Change Lifecycle Stage back to previous stage through workflow

[JDoty]

Hello,

I accidentally updated over 100 contacts to the wrong Lifecycle Stage (customer) when uploading the list into Hubspot. These specific contacts shouldn't have updated Lifecycle Stage based on that upload. Can I use a workflow or some other option to change the Lifecycle Stage back to what it was before the list upload?

The closest I can think is to create a new list for "Lifecycle stage is any of Customer" AND "Became a customer date" is equal to [date] AND is a member of the list I uploaded with a few contacts in the Lifecycle Stage, then:

1. Create a workflow and setup the "Contact enrollment trigger" to members of that list.
2. In the workflow, "Set property value" = Set Contact Property Lifecycle stage to [a different stage]

I'm pretty sure that would change everyone's stage from Customer to non-customer, but it would only change to one specific stage instead of the previous stage.

[BvanderLaan]

@karstenkoehler 
Additional question to this:

If you clear the lifecycle stage property, the 'Became a customer date' will also be cleared I'd assume. That's a field (like other data fields regarding lifecycle stages) you cannot edit in workflows. So in the example given here, if you clear the property of the lifecycle stage (=Customer) then the date fields of all preceding lifecycle stages will be emptied, right? Do you have an idea how to cope with that? Would be a shame to lose that data.

[AWolgust]

You've been more cautious than me, that is indeed the case. I used a workflow to delete lifecycle stage of lost MQLs and switch them back to Leads, and doing so the "Became MQL date" was also erased. That was a super important data for us and I had to go through a really tedious process with tech support to revert this change, because as you mentionned it's not possible to edit this property.

[luke-moagency]

I came across this post while researching a blog post on the lifecycle stages for our agency blog. So many of our clients miss this, and it's not documented that much by HubSpot themselves!

1. The HubSpot system can only set a lifecycle stage forward. You can, however, set a lifecycle stage backwards manually. 

2. To set the lifecycle stage backwards using HubSpot's automation and tools, you need to clear the record's current lifecycle stage value first.

All that exists are some small notes in knowledge base articles here and here. Our new trainee strategists and all of our clients get wrong at some stage when working with lifecycle stages. 

Please, HubSpot, create a knowledge base article on this. However, Karsten's answer is spot on.

Here is the link to the blog on lifecycle stages if anyone is interested. 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @JDoty,

I'd recommend following the steps of this tutorial to revert the bulk change in Lifecycle stage.

Because contacts can't go back in Lifecycle stage, you'd have to clear the Lifecycle stage property values before step 3 at the latest. Only after emptying the field can it be set to an earlier Lifecycle stage than "Customer". You can clear the Lifecycle stage by bulk editing the contacts and choosing the blank option, or by workflow (action "Clear property value").

Best regards!

[JDoty]

This is excellent info and did exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much!