Set contact owner with hidden field on form?

[asgJim]

We're running into an issue with trying to use workflows to set contact owner.  The problem is, our contacts are syncing to salesforce BEFORE the workflows run.  The workflows set the contact owner in hubspot.  So, the contact is being created in salesforce as a lead and since there is NO owner, I'm being assigned as the owner.  This is syncing back to hubspot.  The workflow eventually runs and sets the right owner.  However, due to some restrictions we have in salesforce, hubspot is not able to update the owner in salesforce at that point.

My work around was going to be to set a hidden field value on the form and set that contact owner that way.  It seems like that field isn't available on the form unless I'm just missing it.  Any ideas on how we can set the owner immediately after someone fills out a form?  Thanks in advance.  

[Phil_Vallender · Accepted solution]

Hi there, 

You are right, the HubSpot Owner field is a locked HubSpot property and the option to use it in forms is permanently turned off - you can check this in the contact settings. 

What you can do instead is use the Salesforce inclusion list feature of the integration. 

You can create a smart list for which one of the criteria can be 'HubSpot Owner is known'. This way, contacts will only join the list after your owner assignment workflow has run and contacts will only sync to Salesforce when the owner has been set. 

Hope that helps.

[asgJim]

Phil,

Thanks for the suggestion about using an inclusion list.  We currently have one.  My question is, if we change the criteria to what you suggested, will that affect the current list of contacts from syncing? 
Also, do I just modify the current inclusion list or create a new one?  Thanks in advance

[Phil_Vallender]

Hi, 

Yes, any changes you make to the inclusion list will affect which contacts that sync. If contacts no longer meet the criteria, they will stop syncing in the future. 

I'm hoping that assigning the owner is something you do for every contact, in which case adding this 'is known' criteria is really just adding a delay until they will be synced. If not, you might have to build a more elaborate version, but the same principle should work. 

You can edit the existing or create a new inclusion list - letting you 'backup' the current one - but you can only have one inclusion list active at any time. 

Cheers, Phil.

[bradmin]

Hi, @asgJim. Are the form submissions representing unsynced or yet-to-be-synced contacts in HubSpot, who have never talked to Salesforce? 

If so, trying to set a Salesforce owner from HubSpot before the initial sync won't be successful. If the record creates a net-new lead in Salesforce, the lead assignment logic in Salesforce always applies. If the form submission is recorded on a HubSpot contact that's already syncing with a Salesforce record, then the hidden owner field on your form would effectively change owners in HubSpot and Salesforce. 

If you're using a form which might represent the creation of net-new leads in Salesforce, you can still use hidden form fields to accomplish your goal, but not as directly as setting the HubSpot Owner property. You could set hidden form fields which, when accounted for in your lead assignment rule criteria in Salesforce, would set the desired lead in Salesforce when created from the sync. In order to make this work, you'd also need a HubSpot workflow which sets the desired owner from those form submissions, but only if they'd synced to Salesforce previously. 

[asgJim]

@bradmin

Yes, the leads are created from hubspot forms and going directly into hubspot.  If you map the hubspot owner to the salesforce lead owner, it does work.  Our issue was the worfklows weren't firing in time to set the lead owner, so it was going into salesforce with no owner and being assigned an owner by salesforce.

We fixed by not adding any contact to the sf inclusion list until it has an owner.  Everything is working as epxcted now.

[AlishaV]

I am having a similar issue as it relates to being able to having a user field in a from for a form submittor to be able to select a user to whom their entry should be assigned. I don't see any way to accomplish this other than to create dozens of additional workflows such that, if drop down "Robbie" is selected on user selection field (enrollment criteria), then set Hubspot owner property to "Robbie." I am not looking forward to creating and maintaining all of these workflows... 

[jrwthetreegroup]

Yes please. It's a property in the portal and seems strange why we can't add it in the Forms tool as a simple way to assign leads.

[lh]

YES PLEASE! Actually what would be even better is to be able to use the Hubspot Team field in forms, but the Contact Owner would work. Having the option to use both would be ideal.