Exchange/Outlook integration for contacts and calendar
Sales people use Outlook, period. And because that's what they use, that's where the information should be at. Best way to achieve this would be via Exchange integration so that people would have access to the same information even on their mobile and wouldn't just be dependent on a single plugin.
We do have a closed beta right now specifically to allow exchange users to use Meetings. You can reach out to your customer success rep who can sign you up for the beta. This beta allows anyone with Exchange to use the Meetings app, which creates a booking page allowing contacts to book meetings directly on your calendar.
I decided not to update the status of this thread because this beta is only adding an integration for the Meetings app.
Thanks everyone for the interest in this! I'm sorry for not providing more details on the larger scope related to Some areas of this work have been completed and some are still in progress, I'll try and break this down based on the different ways HubSpot needs to connect with exchange:
Inbox connection:
Provide the abilty to connect your Exchange inbox with HubSpot. This allows you to use our CRM for emailing and use the Sequences tool in sales. Today, the only way to connect an Exchange inbox is through IMAP - which is an experience that we are improving to make it easier for Exchange users to connect their email. This is currently in a closed beta.
Meetings sync:
This would allow users to use the HubSpot Meetings scheduling tool with an Exchange email address. This is currently in a closed beta testing group.
I hope this is helpful! Please let me know if there are other questions or features related to syncing with Outlook. We may break each of these features into separate Ideas to help with tracking and understanding.
"We are currently working on a calendar and contact sync for Exchange/Outlook, please feel free to comment and share ideas and examples."
Andy,
I was VERY excited to finally get my IT team to purchase Office 365 until I found out we still have Exchange and we cannot use the last three tools in the Sales Pro suite.
Our organisation are also running Exchange hosted platform, and currently with around 20 paid users not able to take all benefit from HubSpot CRM (Sequence, Calendar, Tasks, Meetings) function/integration as it requires Gmail or Outlook 365. I agree and support this program and if there is beta/sign up available, let me know and happy to test this.
For our customers, lists integration into Outlook would be the killer feature, at least two organisations would jump in directly, rather than buying other customized platform.
We tried a workaround by enabling IMAP connection from our Exchange server, but unfortunately, HubSpot IMAP assumes that all platforms use the email address as the username in authentication purposes which is wrong as Exchange IMAP requires a format of "DOMAIN\username" as username instead of email address.
@AndyPitre, do you know when we can get exchange - hubspot working in order? otherwise, can a quick fix be implemented for IMAP to support Domain\username as the alternate username for Exchange based organisations?
@BeccaArmistead, thanks yes glad to see they have added improvement there and yes i can confirm this time IMAP can connect to my account in hosted Exchange server.
However, I just did some testings but the email sync doesnt seems to be working? Here to share some testings and i copy @ssumanth (i hope this is you Sistla) so you are aware on this case as well. :
Test 1: send email from outlook to a contact.
Expected result: Email logged in contact timeline without the need to use outlook addins.
Actual Result: No email showing in timeline.
Test2: Retry Test 1, change primary SMTP match HubSpot login username email (as this is usually the problem for outlook addins).
Expected Result: same as Test 1.
Actual Result: not working, same as Test 1.
Test 3: From contact page in HubSpot, use HubSpot Email tab, send email to contact.
Expected result: Timeline email added. The very same email also show up in Outlook under sent item.
Actual Result: Timeline email added, however email is not in sync/not showing in outlook sent item.
Test 4: Contact email me directly.
Expected result: Email from contact arrive in my outlook inbox and show up in contact timeline.
Actual result: Email arrived in my outlook inbox but missing in contact timeline.
I agree with many of the comments above, we use a hosted exchange account but meetings will not integrate, very disapointing as this was one of the sell point for using hubspot. Please get this working ASAP so we do need to use a third party.
"Sales people use Outlook, period. And because that's what they use, that's where the information should be at. Best way to achieve this would be via Exchange integration so that people would have access to the same information even on their mobile..." -AndyPitre
100 thumbs up!
We need a way to synch HubSpot Contacts to on-prem Exchange/Outlook, period.
The lack of a simple address book of contacts will severly limit HubSpot's usefulness.
This missing piece greatly prohibits us from using the Meetings feature, which would be great feature for our team to utilize. I see quite a few people asking for an update but it doesn't appear as if anyone has heard anything.
