Automatic Phone Number Formatting

[usmiclow]

When a phone number field has data put into it, it is up to the User to format it the way they deem appropriate. That is not the most user-friendly or data-centric approach. This is a good way to allow users to enter incorrect or sloppy data and cause possibly difficulty with search results while also affecting adoption. There are many other CRM platforms out there (At least 12 I could find) which will automatically format a telephone number.   Hubspot does not currently have this basic feature.

Suggested solution: When a telephone number is typed into a phone field, the number should automatically format to the Contact's standardized country format with a country code in front of it.  So, for US, +1 (555) 555-5555, for UK, +44 5555 555555, etc.  Some countries do not have standardized formats, but widely accepted formats, or multiple formats depending on when the phone number was assigned. I do not know of an easy solution for that, but choosing one format or at the minimum, placing the correct country code in front of the numbers according to the selected country on the Contact or Company would be helpful. Possibly a non-editable drop-down with country abbreviation and code which auto-fills but is still selectable in case of error. This could also help with the calling feature if calling out of the country.

An admin User should be able to toggle in settings whether or not the field will auto format with country code. At the bare minimum, as a US based company, it should at least format any 10 digit numbers into standard US format (555) 555-5555.

[usmiclow]

Hello All,

We are excited to announce that phone number formatting is now live to all users. 

 

How does it work?

Phone numbers can now be formatted automatically. Standard formatting and validation will be applied to phone numbers based on country code.

Value formatting:

For phone numbers values entered via CSV import or API use the following format: '+18779290687 ext123'

• This functionality applies to the default Phone Number, and Mobile Phone number properties.
• To use it, select a country code and enter the phone number in digits only. Formatting will be applied automatically.
• Existing phone numbers in your CRM that have a country code and are valid will be formatted automatically.
• If you prefer to not use automatic formatting, you can click "remove number formatting" below the field. This will remove all formatting and allow you to enter any characters. To apply formatting to an unformatted number, click "apply number formatting" underneath the field.

[usmiclow]

Hello HubSpot community! 

We understand how important it is to have phone numbers stored in valid formats in the CRM. Since my last update in March 2020, we have renewed our focus to improving our calling specific functionality. We do not have a concrete timeline or details that we're comfortable committing to yet. However, I am moving this idea to the "in planning" stage to better reflect our commitment to this improvement, as we currently are researching and prioritizing the work required to validate proper formatting for numbers stored in the CRM. 

We'll continue to monitor the use cases and needs submitted on this thread and will post updates as we have them. Your patience and continued feedback is very much appreciated as we work towards delivering a solution! 

Thank you as always for your continued feedback and support, it helps us build a better product.

[usmiclow]

Hello HubSpot Community, 

Thank you as always for your continued feedback, it helps us build a great product.

We are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating our priorities and roadmap to deliver as much value to our customers as possible. The request to format and validate phone numbers is a good one, I can certainly see how this would deliver value in many different ways. Based on the comments and use cases you all have listed, we are reviewing this request and its feasibility among other priorities on our roadmap. At this time I don’t have any details around timing or delivery, but thanks to the comments and votes on this post we’re actively looking into a solution.

[usmiclow]

Hi all! This idea is not marked as Delivered anymore. There was a misunderstanding a few months ago and I reopened it. We are definitely still working on a more holistic solution to this.

There is a bug with the timestamps of the pinned posts at the top of this thread that are making all my comments appear as if they just happened. Our community developers are aware of the issue. I apologize for any confusion this is causing! Please always reference the status at the top left of the main post for the most up to date info 🙂

[usmiclow]

Thank you all for your feedback! The first time we rolled this out, the changes did not not carry through the entire CRM as detailed in your comments. The team is now working on this and so I am putting this idea back to In Planning.

[usmiclow]

I'm pleased to announce that we have implemented automatic formatting for how phone numbers appear across the CRM, as well as a new "Show country code dropdown" configration option for phone fields in Forms! Any continuing inconsistencies should be brought to the attention of our Support team, and any other phone number related requests should be filed as new ideas. Thanks for your feedback!

[erikblues]

[doubble posted, ignore this]

[giordano_cassol]

+1

[andreifontana]

 +1

[BLESTER]

 I totally agree!  The phone number field currently allow people to put any kind of junk in there!  It should be a numeric field!

[CatherineA]

Love this idea! This would be really beneficial, especially for CRM integrations. 

