Workflows is the most powerful and arguably most important tool in HubSpot. It'd be amazing if HubSpot can implement more advanced logic options and expand its abilities as in its current state is pretty limited and hasn't seen drastic/significant changes over the years.
As a heavy HubSpot and Workflows user, I'd love to see the following additions.
1) "Mini" if/then statements that allow the branch to check for a condition, and if it doesn't meet it then it goes back to the original branch. I don't know the specific name for this type of thing in programming terminology but here's an example. Let's say that in a branch, I want to check whether or not a field is blank. If it is blank, I want to fill it with something. If it's not, then it skips that action and continues onto the same branch. This isn't possible currently and I have to copy the entire branch into the second option which is just silly and creates a huge visual mess. In other words, we can build conditional logic that can go back to the original branch if needed.
2) Ability to run Companies or Deals objects through workflows. Currently, workflows are run with Contacts being the focal point. Yes you can change company properties and create new deals, but these must always be connected to a contact. Essentially you cannot run a Company through a workflow if there's no associated contact. And for deals, you can't even update anything after inception. This would be useful for SO many things it's ridiculous that HubSpot doesn't already support it.
3) Being able to automate Associations between deals and contacts, companies and contacts, and deals and companies, and any combination of these. I understand that HubSpot will create auto-associations but sometimes I'd like to create my own rules. In its current state sales reps have to do this MANUALLY which is insane when you're dealing with thousands of records.
4) Folders. Like really HubSpot? We get folders for Lists, file manager, LPs, etc. but no organization options for Workflows. This is such a basic feature that people shouldn't even be requesting. Some sort of organization feature for Workflows would be great.
5) Formulas functions. Sometimes I'd like to be able to sum up 2 different number fields and set the result to another different field. I'm not even asking for complex mathematical formulas (which would be nice to have) at this point. Just simple addition, substractions, division, multiplication functions would be really amazing to have and would open up a world of possibilities.
These are all of the features I would LOVE to see implemented in HubSpot. I honestly think it would improve the tool so much and give HubSpot a leg up against it's competitors and resolve so many frustrations that many enterprise-level customers have. Thank you for reading and Up-Voting this!!!
That's strange, it sounds like a bug then. What is preventing you from adding it from the Set Property action? Are you deleting the branch before attempting to add the Go To action? I just tested it and it works correctly but there may be something wrong with the workflow you're working on specifically so I'd like to dig deeper and find the solution:
Hi @JoseHan & all! A lot has changed since this was originally posted so I'd like to provide an update on each of the points raised.
1) "Mini" if/then statements that allow the branch to check for a condition, and if it doesn't meet it then it goes back to the original branch - As Zeke mentioned recently, the "Go To" action is a great option to reconnect branches and avoid duplicating efforts on additional branches. This is currently available in deal, company, ticket, and quote workflows and is in beta in contact workflows. To get access for your contact workflows, please submit this form to opt into the beta: https://forms.gle/RfWS2TkqSMzQ8iLP7
3) Being able to automate Associations between deals and contacts, companies and contacts, and deals and companies, and any combination of these - This particular request isn't something on the workflows team roadmap at this time, and this may be a feature that could be considered for implementation in various different parts of the tool. For example, there are a number of other Ideas Forum posts that request additional nuance to how our CRM automatic association settings work. The one linked below has the most traction, and I see other comments requesting the ability to choose which record fields drive automatic associations. I'd recommend anyone in this thread who is interesting in adding more support to requesting this type of functionality in the HubSpot system, upvote the idea and comment with your use case: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Automatically-associate-Contacts-with-Companies-based-on-Company/idi-p/12521/page/2#comments
Since the majority of these features are now live, I'm marking this thread as delivered Anyone interested in continuing the discussion on #3, please head over to the other linked ideas post. Thanks to everyone for their input and support on these features!
Hi @Melly2022! We are actually in the process of releasing an upgraded Workflows experience which would bring the "Go to action" to your contact workflows! While we won't have "mini if/then branches", it will allow you to reconnect branches. In the case described in bullet #1, you would be able to achieve it without duplicating logic by adding a Go to action from the "NO" branch back to the point you'd like to reconnect your workflow into on your "YES" branch.
