Merging Lists - Not really static is it

[IRayner]

If you create a list by merging 2 or more other lists (using the HubSpot specified procedure here: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/lists/how-do-i-combine-lists), and set the new list to be static, it isn't actually static. If any of the lists from which the merged list was created gets changed, the merged list changes too!!

This is not what I would expect of a static list. I want the list to be what it is when I created it and stay that way unless I change it.

EDIT: Okay, so this seems even more unpredictable. If I delete a Contact from an underlying list, the Contact is deleted from the merged list. If I add Contacts to the underlying lists, they are NOT added to the merged list! Shouldn't the behavior be consistent?

Furthermore, if I test the filter ('is a member of List 1 OR is a member of List 2') against the Contact I added, the filter fails saying the Contact is in neither list. But it is, I just added it.

In case anyone else is dealing with the same problem, my workaround is to create an empty list, go to each list I want to merge into it, select all the contacts and use 'Add to list' to add them to the new list. 

[IRayner]

What is confusing is the way HubSpot works.

Turns out, it only LOOKS as though the contact has been removed from the combined list. If you refresh the screen, it re-appears. Here's the process:

1. Create static list 1 and populate it.
2. Create static list 2 and populate it.
3. Create static list 3 using filters: 'is a member of list 1' OR 'is a member of list2'
4. Add a member to list 1.
5. View combined list and it is unchanged, as I would expect.
6. Remove a member from list 2.
7. View combined list and the member removed from list 2 is also not displayed in combined list. However, the size of list shows unchanged i.e. the displayed list and the count of the list disagree.
8. Reload the list at some later time, and the 'missing' contact is back again.

So it seems the combined list does actually behave as you would expect, it's just you have to wait a while. However, the fact that this can happen at all indicates that the filters are still active in some way - how else is the displayed membership of one list affected by changes to another list if they are supposedly independent?

Given that this is the case, and the filters serve only to prime the list (exactly what I would want) why are the filters not removed once the list is created - they are no longer functional? In fact, I can test a contact against the filter and receive a negative result i.e. the contact doesn't pass the criteria I used in the past to set up the list, and yet the contact is already a member of the list because I added them! As my list evolves over time and I add new members, the filters become meaningless. I don't understand why they are displayed at all.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @IRayner,

There's a difference between deleting a contact (removing all occurrences from your portal) and removing a contact from a static list. The latter will not remove them from any static list other than the one that you're currently editing.

I tried to replicate the behavior you shared in step 7 but wasn't able to. It does sound a bit confusing – if it does keep on happening, I'd recommend reaching out to HubSpot technical support. Other than that, at least with a few seconds of waiting, everything seems to work as expected.

Best regards!

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @IRayner,

While it may be confusing, this is expected behavior. Static lists are a snapshot in time. If you combine two active lists (let's call them list 1 and list 2) into one static list, the static list will include all of the records that are in list 1 and 2 – at the time of the creation of the static list. Any later changes to list 1 and 2 will not reflect in the combined static list as a static list is designed to be immutable.

If your combined list was an active list, it would keep on checking list 1 and 2 for contacts who join or leave and update itself accordingly. A static list will only check list 1 and 2 once. (This is also the only behavior that makes sense. Otherwise active and static lists would be behaving exactly the same.)

Deleted contacts are an exception. When you're deleting a contact, you're removing all occurrences of this contact in your portal – and that goes for static lists too. As an alternative, HubSpot could have chosen to show you an unclickable, grey element in a list. Let's take a contact that needs to be deleted in a GDPR-compliant way: By definition, it must be removed everywhere in the tool, otherwise it wouldn't be GDPR-compliant.

Hope this helps!