Updating Customer Contact Record Without Updating Salesforce

[DSaucier]

Hi all!

My company is new to HubSpot and I am looking to see if the community has any clever tricks to help me solve an issue.

Some context, in our Salesforce instance, we have a pretty unique data structure around our Customers. When they are converted to an Opportunity, a Contact and one-to-many Custom Object is created. The Custom Object will be the "primary record" through the customer's lifecycle and be updated consistently. This Custom Object has an Email field which is the email we provide them when they come onboard. This email field does not write back to the Contact record, nor does most of the information on the Custom Object.

We have set up this Custom Object in HubSpot so we can reference the data, but the issue is that we need to be able to communicate with the Custom Object Email field. First thought is obviously "Update the Email field on the Contact record"; the issue is that the Email field on the HubSpot Contact is synced to the Primary Email on the Salesforce Contact, and we are not allowed to update this field.

Any ideas on any workflows or anything that would allow us to reference the Custom Object Email field and send emails to it without updating the Contact record in Salesforce?

Thanks in advance 🙂

[DSaucier]

See reply below

[franksteiner79]

Hi @DSaucier 

I have basic knowledge of the HubSpot Salesforce Integration and would ask you to clarify a few things:

• The Salesforce Custom Object takes information from the Salesforce Contact and presents it "differently"? Is it showing/containing anything that isn't on the Salesforce Contact or Salesforce Account?
• Why is it relationship with a Contact one-to-many? Do you mean 1 SF contact has many SF custom objects?
• You say "we need to be able to communicate with the Custom Object Email field" - to what end? Without much context I would argue you sync your standard objects contact, company, deal between HubSpot and SFDC -> The SFDC Custom Object then does its thing -> and you mirror the back to custom object in HubSpot
• You ask if there is anything that "would allow us to reference the Custom Object Email field and send emails" - are you talking about emails in HubSpot? No, HubSpot sends emails to contacts only.

That is indeed a "pretty unique data structure". 😉

I am clearly missing context and nuansces but my initial reacting is - what the heck is this custom object for in SFDC and what is it doing being replicated in HubSpot.

Cheers

Frank

[DSaucier]

Thanks for the reply @franksteiner79, I will address you points as well as I can!

• The Salesforce Custom Object takes information from the Salesforce Contact and presents it "differently"? Is it showing/containing anything that isn't on the Salesforce Contact or Salesforce Account? The Custom Object in Salesforce does have some data from the Contact, but a majority of the data on the Custom Object is unique to the Custom Object and not on the Contact. Specifically the email field we are trying to reference.
• Why is it relationship with a Contact one-to-many? Do you mean 1 SF contact has many SF custom objects? Yes, in Salesforce it can be 1 Contact to many Custom Objects. This model was replicated in our HubSpot implementation as well.
• You say "we need to be able to communicate with the Custom Object Email field" - to what end? Without much context I would argue you sync your standard objects contact, company, deal between HubSpot and SFDC -> The SFDC Custom Object then does its thing -> and you mirror the back to custom object in HubSpot So the email address on the Custom Object would be used for operational notification, product updates, and marketing purposes. That is the current set up in HubSpot. All objects are synced and the required fields are mapped.
• You ask if there is anything that "would allow us to reference the Custom Object Email field and send emails" - are you talking about emails in HubSpot? No, HubSpot sends emails to contacts only.
  

Hopefully those answers help a little bit. Below I will outline a scenario that hopefully gives a bit more clarification.

• A lead comes in with email "David@hubspot.com". This lead converts to an Opportunity and works through the funnel. "David@hubspot.com" is the Default Email on the Lead and Contact record in Salesforce and in HubSpot.
• David becomes a customer and a Custom Object in Salesforce is created. We provide David a brand new email "David@newcompany.com" and this is on the "Custom Object Email" field. This email does not sync to the Contact record. The Custom Object is created in HubSpot and associated with the Contact record "David@hubspot.com"
• We need to send an email to "David@newcompany.com" but we cannot update the Email field on the HubSpot Contact Record because it will update it on the Salesforce Contact.

Thank you in advance!

[Ben_M · Accepted solution]

From having worked in Salesforce and Hubspot for many years, what you are describing could require some sort of custom connection between the platforms. Even Salesforce's own platform emails are only setup to send from the contact/lead objects and not custom objects as far as I am aware.

I'm not completely wrapping my head around how david@hubspot.com would become david@salesforce.com in your example of changing email addresses post closed won opp. Unless you are trying to mask emails or some other reason since Salesforce does not support multiple emails to a single record like Hubspot does. Is there a possibility that maybe a Salesforce change could be made that when the opp is closed won and this new email is created, that an extra contact record is created, also linked to that object, account and contact relationship. But in this instance, you assign a different record type ID to that copy. Hubspot can map the record type ID so it would know whether you are emailing to type A or B.

You would need more work to help to prevent duplicate marketing contacts/etc. But that is where my mind would think to build this out.