[kalkman]

Type A personalities, like me, would really appreciate this update soon. Uniformity with data display is a good thing.

[RedTea]

HOW TO FORMAT PHONE NUMBERS WITH HUBSPOT & ZAPIER

After having the same problem for years, I finally found what I believe to be the best solution to this problem. It's pretty easy to do, but there are quite a few steps to get it done. 

1. Create an account at Zapier (basic accounts are free, pro accounts are cheap) if you don't already have one https://zapier.com
   
   
2. Once you're logged into Zapier, click on Make a Zap! at the top right corner of the page
   
   
   
3. Choose a trigger app by typing in Hubspot into the search field, and click on Hubspot from the results below the search box
   
   
   
4. Choose what is going to trigger the Zap to run by selecting "New Contact". This will cause this Zap to run every time a new contact is created
   
   
   
5. Connect your Hubspot account to Zapier. If you are currently logged into Hubspot, this should be a really easy process and then click Save + Continue after your Hubspot account is connected to Zapier. 
   
   
6. The next step allows you to choose what contact you want to test this Zap on which will be pulled directly from the last 3 contacts that have been created in Hubspot. Click on the arrow to the right of Contact A, search the term "Phone Number" to filter out the phone number field, and make sure the phone number that shows is improperly formatted. If you don't find a contact with a improperly formatted phone number, there will be nothing for this Zap to do. 
   
   If you are unable to find a contact that has an improperly formatted phone number, you can also keep clicking the "Get More Samples" button at the bottom of the page and it will pull more contacts in for you to choose. If after you pull in another 1 or 2 sets of cotacts, Zapier will stop pulling in existing contacts from Hubspot and instead ask you to create a new contact in Hubspot and it will pull that contact in. In that case, just simply create a new contact in Hubspot with an improperly formatted phone number and it will be pulled into Zapier pretty quickly. 
   
   Once you have selected the right contact, click on Continue.
   
   
   
   
7. Now that you have pulled in a contact from Hubspot, you need to tell Zapier what to do with it. In this case, we want to run a tool that Zapier created recently called "Formatter". To do that, click on "Add A Step" from the left hand sidebar.
   
   
   
8. A new panel will expand in that same left hand side bar with the options you can choose at this point. You want to choose the option called "Formatter"
   
   
   
9. Next you have to tell Formatter what you want it to do. In this case, we want to format phone numbers, so choose the "Numbers" option and click Save + Continue
   
   
   
10. Next you'll tell Formatter what type of number you want to format, which will be phone numbers
    
    
    
11. Now you have to tell Formatter which field from Hubspot you want to format, in our case, we want to format the field so click the drop down arrow, search "Phone Number" in the search box, and then click on Phone Number from the drop down
    
    
    
12. Next you'll tell Formatter how you want the phone number formatted, in my case I want nationally formatted numbers so click that option and click continue
    
    
    
13. Now Zapier is going to ask you if you want to send a test contact to Hubspot, and in this case it's too early to do that, so you can just click Skip Test & then click Finish.
    
    
    
14. Ok, we're almost done! All that's left to do is to send the properly formatted phone number back to Hubspot. This is one of the most important steps. If you don't do this last step your phone number won't be updated in Hubspot, which is the only reason that we're even doing this. 
    
    
    
15. So once again, click on "Add a Step" from the left hand side bar
    
    
    
16. Now select "Action/Search"
    
    
    
17. Once again, search "Hubspot"
    
    
    
18. Next tell Zapier what you want this step to do. In our case we want it to create or update contact so choose that option and then click "Save + Continue"
    
    
    
19. The next step is just going to verify that your Hubspot account is connected to Zapier, which it is, so you can just click on Save  + Continue
    
    
20. Since Hubspot uses the email address field as the unique identifier for all contacts, you have to connect the email field in Hubspot to this Zap. Don't worry, this won't change anything on the email field in Hubspot at all. 
    
    
    
21. Finally, we have to connect the newly formatted phone number in Zapier to the right phone number field in Hubspot. This step is similar to the one above. Search the page for "Phone Number" by simply clicking CTRL + F on your keyboard, type in "phone number" and you should be instantly taken to the phone number field on the page. Then drop down the field options, click on "Numbers" and select "Phone Number" and then "Continue"
    
    
    
22. The last step is just to test that everything is working. So as long as you chose a contact in the begining of this tutorial that had an improperly formatted number, when you send a test back to Hubspot you'll see the phone number get updated in Hubspot. So click on "Send Test to Hubspot".
    
