HubSpot Ideas

lhaith

Attachments / file uploads need to be more user friendly

There seems to be a unnecessary disconnect between the fields 'Attachments' and 'file upload'. Attachments are for email enquiries and file uploads are for support forms. Handling these fields in the ticket environment is not user friendly. 

 

Most of our tickets are created via a shared email account (enquiries@ support@ etc which is connected to the conversations feature) and the majority of those emails contain an attachment. Such as a tender document / a design brief / an invoice etc.
 
If conversations are meant to be converted to a ticket, why cant we access the file attachment in the notes / email / tasks feature when updating or forwarding a ticket. There are options to add a link, a snippet and a file. Yet none of those features are aware of the files associated with a conversation ticket. 
 
For example - if i want to email back the client and cc another agent who will then deal with the ticket, it would be wise to include the documents submitted by the client. Its possible but its not user friendly at all, and has led to mistakes and oversights.
 
Really it should default to include those relevant files. Even when you try to add a file manually it shows images and files associated with landing pages and email campaigns. Smiley Sad

 

Just recently snippets have included the file upload token. But that field seems to be a free type field within Hubspot. Smiley Frustrated

 

So a few ideas….

  • File attachments / file uploads should be siloed into tickets and the user interface should reflect that.
  • They should automatically be included on any ticket correspondence (internally and externally).
  • ..and shouldn't they be the same field? if thats impossible, attachments should be mapped to the file upload field if empty.

Anyone having similar issues?

36 Replies
aiharris
Member

Yes!  Any response to this? We are having the same issue. The only workaround we have is to resave it to the desktop and add it to the ticket.

lhaith
Contributor

Hi aiharris,

 

No we are hoping the idea gains traction.

Soon i imagine, the hubspot dev team will notice a lots of duplicate files on the system - and then figure this out.

Andreas
Contributor | Diamond Partner

We followed the steps to "creating an inbox" and connected and email. We are now receiving emails in HubSpot under "conversations -> emails". However, when replying to a message through conversations, it is only possible to add one(!) attachement. To add more attachements we have to either:

 

1. Answer in Outlook as we used to (which is not an option)

2. Click on the contact record and send a reply from there (which only complicates the whole process and make it less functional) 

3. Upload all attachements we will be using in "HubSpot files" (which is not possible for us as we depend on using attachements alot in our communication. It will simply take too much time!) 

 

This is a major problem for us and hope you will fix this ASAP!

david_dataton
Participant

I second that! Another comment about the document upload is that any uploaded document will be available for EVERYBODY, regardless of TEAM membership.

Which leaves another feature request and that is to add documents for different teams only... 


Best regards, 
David

 

sockclub
Participant

We are having the same issue - really need the ability to have these file uploads show on deals when a form is filled out.

 

Right now we are copying the deal property to a single line value called File Upload in the deal - it then adds a URL for the file to that field. The issue is when we have multiple files, there is no easy way to view this.

lhaith
Contributor

The two fields need to be merged please !!!

 

At least add in an 'Attachments' token to snippets. There is a 'file upload' one.  

RJUS
Member

I applaud the multiple attachment wish Heart

ZiwiTyler
Member

Agreed, these fields need to be merged to easily display the attachments a contact as uploaded onto a form. The process currently isn't user-friendly. It'd be ideal to have the file display as an attachment on the contact and ticket profiles after the contact has uploaded it via form submission.

BRNorth14
Participant

Hi, yes that's true.

 

Also we cannot see attached file. Please @hubspot 

StormySpectrum
Participant

This seems like hopefully a simple thing to do, and would avoid the need to download an attachment from a record, compose an email, attach it, then send.

It just seems like an extra, unecessary step?

Ideally, in the email attachment options, there could be a dropdown or button for "attach from record" or something similar. 

wesman
Contributor

I aggree.  Right now I have to manually save the attachments to my computer and then add them back when creating an e-mail. I often get files from co-workers that I need to send to customers.

 

Also when attaching a file (upload option) to an e-mail it just adds the file to the generic files folder, it should allow you to pick a folder under files to upload to. 

