Issue with Workflows and the "Atleast one associated deal..." criteria..

[foggypalms]

I am having a similar issue: I would like to setup a workflow to duplicate a deal from one pipeline to another (in reality, create a new deal in the other pipeline and copy over the applicable properties) IF a condition is met AND a deal associated to the same contact doesn't already exist in the other pipeline.

For example, once Deal A (which is associated with Contact John Smith) in Pipeline 1 is has Property X known, AND John Smith does not already have another deal in Pipeline 2, then create Deal A' (copying over properties from Deal A) in Pipeline 2.

Using the Pipeline Automation doesn't really work because Property X typically becomes known once Deal A is in Closed Won - and you cannot set additional re-enrollment criterea in a Pipeline Automation workflows. So when the deal is in Closed Won, and Property X becomes known later, the deal is not re-enrolled in that pipeline automation workflow to create Deal A'.

Also, creating a Contact-based workflow from scratch causes issues because if I want to exclude Contacts who are associated to deals in Pipeline 2, the enrollment trigger filter for "Pipeline is none of Pipeline 2" comes along with "At least one associated Deal has" so HubSpot sees that one associated deal is in Pipeline 1 (i.e. is not in Pipeline 2), so that contact & deal would meet the enrollment criterea regardless if there is another deal in Pipeline 2 associated to the same contact.

Any guidance will be much appreciated.

[jolle · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the mention, @kvlschaefer! 

And this is a really cool use case, @foggypalms! 

It sounds like the contact record is the main bottleneck here due to the "at least one associated deal" logic. I have a potential one-time solution, though multiple instances of Deal A being recreated as Deal A' would be tricky. Here's what I'm thinking:

1. You create a workflow that updates a custom contact property when the contact is associated with a deal in Pipeline 2 (i.e., set "Has Deal in Pipeline 2" to "Yes" or increase "Number of Deals in Pipeline 2" by 1). That won't necessarily tell us which Pipeline 2 deal is associated with the contact, but it will tell us whether or not a deal in Pipeline 2 for that contact already exists.

2. You update the deal workflow enrollment criteria so that the deal will enroll when Property X is known and any associated contact does not have a known value for "Has Deal in Pipeline 2" / "Number of Deals in Pipeline 2." 

3. You should be able to build out the Pipeline 2 deal creation and property copying steps (be sure to check the association box to associate any contacts associated with the enrolled Pipeline 1 deal to the new Pipeline 2 deal). 

I believe that would get the job done with some extra workflow steps! If there are multiple contacts associated to the deal or if you'd need the deal recreation workflow to run for multiple deals for a single contact, you'd probably need some additional workarounds (let me know if that's the case!).

One last thought (kinda tedious) — you could potentially operate pretty much entirely out of the contact record. Here's how that could look:

1. You create the custom property and workflow from the last step 1 ("Has Deal in Pipeline 2" / "Number of Deals in Pipeline 2")

2. You create a workflow that will copy all of the key data points from a deal with Property X known into the contact record. So the enrollment trigger would be "At least one associated deal has Pipeline 1 and a known Property X and [Pipeline 2 contact property] is unknown." From there, you would mirror the deal properties within the contact record (probably in their own group to keep things as clean as possible) and set workflow steps to copy the info you need from the deal into the contact record.

3. You create a separate workflow (or tack it onto the end of the existing workflow) that creates the new deal by copying values from the contact into the new deal record.

Hopefully one of these workarounds will at least get you close to what you're trying to accomplish! Let me know if you have any success or run into any curveballs 🙂

Jacob

[foggypalms]

This is very helpful and thought-out. Thank you. I agree - it seems the main bottleneck is "at least one assocaited deal."

I think the custom property along the lines of "Has Deal in Pipeline 2" is the way the go. I'll give that a try.

I think the ability to change that "at least one associated deal" to match the enrollment options would be a big win for this use case and countless others, I am sure.

Thanks again.

[jolle]

No problem! Hope you're able to accomplish what you're after!

That "any associated deal" enrollment option is tricky for sure — anything you can do to build specificity is worth trying. If you're looking at a specific pipeline, add that into the criteria. If you're working with a property value that's filled in at a specific stage, add that into the criteria. Those "and" logic options can work some magic on filtering your deals!

Feel free to ping me here if you run into any trouble. Thanks!

[foggypalms]

Creating a property and workflow for "Has Deal in Pipeline 2" to "Yes"  seems easy enough, but how would you recommend building a workflow to increase "Number of Deals in Pipeline 2" by 1?
I was thinking of doing it as a deal-based workflow (for every deal in Pipeline 2, increase "Number of Deals in Pipeline 2" on the associated contact by 1), but I cannot use Incrase or decrease property value on an associated record, only the record in the workflow itself.

I don't see how to do this as a contact-based workflow in a way that will count the number of deals in Pipeline 2 and would trigger each time a new associated deal is created in that pipeline - if I allow re-enrollment, I'd end up with a runaway count to infinitey.

Do you have any further recommendations, @jolle ?

[kvlschaefer]

Hi @foggypalms,

I moved your comment to our product forums to make sure it gets seen by other HubSpot experts. Going forward, I'd recommend creating a new post to assure you get a timely reply, thank you! 

I would like to invite our subject matter experts to see if they have advice.

Hi @danmoyle, @Josh, @jolle - Do you have any workflow tips for @foggypalms?

Thank you!

Best,

Kristen