’t be any new contacts created, however there may be if
   
   i) They have changed their email address, or used an alternative email address        or
   ii) made a typo on their email address when updating
   
   Either way you need to identify these ‘new’ contacts to ensure that they are merged into the relevant existing contact (where the email is an alternative, new or a typo) or delete the new contact created if necessary.

[Colas]

Hi! They haven't filled out anything before, or accepted any cookies, so I created a typeform which tehy can fill out, and used merge tags to prepopulate some of the typeform.

Then, I used the Hubspot / Typeform integration to update relevant hubspot properties when the form is submitted. 

Best,

Colas 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Colas,

The form only "knows the user", if they accepted the website cookies and filled out a form before. Only then can HubSpot pre-populate some of the fields.

Best regards!

[PEM]

Greetings Karsten,

Thanks for supporting this topic.

It seems to me, that if I identify X contacts or companies that I want to ask to update their data, Hubspot should be able to generate an automated email for each  that includes a one-time link to their profile that expires in X days.  Sort of like what happens in a password reset...

And really, I don't want to host it and I do not care if the user knows I am using Hubspot.  It seems like an easy thing to do and hopefully I am searching in the wrong place and this all already works.  It seems so basic.

Moreover, this 'hole' in the product seems pretty big to me.  I signed up today as a paying subscriber, and was surprised that I could not manage this.  If another CRM does this, I would have to give it serious consideration.

Thanks for listening.

Paul

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Colas,

It is. If you want this to be consistent with the look and feel of the rest of your page however, you'd embed the form on a landing page.

Best regards!

[Colas]

Thanks, @karstenkoehler . How would the form know who the user is? They would have some sort of tracking token from the email ? 

Best,

Colas

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @Colas,

Yes, this is standard behavior of HubSpot forms. You would design and customize your form, place it on a landing page and send it to your contacts.

If the contacts accepted your website cookies before and your new form is set to "Pre-populate contact fields with known values" (Options tab of the form editor), they should see their current data in the form fields:

If a new email address is entered, HubSpot will update the existing contact record accordingly.

If, however, they have since cleared their cookies or did never accept them, they will see a blank form and a new contact will be created if they enter a new email address.

Best regards!

[Marco_o]

Witch fields Hubspot use to identify a contact (to update it): only the email address (or, for example, also the mobile number?)  

[DianaGomez]

Hi @Marco_o, hope you are doing well!

There are 2 fields that HubSpot use to identify a contact : The email address and the contact id. 

Hope this helps clarify, 

Diana

[Colas]

Hi Karsten— Thank you! Is that possible with a standalone page ? 

Thanks -

-Nick

[Marco_o]

yes