Set up workflow to mirror properties between company and associated contact.

[Loki]

Hi all,

In our database some contacts are missing an industry. 

HubSpot Insight is live so our companies'industries are auto-populated when available. 

Question:

Can I create a workflow that will mirror the company's industry onto the associated contact's industry? 

PS: I would like to avoid having to create one workflow per industry. I want to tell HubSpot the contact's industry is empty but it can populate it by copying the company's industry. 

Thanks

[MFrankJohnson · Accepted solution]

Q:

In our database some contacts are missing an industry. HubSpot Insight is live so our companies'industries are auto-populated when available. Can I create a workflow that will mirror the company's industry onto the associated contact's industry?

PS: I would like to avoid having to create one workflow per industry. I want to tell HubSpot the contact's industry is empty but it can populate it by copying the company's industry.

Short A: Yes, but you have to be very careful how you go about it. (warning)

Longer A:

You have choices @Loki ...

The Company.Industry is a Dropdown field type. The Contact.Industry is a Single Line Text field type. As such, we cannot rely on a Workflow to copy them as is.

Option #1
Build a custom Contact.Custom-Industry of type Dropdown with THE EXACT SAME OPTIONS as your Company.Industry. Then use a Workflow to copy when the Contact.Custom-Industry is unknown. Easy! (But doesn't use the default HubSpot Contact.Industry field)
- see image

HubSpot Workflow: Copy Company.Industry to Contact.Industry WILL NOT WORK AS IS

Option #2 (warning -- this option can destroy data if used improperly)
Change the Contact.Industry field type to Dropdown with THE EXACT SAME OPTIONS as your Company.Industry. Then use the Workflow (shown above) to copy when the Contact.Custom-Industry is unknown. Easy! (But will clear all existing Contact.Industry data as soon as you press save when changing the field type)

The obvious advantage with Option #2 is that you're using the default HubSpot Contact.Industry field. However, the biggest potential problem isn't clearing of existing data, but the fact that any existing or future integration that uses Contact.Industry will expect it's native field type (Single LIne Text). This can break things or prevent things from working in the future.

Totally your call how you proceed. Each has pros and cons.

[MFrankJohnson · Accepted solution]

Q:

In our database some contacts are missing an industry. HubSpot Insight is live so our companies'industries are auto-populated when available. Can I create a workflow that will mirror the company's industry onto the associated contact's industry?

PS: I would like to avoid having to create one workflow per industry. I want to tell HubSpot the contact's industry is empty but it can populate it by copying the company's industry.

Short A: Yes, but you have to be very careful how you go about it. (warning)

Longer A:

You have choices @Loki ...

The Company.Industry is a Dropdown field type. The Contact.Industry is a Single Line Text field type. As such, we cannot rely on a Workflow to copy them as is.

Option #1
Build a custom Contact.Custom-Industry of type Dropdown with THE EXACT SAME OPTIONS as your Company.Industry. Then use a Workflow to copy when the Contact.Custom-Industry is unknown. Easy! (But doesn't use the default HubSpot Contact.Industry field)
- see image

HubSpot Workflow: Copy Company.Industry to Contact.Industry WILL NOT WORK AS IS

Option #2 (warning -- this option can destroy data if used improperly)
Change the Contact.Industry field type to Dropdown with THE EXACT SAME OPTIONS as your Company.Industry. Then use the Workflow (shown above) to copy when the Contact.Custom-Industry is unknown. Easy! (But will clear all existing Contact.Industry data as soon as you press save when changing the field type)

The obvious advantage with Option #2 is that you're using the default HubSpot Contact.Industry field. However, the biggest potential problem isn't clearing of existing data, but the fact that any existing or future integration that uses Contact.Industry will expect it's native field type (Single LIne Text). This can break things or prevent things from working in the future.

Totally your call how you proceed. Each has pros and cons.

[01336]

---

@MFrankJohnson wrote:

The obvious advantage with Option #2 is that you're using the default HubSpot Contact.Industry field.

---

Could someone explain to my why using the HubSpot default field of Industry would be better than creating your own customizable Industry field?

[MFrankJohnson]

Just seeing this question @01336 ...

HubSpot and integrations use built-in HubSpot properties by default, and can auto-update those built-in properties (where applicable). Some integrations allow mappings to custom properties, but not all. Using custom properties is great. However, doing so doesn't guarantee interoperability within HubSpot, auto-updating by HubSpot, or integration with external platforms.

[BenKarklins]

Thanks for the solution, Frank. Is there a way to copy the industries from the Company-Industry to the Contact.Custom-Industry property without adding them all manually?

[C_C_C]

Hi Frank,

Thanks for providing the options. I'm looking to use Option #1 and then just segment on the new custom dropdown field I create, so as to ensure nothing breaks in the future. However, it would appear to get 'THE EXACT SAME OPTIONS as your Company.Industry' as you suggest, I will have to manually input those 147 options as I set up the new custom field. When setting up the new Contact field, I can't import the options from the Company Industry field. 

Do you know if there is any shortcut around this to save me all the copying and pasting?

Thanks.

[MFrankJohnson · Accepted solution]

Hey @C_C_C, here's a full downloadable list of company.industry options we used on a project last year. It includes the 147 default options (plus Cannabis -- for obvious reasons)! 🙂

The list is separated into 3 groupings (as shown below).
- see image

HubSpot Company.Industry Options (2018)

Only helps when importing the Labels. Internal values are more work. Best option other than using the API.

Hope that helps.

Search: industry property, contact.industry, company.industry, industry property internal value, industry internal value.

[C_C_C]

Great, thanks so much Frank.

[Loki]

Hi Frank,

Thank you so much for this and will look into these options. 

There are quite a few unknown workflow factors to me to be able to set up in confidence a  workflow that could potentially damage the data across HubSpot. I might need to find a way around it and potentially pull the Company Industry only (relying on HubSpot Insight) in every report and disregard the Contact's Industry. 

Thanks for the response

Loki

[MFrankJohnson]

You're welcome Loki.

If you decide to customize the Contact.Industry property, just maybe label it as 'Industry (custom dropdown)'. You'll also want to ...
-a- export all contacts that currently have Contact.Industry populated
-b- scrub that data to match Company.Industry
-c- import/update those once you modify the newly customized Contact.Industry

As long as you know your options, you should be fine. We find that being able to discuss ideas in a community of both HubSpotters and non-HubSpotters is really helpful when sussing out solutions.

It's like having a HubSpot version of the Andrew Camarata YouTube channel! 

Reach out if you need help.

Good luck