Activity Feed has not populated new data since August 29

[AmandaH]

Situation: I do not use the Outlook plug-in to track email activity. Instead, I simply add the BCC tracking email address (formatted as 9999999@bcc.hubspot.com). To ensure I always use the correct BCC address, I saved it to my Outlook contacts. I've been sending and receiving tracked emails everyday since I started using Hubspot a month ago. I have accessed my account via the current versions of Chrome and Firefox.

First problem: As of August 30, when I send/receive emails, data is no longer populating in Hubspot in the Activity Feed or within the contact's profile. I am confident Hubspot IS tracking the emails: I have sent BCC-tracked emails to new addresses not stored in my Hubspot contacts, and Hubspot automatically adds the new address to my contacts for me. So it appears Hubspot is tracking properly, just not populating the data.

Second problem: Now only two email activities populate in the Activity Feed. Where did all the old activity go?

This may or may not be helpful context: My account has never populated LinkedIn Navigator data within contact profiles. A Hubspot staff member looked into it for me and confirmed it's a known bug (only occurs for some users) that cannot be resolved at this time. So maybe my account has a bigger issue populating data?

[shearn]

You're the 4th person I've come across that has lost activity data prior to Aug. 29. I'm not sure if there was a change in the data limits HubSpot offers for their free products or if there's a wider issue.

The Marketing Free version has time-based insights for the first 7 days after a lead has been captured. https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing/free 

The Sales Free version has 'Limited' Email Tracking History and Email Open Notifications. https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/sales .  It doesn't really say exactly what the limits of the email tracking history are, so I can't say if this is causing the issue or not.

There are also various service limits you get with all free versions of the software: https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/service-limits 

Hopefully a moderator/community manager and weigh in.

[AmandaH]

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, @shearn, and the great links you included.

Hopefully a moderator will respond. This info maybe helpful to them, per your thoughts on this:

• Only two records are displaying data; the rest is missing. Also, I was keeping the Activity Feed report relatively clean (deleting older data) to ensure I stayed within the limits (Hubspot was displaying a notification when I approached/hit my limit).
• I've begun new leads/email exchanges since August 29, so it doesn't appear it's because they're old.

This is tough because I'm attempting to pilot this for 90 days before committing to paid services and before recommending to my clients, and these two features are critical. I currently recommend they use competing paid CRM providers.

[AmandaH]

Update: Activity (email opens etc) appear to be populating in at least some Contact profiles. But not populating in the Activity Feed.

[jennysowyrda]

Hi @AmandaH,

Can you send along screenshots of what you are seeing in your activity stream? Is it blank, prompting you to login in, etc? 

Additionally, when you say two records are showing data, do you mean two contact records? 

Other information that would be helpful: for the emails that are not showing in your activity feed, do you see the bcc address in the sent email in your Outlook inbox? Have you tried forwarding the sent email to your portal ([hubid]@forward.hubspot.com)?

If the bcc address is showing up in the Outlook sent email, can you send screenshots of the email in your inbox showing the bcc address as well as a link to the contact's timeline where the email should be populating?  

Thank you,

Jenny

[AmandaH]

Thank you so much for responding, @jennysowyrda. Answers to your questions:

Additionally, when you say two records are showing data, do you mean two contact records? 

When I started this discussion thread, the Activity Stream populated only two contact records. It is now populating lots of contact records but still only through August 29.

Other information that would be helpful: for the emails that are not showing in your activity feed, do you see the bcc address in the sent email in your Outlook inbox?

Yes

Have you tried forwarding the sent email to your portal ([hubid]@forward.hubspot.com)?

I forwarded the email, as you've suggested. It still does not populate in the Activity Feed.

If the bcc address is showing up in the Outlook sent email, can you send screenshots of the email in your inbox showing the bcc address as well as a link to the contact's timeline where the email should be populating? 

Emails appear to be displaying in the Contact's timeline now. I've attached the screenshots you've requested, and here's a link to the Contact's timeline: https://app.hubspot.com/sales/3458900/contact/1771/?interaction=note

Email in OutlookEmail in Hubspot Contact viewEmail not populating in Activity Feed

[jennysowyrda · Accepted solution]

Hi @AmandaH, 

Based on the screenshots and everything we've discussed, it appears as though because you're manually putting in the BCC address and don't have the HubSpot extension through either Outlook for Windows or Gmail, there is no way for HubSpot to capture the tracking information. 

The tracking information is going to be available when using the extension, as this allows the 1x1 tracking pixel to be put on the email. The BCC, on the other hand, simply allows the email to be logged in your CRM. 

If you would like to receive the tracking information going forward, you'll need to send your emails using the Gmail extension or Outlook (for Windows) plugin.

Thank you,

Jenny

[dougklein]

Hi Jenny. So I have everything working in HubSpot, but when I reinstalled on a new computer, even though things are being recorded in HubSpot from my Microsoft Exchange extension at the contact level, SENTs and OPENs are not being recorded in the Activity Stream. SENTs are recorded in the contact record, but not OPENs. See screenshot from my testing with Eric at HubSpot. 

[jennysowyrda]

Hi @dougklein,

Can you confirm where you are sending these emails from (your inbox or HubSpot)? Additionally, can you please try testing by sending emails through the other method to see if the issue persists? 

Are there any contacts in your portal who have the contact property 'recent sales open date' known? This would indicate that the functionality did work at some time, or worked under a certain set of circumstances.

Thank you,
Jenny

[dougklein]

Thanks Jenny. I am sending from Outlook, not HubSpot. It worked until I switched computers and reinstalled Outlook and the extension (the extension seems to work just fine otherwise). So the last activity date I have is right before I switched computers.

I just tried sending through HubSpot and the message did appear in Activity as being SENT, so I assume it will also track opens when/if that happens.

I turned on the "recent sales email open date" and it confirms the above - it did work at some time prior to switching computers.

I have already run all the troubleshooting techniques, installed and uninstalled the Outlook (Exchange) plugin, etc. Nothing has worked. Thank you.

[jennysowyrda]

Hi @dougklein,

Thank you for the information! 

Can you please provide (through direct message (click on my name>send message): 

1. A screenshot of an email you're sending showing that the 'track' and 'log' options are selected

2. A screenshot of the contact after you've opened the email

3. The original email header (this will show the tracking pixel) for the sent email

Thank you,

Jenny

[jbender]

Hi Hubspot, I'm having issues with viewing the email activity from the menu contacts -> activity. After speaking with support, they told me it's an issue I need to bring up to the support engineers. In short, the support team is able to see the activity while I'm either stuck with the 'You did it' screen or the 'All who wander are not lost screen'. I've tried on several browsers (Chrome, Safari) and tried to clear cache as well. Since support can view the data it means it's there, however, I'm not able to see it for some reason and keep getting prompted to go through the setup process again. 

Thank you, 

Johan

[PamCotton]

Hello @jbender 

Could you please provide us a screenshot where you are getting stuck in HubSpot? My suggestion would be checking the filter inside the contact record to see if the "emails" are being filtered out of the contact view, see my screenshot below:

Let us know how that works.

Pam

[AmandaH]

Thank you, @jennysowyrda. This is starting to make sense for me.

The emails that appear in the Activity Feed must reflect that I first began sending emails from within the CRM. After a couple of weeks, I started sending them from Outlook and used the BCC tracking.

Unfortunately, the plugin is not available for Outlook for Mac. However, I know enough now to make a decision about whether to use Hubspot or another CRM (as I mentioned this was a pilot).

Thank you for your help.