#1 would be really useful. Right now we have a number of workflows that would be MUCH more simplified if the branches could re-join.
#5 - I could definitely see us using a concatenation formula. Our scoring model combines a field for behavior (1-4) with a field for fit (A-D) to make a "Combined Lead Score" (A1-D4). Right now, our workflow to populate "Combined Lead Score" is really wide (many if/then branches). If we had this feature, the whole workflow could be reduced to just one step.
what I would like is to DECREASE a contact value. E.g. if there are multiple values checked on a field, then to UNCHECK a value if certain conditions apply.
This workflows feature is great but sooooo frustrating because I can ALMOST do what I need. My sales team hate me because I cant do what they want with workflows.
@JosieSA That's a great idea too. Currently you can replace the entire field with new values but it'd be nice if you could choose specifically which value you want to remove from a multi-checkbox field. The same concept could also be applied for number fields letting you substract -1 or however many numbers and possibly for date fields too.
@JoseHan I totally agree with every single point you mention. I've tried Eloqua and it was horrible in many ways, but they had this really clever workflow builder where you could simply drag a line from an action to the next to dictate what would happen next. HubSpots linear workflows may be less likely to contain errors, but are quite limiting in that sense.
All good ideas, especially #1, which I have wanted for a while now.
If I may add one thing, it would be to add logic to rewrite/reformat text values in fields.
For example, I have a custom property called "Document downloaded" and a workflow that copies the value of "Recent Conversion" into "Document downloaded" when a contact submits the form used for document downloads. I thus have a record of which documents each contact has downloaded. The problem is that the value for "Recent Conversion" is in the format "[Page name]: [Form name]". I would like to use the "Document download" field as a smart token in automated emails, so I can email people after they have downloaded a document to say something like "Thank you for downloading [Document Name]." But because of the format of "Recent Conversion", it would come out as "Thank you for downloading [Document Name]: [Form Name]." If workflows had logic allowing users to rewrite text values, I could use that to remove everything from the colon onwards, and be able to send personalized emails automatically to people who download a document.
@iwanpriceevans Thanks for your comment. Your suggestion would be amazing because it would open up a world of possibilities. An alternative way of achieving the same would be to include "Document download" as a hidden field in the LP's form with the title of the document. Obviously this is a lot more work (and non-scalable) but it would remedy it for the time being. This would only work if you use a unique form for each document.
@Kayem68 I like your CSV idea but I suspect it would require a lot of development work, but once done would open up so many possibilities. For your second idea, I'm not exactly sure what it is. It'd be great if you can ellaborate!
Hi @JoseHan - This is a great post! If you are looking for more powerful workflows outside of HubSpot's native functionality you may want to check out Azuqua. With Azuqua you have the ability to perform if/else statements, boolean statements, continue-if statements, for-loops, etc.
With Azuqua you have the ability to build custom automation so being able to associate a company with a deal or a contact with a deal would be no problem.
Azuqua also allows you to store all your workflows in one location so you can stay organized or if you need to alter an existing one.
Workflow Types would also be nice. There are several instances where I need to be able to exclude contacts from certain types of workflows.Manually adding that suppression is time consuming.
Re: #1 - I've been able to do certain logic flows without duplication of branches, but it requires you to create a lot of different workflows and "daisy-chain" enrollment. This gets problematic when workflows finish at different times (so you need lots of delays built in). In other words: still very complicated.
I agree with the workflow idea. I need to be able to automate certain fields to pre-populate with certain information for our sales team. HubSpot is extremely expensive for very limited functionality. This feature would also be beneficial for marketing as well. We sometimes do local campaigns that involves a very specific search function but HubSpot doesn't allow us to filter by mile radius or search for multiple criteria under companies. Extremely frustrating. I'm constantly being told how bad HubSpot is due to the lack of functionality. We pay for Enterprise and to be honest we don't see much benefit.
@naomi_hyett To be fair, sometimes the limitation lies within the 3rd party integration, not with HubSpot. Once SFDC gets involved, there will most definitely be limitations. And if the feature would be strapped by what the 3rd party allows, would it even be a good feature to release? In those cases I get it.
One idea for you to handle mile radius lists is to build a list of postal codes within X mile radius and use that as filter criteria on your smart list.