File field type should function independently of a form
Hello Friends,
I bring to your attention the fact that the File field type only functions as an actual File upload field IF you use it on a form. Within the CRM, it functions as single-line text. This is a significant limitation.
Here are some challenges that it presents:
1. Cannot enforce business process - One should be able to require a file to be attached to move along in Deal or Ticket stages. This way you can ensure that a Deal or Ticket (or custom object) cannot progress to the next stage until the requisite Files are attached. Consider a BDR > AE handoff mid-funnel.
2. Cannot support an approval workflow - if the above were true, then a document could be uploaded and "submitted" for review within a pipeline, which could serve as an approval workflow. This request comes up often as other CRMs do this very well. Consider a Change Order approval process, or an Invoice Approval process being built directly in the CRM!
3. Poor documentation - A completed Deal or Ticket record should have all necessary documentation attached to it in an organized manner that is reportable. The Attachments association pane allows for attachments on records, but nothing of the above
I am really curious as to why this is not (yet) possible, but I believe that it would have a major positive impact on the user experience and allow HubSpot to stand up stronger against other CRMS where this is possible. I would welcome an opportunity to hop on a quick chat with a member of the product team to talk through this use case and demonstrate the value that this would bring to the CRM.
👋Hi everyone - our Support team is able to switch custom file properties' field type to from file to single-line text to make this transition easier. To do this, you can reach out to Support directly. While the changes we are releasing to custom file properties do not impact any existing property values (URL or text), switching the field type to single-line text via a request to Support can help if you would like to continue populating these properties with text or URL. Note that switching the field type means you wouldn't benefit from the enhancements we made to custom file properties.
We don't currently plan to enable selection of existing files from the HubSpot file manager for this feature, although we're certainly exploring this as an future enhancement. The reason behind this is to give admins a way to control user access to files on a per-property basis via field-level permissions, which is difficult to enforce the way the HubSpot file manager works today. This is why files uploaded to custom file properties are marked 'private' and not shareable externally.
Hi all! I'm Rachel from the HubSpot Product team. We've delivered improvements to custom file properties in the CRM that are in beta as of today. These improvements will allow you to upload files to custom file properties, enabling use cases such as requiring files to be attached when a deal is created (for example).
You can opt into the beta under Product Updates - "Improved file property experience in the CRM." Here's a quick demo of the functionality.
Great idea! Would help us as well, especially for approval workflows 🙂 It would also be great to see an integration with a solution like SharePoint. That's for us the main place for document storage.
Attachments are critical to our business. Documents work great as templates, but when revised and finalized per account, we would like to store attachments in specific properties because the attachments tool section is a hot mess. (It has 4 years of pulling in every attachment in threads).
However, having a connection between custom attachment fields and the attachment section would be phenomenal. especially if the exisitng attachments pulled in from email were options in the drop down sorted by most recent.
But of course step one is just allowing us to fill that property in by manually uploading the attachment.
fyi... there is also an issue here with using links to external spreadsheets / google drive folders. . . that's about 10 extra clicks for reps to go in and download those
Love this idea! We would even use it to upload a price list on a company record for our vendors, tax exemption certificates for customers, and even contracts that were generated in an outside system.
Currently, we're forced to throw a hyperlink to the file in dropbox/one drive or add the file within attatchments, which gets lost far too quickly.
We need the file upload property to function as such!
Curious about an update on this. This seems less of a feature request and more of a bug. Managing data consistently is part of what makes HubSpot a better choice for businesses.
Hi all! I'm Rachel from the HubSpot Product team. We've delivered improvements to custom file properties in the CRM that are in beta as of today. These improvements will allow you to upload files to custom file properties, enabling use cases such as requiring files to be attached when a deal is created (for example).
You can opt into the beta under Product Updates - "Improved file property experience in the CRM." Here's a quick demo of the functionality.
Love that this file storage is finally on its way. Question - will there be any type of 'revision history' for these file fields?
IE if I upload verision today and then 3 weeks from now I upload version 2, will I have visibility of the historical file? Or at least be able to see in the histor that a new file has been uploaded (prefereably documenting the old name and new name fo the files in some way)?
Any chance we can be able to set the files as public so they can be used in a non-internal context? We have the ability to power CMS pages from object records. It would be great if we could upload images/files to those records so they can be used on web pages. Right now files always upload as private and that cannot be changed.
Before this new function we had the files in Hubspot and in this type of properties we had it with an url.
It will be possible to change the url file to the file?, now we have to download the file with the url and then add it to the propierty, one by one, and it´s a big effort.
We opted into the beta but had to leave again as this broke some processes for us. If this is due to be rolled out in two weeks we won't have long to resolve.
Until now the Files property functioned similarly to a text field. We therefore uploaded files into logical folders on HubSpot files, and then copy/pasted the URLs into this field.
In the beta, we seem to be unable to
select existing files from HubSpot files
manage the files that get uploaded through this new system
(Additionally, our existing HubL code won't display images uploaded through the new system (as the URLs are used as 'img src's), but I appreciate this is likely a misuse on our part)
Are these features something the team have on their roadmap to look at? I don't believe we can simply change the existing property type from 'File' to 'Text', so might have to recreate and migrate some properties to escape this change, which would be a pity.
👋Hi everyone - our Support team is able to switch custom file properties' field type to from file to single-line text to make this transition easier. To do this, you can reach out to Support directly. While the changes we are releasing to custom file properties do not impact any existing property values (URL or text), switching the field type to single-line text via a request to Support can help if you would like to continue populating these properties with text or URL. Note that switching the field type means you wouldn't benefit from the enhancements we made to custom file properties.
We don't currently plan to enable selection of existing files from the HubSpot file manager for this feature, although we're certainly exploring this as an future enhancement. The reason behind this is to give admins a way to control user access to files on a per-property basis via field-level permissions, which is difficult to enforce the way the HubSpot file manager works today. This is why files uploaded to custom file properties are marked 'private' and not shareable externally.
"This is why files uploaded to custom file properties are marked 'private' and not shareable externally. "
this should be a setting on the property where the admin can control whether its public or private, forcing it the way you have is a headache for people previously using the property and having it just entirely changed isn't fun for existing users.
Echoing @averyb. Versioning is imperative. Further, being able to tell if someone deleted or modified information is key. Otherwise we are exposing vital company documents and documentation to unintended or intended (nefarious) deletion.
@rwebb1 Is there a way for customers to opt out of this feature? Improved file property experience in HubSpot's Smart CRM I had a customer open a support ticket and they prefer the single line text field type in the CRM for a file property so it can interact better with the files tool and URL. I did let them know I can look into changing that if it's not used on other assets, but they had deleted the property so waiting to hear back! Improved file property experience in HubSpot's Smart CRM
I think this is a great improvement but certainly empathize for cases where they prefer a link to the file in the files tool 🙂 Thank you!
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