HubSpot Ideas

jloascend

Need Feature to Archive Inactive Contacts

There is no archive option for contacts at this time. If we would like to clean our database,  the only two options are to opt out or remove the contact from the portal.

 

Hubspot users would greatly appreciate the addition of a contact archive for invalid or inactive contacts. Our industry is highly mobile, people tend to change positions quite frequently and we need a way to keep the contact history while making sure that our email list is clean. 

 

Let Hubspot know what you think in the comments below!

19 Comentarios
Josh
Experto reconocido | Partner nivel Platinum
blarson_forrest
Participante

I agree with a feature to archive inactive contacts and would also like to be able to archive companies. After researching, sometimes a company is simply not a good fit for our products at all.

 

I save their information in a spreadsheet for future reference, but inside HubSpot would be better. Thank you!

HeyJoe
Miembro

It would be great to be able to Archive a Contact and remove them as a current contact for a business and/or deal.

 

I CONSTANTLY run into the issue where someone left the company and is no longer there.  I want to keep the info/notes and everything associated w/ that contact linked to the company or deal, but no need to have the contact show up in my contact list. It would be great to still be able to use that data in ongoing correspondence with the company or whomever took over.

 

This would also solve the issue of needing an email for a contact.  If that person is no longer there, you can't go into their contact and delete the email address.  HubSpot MAKES you include an email address for contacts.  So everytime I send an email I either get a bounce or out of office reply.

cknezevic
Miembro

Yes. 100% yes. This feature is heavily needed. Every time we need to clean out our database it is an excruciating process because we have so much history and information in our contact records that are connected to companies and deals and we do not want to lose that historical data.

 

With the ability to archive, we can begin to keep important information that is attached to, for example, a now ex-employee, to the respective deal or company so we still have that data to look back on as we progress relationships with our contacts. Currently, if I want to clean up my database of an ex-employee, we lose that valuable information for the sake of a "clean" database of emailable contacts. It would be very valuable to keep that ex-employee as an archived contact so that the information is there, but they do not appear in our actual database that we nuture and pay for.

 

Even an active/inactive switch could be good. Or a way to export all data from a contact we would like to delete into an archive company information section, where we could delete the contact record, but all of their historical data is stored within the company or deal they were associated with.

 

Thank you and I really hope this comes to fruition soon.

PeterC
Colaborador líder

I knew I'd read about this recently - and there is a tool to flag your contacts so they don't count when you get your next HubSpot renewal.  It's not quite an archive because they're all still in your account - so you could argue it's better than an archive.  See https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-contacts/anz

 

According to the article, you can have up to 1 million contacts 'for free' - and only pay for those you market to.

 

And on further reading... https://knowledge.hubspot.com/contacts/set-contacts-as-marketing the small print says "Please note: this functionality is currently available on a limited basis for test users in the ANZ region."  So either the document is out of date - or anyone who needs this functionality needs to move to New Zealand 😉

PeterC
Colaborador líder

Marketing contacts:  It looks like it's live for everyone now: https://www.hubspot.com/new

blarson_forrest
Participante

Wonderful!

 

I love this software!

 

Bonnie

CobiCollins
Miembro

A million times YES! To this idea request.  I have tried many things to solve for this exact problem and an "archive" or "inactivate" action for contacts would be great!  It would maintain communication strings and notes for the role/position but allow for two sets of company contacts, 1 active, 1 inactive.  Thanks @HeyJoe for sharing this idea.

rchiong
Miembro

Hard agree with this! This is exactly what we're looking for with my company as well.

callie
Colaborador

While "marketing contacts" is a great interim feature, I still would love to see archiving come through!

MFountain
Colaborador

Frustrating to find that it is still not possible to archive contacts. As well as simply archiving records it would be really useful if records could be automatically archived through a workflow when they meet criteria set by a business and subsequently be purged from the system once they hit the next set of rules, which would typically be a set period of time.

mirandm
Participante

Many arguments have already been given, but let me describe a real scenario of why this feature is needed:

A contact is leaving the company so I need to "remove" him from HubSpot, but I don't want the history to be lost. He has moved to another company. So any salesperson has a good chance to get in touch with him again in the new company because we have a common history. This situation is our daily business.

As of now, we introduced a new Lifecycle Stage called "Obsolete", which we use in our lists as a filter, but every time we look at the given company, such contacts are still there and look like active. Having the ability to archive the contact, keep the history, being able to just change his contact details and reactivate him and retain the history would be a big advantage.

MMacDonald73
Miembro

Completely agree this should be an option. Just because a contact is inactive, you might want to research the contacts where the contact landed and revisit them if they are at another company your company can service. Deleting them removes this option (out of sight out of mind) and leaving them creates confusion. 

DaveParry
Participante | Partner nivel Elite

+1

 

I have a client who insists that they must have this feature. According to them (and they are knowledgable in ISO27000 etc) it is a GDPR requirement to not delete clients without them requesting it as you have to preserve data in case they make a Subject Access Request.

 

We are using a clumsy work-around which involves a custom property of 'date deleted' and then filters on all relevant reports, views and lists. This is very clumsy and time consuming to set up. We really need an archivbe function for Contacts, just like you have for marketing emails etc.

Estado actualizado a: Idea Submitted
NicoleJ
Moderador de HubSpot

+1

Estado actualizado a: Idea Submitted
NicoleJ
Moderador de HubSpot

+1 Something that maybe makes certain functions greyed out so you can tell the contact isn't active anymore, but can still see vital information.

GPerhamMBA
Participante

+1

 

Archiving companies and contacts is a needed feature for my company as well, so that we can see the history of accounts that are no longer in business, etc. 

Jaakkonen
Miembro

A big +1! For our usage involving a lot of talk with talent acquisition teams and people rotating every 1-2 years most of our contacts go out-of-date really easily and currently we have to deal with this by filtering with last activity date

LON555
Miembro

Can't beleive that 6 years on from when this was suggested, it is still not a possibility. it seems like a no-brainer.