New member_email field for contacts used for CMS Membership emails

[jmclaren]

The text below is copied from the official announcement on the developer changelog for convenience. 

We've added a new member_email property to contacts which dictates where membership emails (password reset, password confirmation, and registration) are sent. The following users should be aware of this new property:

• HubSpot Apps modifying contact email addresses.
• CMS Hub Enterprise accounts using membership functionality.
• Service Hub Pro/Enterprise accounts using Customer Portal.

This property is not the email address used by the member contact when they want to log in, member_email only controls where membership emails are sent. This means the user will continue to login to their account using the email address in the email contact property.

For Apps that modify the email property

This change is not expected to have any negative effects on existing apps/integrations. If your app syncs email addresses from another system or otherwise modifies contact email addresses, consider adding a toggle to your app's settings so account owners can dictate whether changes your app makes to the email field should also apply to the member_email property.

If your app updates a contact's member_email property, they will not receive a confirmation/verification email, so you should only update this property when you are confident the contact has the ability to receive emails at this address.

Example of a trusted scenario:

A company has a web/mobile app that the contacts sign into - that is not hosted on HubSpot. The contact updates their email address in your app/system, and your system verifies they own that email address through a confirmation email. That is when it is safe to update the member_email property to be the same as the email property you are updating for the contact.

If you have a public app and want to allow your users to choose whether to update member_email in their HubSpot account without having to use your app's user interface, you can create a settings page within your app. This page can include a toggle control that allows users to turn the field update on or off as needed.

For users entrusted with contacts access within a HubSpot account

In the event a member contact wants to change their login email address. We encourage you to first verify that they own the email address, then update both their email and member_email properties.

Questions or comments? Let's chat below.

---