 

Even an option to add an attachment to files would be useful (would replace the manual download and upload step).

PTaylorSH
Member

It is unbelieveable  that a serivce center application that can generate tickets leaves attachments behind and that they have to be downloaded, uploaded and added manually.  when will this be fixed?

CéliaMOLINA
Member

It is a very good idea, I also have issues with attachment. 

 

We create deals thank to a form and into this form we ask for an attachment but the document is loading into a properties and not into attachment. 

 

It would be very interesting also for us to be able to link any file to the attachment section.

AndreasKroell
Contributor

Hello together, 

totaly agree that it would be brilliant if a soultion should be developed. We use a formular where our customers can send us documents which we need to share with our team. The process of adding the documents into the attachments section of a customer account is a lot workload for us which costs a long time. So I just can confirm that a solution would realy help us. 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas dear community. 
Best regards 
Andi 

ssims
HubSpot Employee

seconded! I have seen many use cases during my time in support, especially with recruiting companies, where resumes or other files are submitted in a form via the file upload field, but customers really want to see the file automatically attached in the "attachments" section for ease of use. They need to have quick access to that file, and it adds another step to download the file, and re-upload it to the "attachments" section. 

 

A great idea would be to have a toggle in the "file upload" contact property editor to also add the file to the "attachments" section automatically, as I know some customers would apprecite this feature, and some would not want it. We know a form submission will always be linked to a contact record, so the "attachments" section of that contact record would perhaps be able to pull in the file upload from the form field. 

nick_zinc
Member

I don’t have all the same issues as the OP, but enough to warrant a response.

 

Quick Background

We use HubSpot Tickets a little differently than other companies I’m sure. We essentially use the Conversations / Tickets tool as an order system. People email us at orders@CompanyName.com with the details of their order, we enter it into our ERP and send them back receipts and other documentation. This documentation (art proofs, sales orders, invoices, etc) are all added directly into the email replies as an attachment.

 

While this situation is a bit unique, I'm sure that other companies have the need to send back and forth multiple attachment files via the tickets tool.

 

Other Note

If anyone has solutions to these problems that works now, or if I am missing some feature, please let me know. I would love to have solutions to these issues rather than wait for HS to address.

 

Problem #1: Cannot easily reattach previous uploads

Here is the scenario. We have received an order email to our conversations inbox tool which has created a ticket. The CS rep has responded to the email with an order attachment and proof to approve. If the CSR does not hear an answer after a few days they need to re-email the client to ensure they can approve the order. 

 

Currently, when the CSR is following up, they need to download the previous attachments from the ticket, before reattaching them to their new email. This is because they cannot directly select the attachment already on the ticket for their email reply.

—They cannot drag and drop the file from the attachment area to the email. 😞

—They cannot select *attachment icon*, “Choose existing” and select a file from the list of attachments already on the ticket. 😞

 

Additionally, after a few days we alert our sales reps to follow up on a ticket if we haven’t heard from the customer. When they follow up they (again) need to download the files that are already in the ticket, then re-upload them to the email again.

 

The ideal solution for us would just be to add another option to the attachment icon that says “Choose existing attachment” which would pull up the attachments already on the ticket. You could rename the other “choose existing” to include “document” (see screenshot)

 

Existing Attachment.png

 

 

(Side Note - I’m not sure if all these files we are downloading and re-uploading also causes HS to need to double or triple the file storage required, but it might be. All I’m saying HS Team is think of the data savings and implement this feature soon 😉

 

BUT - Why don’t you just forward the previous email?

We tried that for about 2 weeks. Of course it does work to keep the same attachment. Replying to the email removes the previous attachment. 

 

HOWEVER, it appears when an email is forwarded (and if the customer actually responds like you are hoping they will), it breaks the automation around moving tickets. Basically the ticket does not move to a new status, it will stay in the “Waiting on Customer” status column and not move to “Waiting on us”.

 

It’s possible this has been fixed by now, but when we addressed this with HubSpot there was no fix date determined.

 

BUT - It sounds like what you are trying to do you could do with the quotes / sales tool? Could you use that instead?

