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KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

On November 22, 2022, Matthew Shepherd of HubSpot's professional services team and Megan Legge of HubSpot's product team taught us some advanced strategies for using workflows.

 

Watch the recording and download the deck here!

 

Because so many people were in attendance, we weren't able to answer all of your questions live. This community thread will be the place we post your questions along with our answers. It will likely take us a few days to work through all of them, but we will continue adding to this thread until we have answered them all.

28 Replies 28
reiko
Contributor | Elite Partner
Contributor | Elite Partner

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Thank you for sharing the great tips of workflows.

 

I tried to create "Today's date" workflow but re-enrollment didn't work properly. When I change "today' date" property manually, the recored is re-enrolled. So I think re-enrollement is set properly.

I don't find any error messages.

Could you tell me what I missed?

0 Upvotes
MatthewShepherd
Key Advisor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Hi @reiko 
The workflow should enroll contact's the first time when their Today's Date Property is unknown (but won't re-enroll if their date property is cleared) and then every day when the Today's Date property is updated.
Could you share a screenshot of the bottom section of your workflow and the enrollment and action logs for the contact that didn't re-enroll as expected?

Matthew Shepherd

Freelance HubSpot Consultant
CRM Consultant | SEO Specialist

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MatthewShepherd
Key Advisor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: Do we have any feature which can help skip a specific step on the workflow based on a criteria we can choose

 

Answer: You can use branching logic and “go to action” to accomplish this.

Matthew Shepherd

Freelance HubSpot Consultant
CRM Consultant | SEO Specialist

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MatthewShepherd
Key Advisor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: Is there a trigger that will run on the day after a specific date that is captured in a custom date field.

 

Answer: Yes, using an enrollment criteria of “{{property date}} is more than 1 day ago will enroll records the day after the date. You also might have success using the “delay until date” action. More info here: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/workflows/use-delays#delay-until-a-date

Matthew Shepherd

Freelance HubSpot Consultant
CRM Consultant | SEO Specialist

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MatthewShepherd
Key Advisor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: +++ Caution Long read 😉 +++ Question in a nutshell: Is there any chance to get in the missing contacts in a particular stage, branch of a workflow? +++ I set up a workflow for a webinar today with several dates in a property. Depending on the date in the property I set up an automated email sending out a reminder to participate in the webinar. I didn't include the automated email from the beginning though and it turned out form subscriptions already got into the wf without the reminder email. Is there any chance to get in the missing contacts in a particular stage, branch of a workflow?

 

Answer: It’s not possible to insert contacts into a workflow at a later point. That said, if you are using Date delays, you can build in checks with a Value Equals Branch to SKIP certain actions if the date is in the past, which can help you push those contacts along further in the workflow, read about that here. Or, you might consider deleting the actions at the top of the workflow that are no longer relevant as the webinar nears so contacts that join the workflow later skip ahead.

Matthew Shepherd

Freelance HubSpot Consultant
CRM Consultant | SEO Specialist

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MatthewShepherd
Key Advisor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: For the copy to property. are there any good tips on how to identify if a property in one object needs to exactly match a property in another object so the copy to function works each time the property gets updated. (like a list of tradeshows, etc)

 

Answer: Take a look at this article for a list of compatible property types for copying values with workflows where the properties will be considered mismatched e.g. Dropdown A copying to another Dropdown B, but Dropdown B doesn’t contain one of the values listed in Dropdown A, the system will grey out the target dropdown and warn you that the properties are mismatched. If your dropdown values change after the workflow is published then this error will be surfaced in the ‘Workflows with errors’ tab of your workflows dashboard or in the Alerts area of the workflows editor. So good practice to check in on your workflows on a regular basis.

Matthew Shepherd

Freelance HubSpot Consultant
CRM Consultant | SEO Specialist

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MatthewShepherd
Key Advisor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: We need a way to report on enrolled Contacts and/or export view to see changes from the original property value and the new value

 

Answer: Create a list of contacts that are enrolled or have been enrolled in your workflow 

 e.g. Workflows status =  is currently active in / has been enrolled and then check out exporting property history.

Matthew Shepherd

Freelance HubSpot Consultant
CRM Consultant | SEO Specialist

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KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: When would you use the automation option that is newly added to newsletters and forms as opposed to the regular workflows?

 

Answer: Automation that is built into the Form and Email tools are best suited for simple automated processes that are specific to the job at hand - following up to a form submission or an email click. This functionality helps you build your end to end process for specific, contained jobs in one place, without having to hop around to tools.

0 Upvotes
MatthewShepherd
Key Advisor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: How should lists and workflows play together?

