HubSpot Ideas

Clarara_T

Update Date Properties Dynamically Through Workflow

The Deal Workflow currently only has two ways to update a Date Property:

  • Static Date - a Fixed Date
  • Date of Step - Date when the action was executed

Ask: To be able to update Deal Date properties dynamically in a Workflow, where the close date, start date & end date of a deal will automatically update when a date is in the past. For instance, update a Deal Date property to "20 days from today's date" or "last wednesdays in the month". 
These dates should be set immediately and not on the date the action is executed.

 

Example:
Today is 5/16. And there is an active deal with a close date of 5/15, a start date of 6/1 and an end date of 10/1, dates should be  dynamically and immediately updated to 1-month out from those original dates through the Workflow. So now close date is now 6/15, start date is 7/1, and end date is 11/1.

25 Replies
dhayward
Participant

There have been several times where our team wanted to do this exact thing.  The other way we considered getting around it was to use "increase contact property value" to increase the date by a certain amount of time, but unfortunately this didn't work either.

SlimBob
Participant

My use case for this was specific to the close date on open deals being a date in the past.


Our solution, for now, was to say if the deal is open and the close date is more than 0 days ago, set the close date to the date of step.

 

This means the close dates on our deals get updated each day automatically.

 

This solution won't work for all use cases, but if you simply want to avoid having open deals with close dates in the past, this works.

AVChrista
Contributor | Elite Partner

My use case would be to have the Close Date update to 60 days out once the deal hits a certain deal stage. 

arecuk
Participant

Basically, I'd like to automatically update the Closing date of a Deal, based on Stage. For example, when the Stage is set as Appointment scheduled, the Closing date shall be set automatically as to +12 months. When the Stage becomes Evaluating, then the Closing date shall update as of +2 months from the moment the deal enters that stage. This could be achievable with workflows. Currently, within workflows, we can only set date properties to be a Static date, or the Date of step., which is not enough.

JMcCarthy
Member

We would love this. As a way to project revenue, we'd like to have an 'estimated delivery date' property automatically update to 30 days from the close date from when a deal is moved to closed-won.

jhoke722
Member

This would be great for us as well. In addition to the use cases outlined previously, we would like to be able to set a specific date property in a workflow to 7 days from step date. We are offering a signing bonus that expires 7 days from the time a specific action happens. 

JonMartinCo
Member | Elite Partner

I'll chime in here with another use case for this. My client sells annual agreements. We have a specific field for the Effective Date or Start Date. When a deal is won, we take all of the relevant fields (qty, seat pricing etc) and auto create a new deal. However, we need to set the effective date 12 months from the previous deal effective date. Currently I have a workaround where I create the new deal with the effective date of the old deal, then pull the effective date into zapier and use the Zapier Date/Time and Add/Subtract time functionality to advance the date 12 months. It works, but pulling it in to Zapier is frustrating, and requires a zapier professional subscription for the multi-step process.

LKorslund
Participant

Yes, we want to be able to set certain dates automatically based on formulas (set close dates 9 months from deal creation) for example. Salesforce allows you to use simple formulas - why isn't that option available in Hubspot?

vanessahunt
Top Contributor | Platinum Partner

I'm surprised this is not available right now! I would simply like to default the Close Date of a Deal to 60 days from the Creation Date of the Deal using the Workflow, for one of my clients.

 

Clearly would be very handy to increase/decrease Dates for several use cases.

karlevans
Participant

We also have a need for this. Our use case is to automatically set an estimated close date, based on the company / deal size (i.e. large deals 90 days / smaller deals 60 days), so being able to update a Deal Date property to "x number" of days from today's date (or another date property) would be really helpul!

SKumpe1
HubSpot Employee

Support here - a customer requested this feature and also wanted to mention that it would be a good idea to have the ability to see if two date properties are equal to eachother

RWalter
Member

Just asked about this.  I have a need to adjust the close date automatically X days prior to another date the Sales Rep enters.  And if the date is empty, with logic to adjust the close date to the Sales Reps average days to close in the future. (So anotherdate - X or today()+ X).  Super useful to have and other CRMs have it out of the box.

HeidiHolman
Participant

It would be great to have some date logic that projects our go-live dates 45-60 days out from the close date. I am still trying to find a workaround.

AVChrista
Contributor | Elite Partner

Hey, it is over a year later and my use case of having the Close Date update to 60 days out once the deal hits a certain deal stage is still needed.

JamesEdmondson
Member

We have multiple needs for this type of dynamic date setting that require us to export data to external systems to get anything close to what we want. In general, this feature of setting a date plus an offset (days/months/years), is required for automated followups or reminders to sales people of almost any type. Let me walk through some examples in my own company of features that have been requested by sales, operations, etc. but we have to create external systems or even worse manual systems to do this, even though the data is in Hubspot.

 

Follow Up Deal Reminder Example:

 

Each deal in our company has a follow up servicing deal that needs to be created 2-3 years after the initial work is started/finished (not closed). Essentially, the product we install needs a servicing to make sure it stays usable every 2-3 years. The same can be true of most types of products meant to last for 10+ years. Without automation, a customer rep must keep track of hundreds or potentially thousands of legacy deals and remind themselves in 3 years (since the installation or the last servicing date) via calendars or something else to reengage the client and remind them of a warranty/servicing requirement. If the customer rep leaves, then anyone who comes on board to take over the accounts must somehow integrate their calendar reminders for each customer deal.

 

 

 

 

MeganLegge
HubSpot Product Team

Hi everyone,

 

Thank you for your comments and feedback on this idea. My name is Megan and I am a product manager for the workflows tool at HubSpot.  Last year the workflows team launched a Format Data action for Operations Hub Professional. This action supports this use case of dynamically updating date property values, by adding time to a date property value. Here's an example:

 

Format data action setting a renewal date, 180 after the deal's close dateFormat data action setting a renewal date, 180 after the deal's close date

 

You can learn more about the Format Data action in this KB Doc. If you aren't yet using Operations Hub Pro and want to give it a trial, you can find more info here.

 

Some of the comments seem a little different than the original post, so I also want to flag this thread to you, about date property centered delays, which is a feature currently under development with my team, follow along there for updates: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Delay-until-Date-amp-Time-Workflow-Action/idc-p/55925.... These date delays will be available to all Pro and Ent workflow customers in Marketing, Sales, Service, and Operations. 

 

Best,

Megan

BZiegler
Participant
Hi Megan,

Can someone reach out to me regarding this. I'm not sure if we have access
to this feature or not and it was a really needed item for us. I'd like
someone to show it to me and see if we have the ability to currently use
it.
Thanks.
AVChrista
Contributor | Elite Partner

@BZiegler You need to have Operations Hub Pro to do this. Sadly, neither my company nor any of my clients have this so this feature is useless to me for now. But I am glad that it is an option...it is just an expensive option to have! So check to see if you have Ops Hub Pro—if you don't, then this feature will also not be available to you.

BZiegler
Participant
Thank you for the heads up AVChrista
RBlonk
Participant

Why does this require another upgrade, seems like a basic feature....