I have looked into it and would deeply love for it to work. The overarching drawback is the sales / deals object seems to be built with the assumption that you have individual sales reps going out and getting individual (big) sales / deals. Our workflow is different in that we have a general mailbox (orders@CompanyName.com) in which all orders come. The sales reps help manage the relationships, but only occationally get involved on individual orders.

 

So since the sales tool / deals object cannot be hooked up to the conversations inbox, it becomes extremely awkward to use the deals object / quotes tool. In addition, I believe (but am not certain) the deals object would have the same draw backs in terms of attachments as the ticket object would have. Since we won’t be creating quotes in HubSpot the same restrictions would apply. (Unfortunately our catalog / products are far too complicated for HubSpot).

 

Problem 2: File Properties that you cannot use within HubSpot.

It appears the file property field can only be populated with an actual file if it is submitted through a front-end form. Although I’m sure this was done to create more functionality for the front end form experience, it leaves the back end wanting. In the backend, this field just appears as an open text box. The field can be used in snippets, but it will just place the open text information in.

 

For our use, we would love to create custom properties on the ticket called “Art Proof” and “Sales Order”.

 

On the left hand side of the ticket, the ticket property would be displayed with a button called “upload”.

 

Upload.png

 

When the file is uploaded a few things would happen:

(1) The property field would be updated with the name of the file "file-name.png"

(2) The file would be added to the attachment section

(3) The file in the attachment section would show a tag referring to the field in which it is associated (see screenshots)

 

Note - I just did "---- sales order" cause I didn't want to code up an actual button. I just wanted to show placement and property name.Note - I just did "---- sales order" cause I didn't want to code up an actual button. I just wanted to show placement and property name.

*Note - I just did "---- sales order" cause I didn't want to code up an actual button. I just wanted to show placement and property name. 

 

Then, if this property is referred to in Snippets / templates / etc, the file would be linked just like a normal document. The file name would appear with a hyperlink to view the file online.

 

Alternatively, the CSR could attach the file using the workflow described above.

 

If / when a CSR needs to update the file in the future, they can just “X” the current file, upload the new one and the same thing would happen again. We could then view the details of that property to see if any additional information was updated and when.

 

RTikhonov
Member

I upvote the "Problem 2: File Properties that you cannot use within HubSpot." and its solution described by @nick_zinc.

 

I am using Hubspot CRM for managing HR records that contain CV files. A CV can either be uploaded via a form, added manually via Hubspot Contacts UI, or submitted via an email that lands in the conversation inbox. I would like all three ways to lead to the same result: a "file" property that can be viewed, deleted or re-added. It might make sense to integrate "file" properties with attahcments section as suggested by @nick_zinc:

- all files from "file" properties also appear in the attachments section

- existing attachments can be manually assigned to specific "file" properties instead of re-uploading the same file.

SComeau
Top Contributor

Yes! We really need this feature. We also need to be able to do a few other things with the Attachments. We are having an Admin nightmare trying to find a file when a Client has a large number of attachments. You can't organize them, change the file name, search through them or even see the full name of the file without hovering over it. It looks like there is plenty of space in the Attachments pane to increase the # of characters that are viewed. PLEASE work on revamping the attachemnts section of HubSpot.

JanetTheisen
Member

Further to this:

File uploads from forms auto-generating tickets allow for multiple files to be uploaded and be attached to the HubSpot-created ticket property File upload.  There is a further need for our company to have ticket properties for separate uploads of files to a ticket.  The  new properties have field type File.  They appear as entries for a form but when the ticket is auto-generated the only document attached to the ticket is the HubSpot-created property File upload.  The other documents appear in the conversation.

ChrisHowardLACE
Member

We are having a similar problem, but linked to recruitment. We have a form on our website to capture when people want to work for us and submit a CV. However when they fill in the HubSpot form, there was no way for the CV to  be stored in the attachments section. That meant that we had to ccreate a custom property which stores the CV, but it does so as a URL link rather than as an attachment. 

 

Fixing this issue would be great for us.