Saving an email draft in Hubspot CRM

[tomer]

Hello,

I integrated Hubspot with Gmail and was looking for a way to save an email draft before sending it.

Sometimes it might take a while to compose the email (as it contains technical information that is gathered for a few days).

Therefore, we have a need to start an email and edit it several times for a few days before sending it. Therefore, a draft capability will be great to have (same as in Gmail).

Is there such an option in Hubspot?

Thank you.

[Phil_Vallender]

Hi @tomer

The HubSpot CRM does not support the saving of draft email messages at the moment. I suppose the thinking is that salepeople should continue to use Gmail or Outlook for day to day email. 

The closest thing to saving drafts is creating template messages, a feature of HubSpot Sales Pro, but this is not the same of course. 

Hope this helps.

[tomer]

Thank you for the information.

So actually I'm not sure I understand the use case of using emails from within HubSpot.

If the sales people should mainly still use their own client (gmail, outlook, etc.), when would they use Hubspot's email?

It seems odd to sometimes use one and sometimes the other, because then you'll have a mess - not all conversations will be logged in HubSpot unless you log them manually (which can be a pain and will never happen in real world).

Will be glad to hear your thoughts.

[mwhite051]

One of the beneifts of sending emails through HubSpot was for users who were not using a supported email server to send their emails (aka not using Gmail or Outlook). I prefer to use my email client for day-to-day emailing and am pleased that the integration allows me to do that, but without that functionality sending in the HubSpot environment would allow for tracked emails and logging. 

[tomer]

Thanks for that. Is there a way to show the emails you're sending from Gmail inside the customer's activity log in HubSpot? If not, how are you tracking that activity then?

Thanks!

[Phil_Vallender · Accepted solution]

Hi @tomer,

The 'Log in CRM' feature of the HubSpot Sales plugin for chrome or outlook adds those emails to your contact time line in HubSpot. 

Hope this helps.

[tomer]

Cool, I wasn't aware that such a plugin exists. Just installed it and it looks great! thank you 🙂

[Phil_Vallender]

Glad I could help 🙂

[apexpred]

But the "log" feature only triggers when you send the email. What If I want to compose a message in CRM (not in Gmail) and save it to complete & send it later? 

[sockclub_custom]

Echoing @tomer - we are looking to minimize the amount of windows and steps that we are working in throughout the day. Drafts could be very helpful for the more complicated emails!

[MW]

I totally agree!

[sockclub_custom]

Hi, @Phil_Vallender! I echo @tomer's feeling about wanting to just work out of one window. I understand that there is a work-around, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a solution. I feel like I do not want to create a new post because I like the information and feedback on this one. Please advise. Thank you! 🙂

[jjohn]

Here is an Ideas Forum Submission asking for this feature: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Save-email-draft-in-CRM/idi-p/218243

Please comment with your use case and upvote to get the ball rolling on this feature. 

[FGrosdidier]

In review of this topic, I came across this post. I would like to encourage your development team to review the topic of saving a draft email within HubSpot. I am a newer HubSpot user and I have already come across multiple scenarios where a "save draft" email option was extremely necessary. I have been told the best way to handle this currently is to create a note to save what I have had, or use a template. I don't believe this truly addresses the need for this functionality.

Thanks for reconsidering this functionality improvement!

[charliepinker]

I would also find this feature really useful (i.e. to be able to save a draft email in Hubspot).

I send almost all my customer/prospect emails directly within Hubspot. For a start, I thought that's what the feature was intended for! But it is easier - if I'm working through my task list etc, and I need to send an email, I can do it there and then from Hubspot and then move on to my next task, without needing to go to Gmail.

[JudahOME]

Just lost an hours work because they lack this essential feature

[Schier]

I just lost 2 hours of work when I mistakenly clicked the "X", closing the Hubspot email pop-up window. I typically use the Gmail plugin, but today I started an email while in Hubspot.

There was no warning that my entire email content would be lost. This is an absolute UX crime. Any user of email would expect a drafts component in an email interface.

Minimally, a warning message would be a simple way to patch the user experience. How has Hubspot been able to ignore this for so long? A UX crime...

[MonikaS]

I just had the same situation!!

Something popped up in my window when I was drafting the email and all draft is GONE.

They even autosave these community messages, how come they do not do it for email functionality within CRM?

😞

[PamCotton]

Hello @MonikaS,

Thank you for your feedback, @Schier I would like to apologize for the frustrations, data issues, and business impact this has caused. 

Investigating more about it, I was able to find a similar thread in our ideas forum here, where users would like this feature to be available in HubSpot.

Upvoting the idea will alert our Product Team to the popularity of this request. Doing so will also auto-notify you if/when this functionality becomes available within HubSpot. You may read more about how that review process works here. The idea is currently in planning.

Kindly,

Pam