The time zone that HubSpot Insights provides in the company record isn't really a time zone at all. It says something like: America/Edmonton. So unless we have the timezones of various cities memorized, it's not helpful to my team.
One idea I have to make this field useful for us is to convert that "time zone" to a real one using a workflow. Does anyone know if there is a list of the HubSpot Insights "time zones" and that I can use to convert to an actual time zone? I'd then copy that value to the time zone property using a workflow.
Or, what other ideas do you have for making the time zone property useful in the company record?
@Jenny26, you make a really good point! I'm honestly not sure why this isn't a HubSpot feature already, especially because the HubSpot-generated "Time Zone" property at the contact level includes the actual time zone:
That said, I have three potential solutions here.
Option 1: Company Workflow Based on Company Time Zone
I wasn't able to find a full list of the company "Time Zone" values, but I pulled an export of ~6,000 companies that have data provided by the Insights tool. Here is the Google Sheet containing the export. I currently have a filter created, so if you click on it, you'll see a list of values (both US and non-US):
I'm assuming that this list is not exhaustive, but maybe you could cross-reference it with your current database to fill in any gaps! If you're targeting a specific part of the world, that may also limit the number of time zone values that you'll need to reference.
Like you said, you could take those options, determine the actual time zone, and create a workflow that will update that time zone in a custom property.
Option 2: Company Workflow Based on Company State
This solution isn't perfect, but it may prove easier than Option 1. Since HubSpot Insights should also be providing the company state in all instances where it's providing the time zone, you could create a workflow that will update your custom time zone property based on the company's state. You'll of course run into states with multiple timezones (where you could potentially add branching logic to set the time zone based on the postal code range), but this workflow would provide the actual time zone for the majority of companies (and you wouldn't be off by more than an hour for the others).
Option 3: Pull in the Associated Contact Time Zone Where Available
This option also isn't perfect (especially in today's remote world), but it could be worth a shot depending on how many companies have associated contacts with this info. If a contact has a known IP time zone (which is based on where HubSpot thinks they're located, not where the company is located), you could pass that info along to your custom company time zone property. There could of course be multiple time zones depending on the number of contacts and their locations, but the contact record is currently the best source of complete time zone information. If you're trying to plan outreach to target companies, it may also be worth looking at the contact record instead since they would be the ones receiving emails.
Hopefully this helps get you at least somewhat close to what you're after! I strongly encourage you to submit this as an idea in the HubSpot Ideas forum as well — I would definitely back it 🙂
@Jenny26, you make a really good point! I'm honestly not sure why this isn't a HubSpot feature already, especially because the HubSpot-generated "Time Zone" property at the contact level includes the actual time zone:
That said, I have three potential solutions here.
Option 1: Company Workflow Based on Company Time Zone
I wasn't able to find a full list of the company "Time Zone" values, but I pulled an export of ~6,000 companies that have data provided by the Insights tool. Here is the Google Sheet containing the export. I currently have a filter created, so if you click on it, you'll see a list of values (both US and non-US):
I'm assuming that this list is not exhaustive, but maybe you could cross-reference it with your current database to fill in any gaps! If you're targeting a specific part of the world, that may also limit the number of time zone values that you'll need to reference.
Like you said, you could take those options, determine the actual time zone, and create a workflow that will update that time zone in a custom property.
Option 2: Company Workflow Based on Company State
This solution isn't perfect, but it may prove easier than Option 1. Since HubSpot Insights should also be providing the company state in all instances where it's providing the time zone, you could create a workflow that will update your custom time zone property based on the company's state. You'll of course run into states with multiple timezones (where you could potentially add branching logic to set the time zone based on the postal code range), but this workflow would provide the actual time zone for the majority of companies (and you wouldn't be off by more than an hour for the others).
Option 3: Pull in the Associated Contact Time Zone Where Available
This option also isn't perfect (especially in today's remote world), but it could be worth a shot depending on how many companies have associated contacts with this info. If a contact has a known IP time zone (which is based on where HubSpot thinks they're located, not where the company is located), you could pass that info along to your custom company time zone property. There could of course be multiple time zones depending on the number of contacts and their locations, but the contact record is currently the best source of complete time zone information. If you're trying to plan outreach to target companies, it may also be worth looking at the contact record instead since they would be the ones receiving emails.
Hopefully this helps get you at least somewhat close to what you're after! I strongly encourage you to submit this as an idea in the HubSpot Ideas forum as well — I would definitely back it 🙂