Non-Public CRM Attachments

[BuddyCollins]

Feature for role: All Sales Team users of the CRM.
Goal: Store private company files, like contracts, without exposing them to the public.
Value: It will make HubSpot more convenient to the Sales Team as they can store sales-related documents on HubSpot instead of our Company intranet.
Examples: Yes, Salesforce and most CRMs have this feature.

Overview
In the HubSpot CRM, all File Attachments are stored in the CMS File System.

These files are stored in a PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE CDN--with a URL like http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/account-nummber/file-name.pdf

These files will be INDEXED by Google, which makes them searchable to the public.
That means that your competitors or someone malicious can search Google for interesting documents that you've uploaded to your CRM.

This is not a problem for documents meant to be accessible to the public. However, this is a BIG PROBLEM for documents, like Contracts, or private company memos NOT meant for the public's eyes.

HubSpot's suggested workarounds are not sufficient. Try explaining the following to the Sales Team: 1) You may use "Upload File" but 2) You MUST NOT use Add file -> Upload file (those 2 buttons are right next to each other). Oh, and 3) You can use Add File -> Upload a File -- but only if you place it in the correct folder and only if that folder has a Robots.txt file that is correctly configured.  If you place it in the wrong folder or someone deletes or misconfigures that robots.txt file, you are out of luck.

The CMS file system allows you to select from DropBox or Google Drive. However, instead of just inserting the link to DropBox or Google Drive, the CMS File System copies the file over to the CMS File System, making the file indexable by Google and searchable and accessible by the public.

Our company quickly came to the conclusion that if we wish to keep our PRIVATE COMPANY DOCUMENTS as PRIVATE, that we could not allow the Sales Team to use the HubSpot Attachments widget.

SUGGESTION:

Please provide an attachment system that is made to store and organize all attachments in a manner requiring authentication. This should be a separate workflow from storing attachments meant to be distributed to the public.

In addition to a CMS File System (meant for public distribution), we need a CRM File System meant for private company files--a systems that provide authentication at a minimum, and possibly authorization (permissions) somewhere down the road.

It would be helpful to have a CRM file widget that allows you to insert a link from DropBox, Google Drive or AWS WorkDocs--not copy the file, just provide the link. That way, the CRM users would have the ability to allow this 3rd party service to provide access control.

Lastly, we need a way to Turn OFF, or control access to the CMS File Widget. We don't want the website team to have access to it, but we don't want the Sales Team to have access to it.

[watanak]

Thank you for submitting your idea!

We currently do not publicly expose files that are exchanged in 1:1 communication, such as those files that are uploaded to HubSpot through email attachments.

We recently rolled out a feature that also enables you to specify the public visibility of the files, and search index crawling. Read more about this feature here.

[jbgt]

Hello,

Is it possible to manage this setting through the API? There is no mention of it in the docs, it would be very useful for us...

Thanks!

[jgalloway]

Hello @watanak,

Thanks for pointing out this was recently added. It does appear files uploaded via the attachment widgets are private by default, a big win.

That said, I feel that there is still a gap for files uploaded via API. If there was a way to set (or at least update) the file metadata to make them private that would be a big help too. I know the current guidance is to not upload any sensitive information to the file manager via API, but are there any plans to address this issue? Attaching docs with sensitive, or at least, confidential information via API seems like a reasonable use case.

[SGibson2]

I would appreciate some further clarification regarding the privacy status of attachments uploaded via the 'attachments' feature. There doesn't seem to be anywhere where we can review the privacy settings of these files.

I noticed that if you click the file, the file preview opens and the URL that it opens with only works if you are logged in. However, if you click the 'View' button on this screen, it opens in a new tab with a link that you can view even if you are logged out. I do notice though it has an expiry timestamp in the URL so guess this link only works for a short time period before it becomes invalid.

I realise that these generated URL's are heavily obfuscated, but it would be great to understand the privacy of these files and for how long these links remain active. 

[07391]

To echo SGibson2, does this stand true in 2023? I am told that attachments uploaded to a client's contact page (directly, not just via email) are, in fact, private by default and not publicly indexd. Any updates?