    
23. Finally all you have to do is click on Finish and then name the Zap, and turn it on. 
    

CONGRATULAIONS!!!! You're all done finally. 

I hope I didn't miss any important steps and this helps you as much as it has helped me. 

Some more things to consider:

• There are more things that you can format with Zapier's "Formatter" tool. For example, I have another Zap running that converts any contacts first or last name from all capps to capitalized. Like MICKEY MOUSE to Mickey Mouse.
  
  
• If you have a free Zapier account, the Zap will only run every 15 minutes. If you pay for an account, it will run every 5 minutes. The way that works is that the Zap runs every 5 minutes regardless of what time the new contact came into Zapier. For example, let's say the Zap runs at 1:00 pm, 1:05 pm, 1:10 pm etc. Any contact that comes into the system at 1:01 pm won't be updated for 4 minutes until 1:05 pm, but a contact that comes into the system at 1:04 pm would be updated in 1 minute.  But, having said all that, it always seems to me that the Zap runs much faster than that. 

If you have any questions, or if I have missed any major steps please let me know and I will do my best to update this tutorial. 

Just fair warning, my job keeps me beyond busy so it may take me a long time before I am able to reply. 

Good luck!!!

[hroberts]

I'm pleased to announce that we have implemented automatic formatting for how phone numbers appear across the CRM, as well as a new "Show country code dropdown" configration option for phone fields in Forms! Any continuing inconsistencies should be brought to the attention of our Support team, and any other phone number related requests should be filed as new ideas. Thanks for your feedback!

[Wholesale-Solar]

@hroberts 

Good to see some progress on this.

Though the delivered solution does not solve the problem for the original idea.

We still do not have a way to format phone numbers that are entered internally into hubspot.

[usmiclow]

Hi @hroberts 
Although it is nice that you added that functionality on the front end, it does NOT resolve the current issue/problem posted originally. This Idea has NOT BEEN DELIVERED, so please edit your commeny stating "Any continuing inconsistencies should be brought to the attention of our Support team, and any other phone number related requests should be filed as new ideas.", Please. 

This Idea wholly focuses around being able to provide a clean database for users, not customers.  So please change this Idea from Delivered because saying it is, is wholly untrue. Thank you.

Respectfully,

Mx.Lowe

[erikblues]

I agree. It is nice to see some updates on this, but what we really need is a way to automatically format all phone numbers in hubspot for every country. This is one of our main issues and every CRM user in the world has this problem. I don't understand why hubspot doesn't give this more attention?

[erikblues]

Hey guys, we are looking for a similar sollution for Countries and States in Addresses in hubspot.

I'd like to share it here and see if we get some votes.

Global Solution for Addresses: Country + State 

I know this is not completely related, but I thought people looking for consistent number formatting would also be interested in consistent address formatting.

[JasonGilkes]

Totally agree with you. Thanks for taking the time to tell HubSpot how they can get better, if that's even possible. But if they execute this - game onnnnn to all us marketing folk. 🙂 ❤️ 

[JasonGilkes]

Totally agree everyone tooting the horn here. Thanks for taking the time to tell HubSpot how they can get better everybody. This really needs to be looked at. I'm still using microsoft excel spreadsheets to format things. It's way too outdated. HubSpot has formatting on their forms, but we don't get the same functions on ours as paid users.

[M_Lee]

Totally agree - set formatting options are needed!

[VagaeNatus]

@hroberts the solution delivered does not fix the problem of this idea, this feature IS NOT delivered. Can you please change the status?

When the community of users create feature request and takes the time to upvote them, it would be great to not have Hubspot throwing everything away by marking things done while they are not. Is this delivered, is this not? 

It's clearly not, below is side by side comparison of the original problem and current behavior of Hubspot.

[Wholesale-Solar]

@VagaeNatus I'm in agreement with you. This idea is not delivered.

[VagaeNatus]

@hroberts can we please have an answer here?

[hroberts]

Thank you all for your feedback! The first time we rolled this out, the changes did not not carry through the entire CRM as detailed in your comments. The team is now working on this and so I am putting this idea back to In Planning.

[Anonymous]

Can a HubSpot resource please provide an update on this two-year-old request? It is beyond me that properties do not have formatting options. Perhaps take a look at Excel for date, number, phone, state, etc. formats and include a drop-down for none or a chosen pre-defined format?