Update existing Contacts/Companies through forms

[AFlury]

When using forms it is possible to add both fields from contacts as well as companies. When a completely new user submits the form obviously a new contact and company will be created. 

However we realized that if a user submits data, that is already in the CRM then potentially an existing contact and/or company gets updated. This matching logic to existing contacts/companies seems to be somewhat un-documented. it seems the logic is as follows: 

1. If the form is submitted by specifying a know hubspotutk (Hubspot cookie value), then a potential existing contact is selected by hubspotutk.
   1. The existing contact will be updated with the information provided through the form (e.g. firstname, lastname, etc.)
   2. In case the form is submitted with a different Email address than initially, the new Email address will be added to the contact.
2. In case no contact was found, Email address is used to find a potential existing client and again the contact is updated with provided information.

In addition to the updates of a potential existing contact, company will get updated as well:

1. If the contact exists (and was associated with a company), the company information will get updated as well (e.g. company name, domain, phone, etc.)
2. If the contact did not exist previously, Hubspot looks for a company with a domain name (e.g. bloomberg.com) equal to the domain part of the Email address (e.g. john.doe@bloomberg.com). If such a company can be found the company information will be updated as well (e.g. name, domain, phone, etc.)
3. In case no company can be found by domain name, a new company is created with provided information (e.g. name, phone, etc.). For new companies the domain name will be derived from the specified Email address, except for common domain names like @gmail.com, @yahoo.com.

Could someone please confirm the following matching logic is correct?

[AFlury]

Thank you @karstenkoehler 

What happens if there are multiple companies with the same domain name (company point 2 above). To which company will the newly created contract be assigned? Was not able to figure that one out yet.

One issue I see with thin automated mapping to companies is the following. Let's say we have Bloomberg as a company in Hubspot and already have quite a few contacts associated with Bloomberg. Now a new visitor working at Bloomberg fills in the form. A new contact will be created for him, and his contact will be associated with Bloomberg automatically. Now, any company field in the form he fills in will automatically overwrite any existing data on the company object. This sounds a little bit dangerous to me to be honest.

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @AFlury,

Good write-up!

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@AFlury wrote:

1. If the form is submitted by specifying a know hubspotutk (Hubspot cookie value), then a potential existing contact is selected by hubspotutk.
   1. The existing contact will be updated with the information provided through the form (e.g. firstname, lastname, etc.)
   2. In case the form is submitted with a different Email address than initially, the new Email address will be added to the contact.

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This depends on the forms settings, specifically the option "Always create contact for new email address", see here.

The rest should be correct! I test in my own portal and can confirm company points 1-3, too.

Best regards

[AFlury]

Thank you @karstenkoehler let's see if someone can confirm points 1 to 3 regarding companies as well.

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @AFlury,

For some reason my answer didn't save correctly. I have tested in my own portal to confirm the company points, too.

Cheers