Answer: There are many ways to leverage lists in workflows, here are some examples:

  • Using static or active lists membership status to trigger the enrollment of a specific segment of your records into your workflow e.g. if a contact has downloaded an awareness stage content offer add them to your awareness stage list and enroll them into your awareness stage nurturing workflow.
  • Using static or active list membership status in if/then branches to send records through different branches of actions e.g. if a contact is on my high intent list (based on fit criteria/engagement/lead score) branch them off into a fast track nurturing branch to connect them with the sales team right away instead of continuing nurturing.
  • Adding contacts to a static list via an add to static list action for a permanent record of them carrying out an action or to otherwise create a list that won’t be changed automatically based on other record updates going forward e.g. have your workflow create a static list of leads that reached the end of your nurturing workflow but that didn’t respond for future lead recycling / long term nurturing.
  • Use lists in the unenrollment and suppression tab of your workflow settings to keep a segment of records from entering your workflow e.g. if your contact downloads your awareness, consideration, and decision content offers within a short period of time, you can use lists based on specific recent form submissions (i.e. lists of recent form submissions by buyer's journey stage) or a buyer’s journey custom property (set via workflow) to flag the most qualified stage of the buyer's journey the contact has reached so they only enter the nurturing workflow closest to the bottom of the funnel (i.e. exclude Decision Stage contact list from the Awareness and Consideration stage nurturing workflows.) This can also help prevent contacts from receiving too many emails from your various nurturing workflows. If taking this approach just make sure your contact can download the content from your thank you page as they potentially won't receive emails with download links from top of funnel workflows.

Matthew Shepherd

Freelance HubSpot Consultant
CRM Consultant | SEO Specialist

Did my post help answer your query?Help the community by marking it as a solution.
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KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: is it possible to let contacts schedule a demo through a round robin that incorporates all SDRs calendars? (or all SDR calendars within a certain region, etc?)

 

Answer: Yes! And you don’t need a workflow to do it. You can create round robin scheduling in the meetings tool: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/meetings-tool/understand-group-and-round-robin-meeting-availability

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: copying data from one object to another or picking which associated record to update is always extremely hard and pushes us to use the API instead of workflows, which is not ideal for clients. Is there anything in the pipeline to address this?

 

Answer: We have functionality coming to beta soon that should help with this! If you want to participate in the beta when it’s ready, email Megan at mlegge@hubspot.com

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: can you use a Hubspot file with a UTM or HubSpot tracking as a trigger in a workflow? Want everyone who sees that specific URL to enroll in a workflow.

 

Answer: You can use page views to trigger workflows, though I’m not totally sure if that serves your purpose, check it out. Also, with our new Triggers beta you can trigger workflows with custom behavioral events, which you might find helpful. If you’re using CBEs and want to check out the triggers beta sign up here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdiH6eNtdadd9HvwXllhiTK3FLZSd12sRCTZoNBbE2BnJRJ_w/viewform 

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: Is it possible to auto-generate an email to go out every time a deal is moved from one stage to another if the email needs to include personalisations? We can't seem to manage to create a workflow for this..

 

Answer: Deal stage automation exists, learn more here. As far as personalization, it depends what type of data you are looking to include. Deal data should always be possible to include.

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: Are workflows triggered only for paid users?

 

Answer: The workflows tool is available with Professional and Enterprise accounts, though there is automation functionality also available for Starter

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: When we will get unmerge availabe?

 

Answer: Upvote the idea on the idea forum: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Un-merging-contacts/idi-p/321397 

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: what is best way to get help with wehbooks and third party API that request token access?

 

Answer: You can create a custom code action in Operations Hub to do this.

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: Does strategic consultant cost extra?

 

Answer: Yes, this is a paid consulting service. Details here https://www.hubspot.com/services/professional 

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: You can configure a workflow to run on specific days (in the UK say Monday to Friday) However if your workflow has a wait of 4 days in it, and the wait starts on a Thursday ..... Saturday and Sunday are seen as waiting days. If the workflow isn't running why are Saturday and Sunday seen as waiting days?

 

Answer: Upvote this idea on the ideas forum: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Counting-business-days-only-in-workflows-and-sequence...

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: How can we avoid the error of creating a cycle when we are reenrolling contacts in the same workflows? (Even with lists).

 

Answer: If you’re trying to avoid an unintentional looping behavior, add a delay to the end of the workflow, so that workflow updates are creating changes that accidentally trigger the workflow again. Or, try to make your enrollment criteria more specific and limited.

KyleJepson
Inbound Professor
Inbound Professor

[Recording, Deck, and Q&A] Advanced Workflow Examples and Best Practices for Every HubSpot Team

Question: Are you looking into creating a workflow trigger that compares 2 properties?

 

Answer: This isn’t something we have currently planned, but please add your vote and feedback to this idea: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Compare-Properties-in-Workflow-To-Trigger-Behaviour/i...