Salesforce Person Account Import

[asgJim]

We're a new hubspot subscriber trying to complete our integation by importing all of our salesforce data.  The problem is, we use person accounts and no one at hubspot support seems to be familiar with them.  

I'd ideally like to be able to use the built in salesforce import option where you can import everything without having to do salesforce export / hubspot import with csv files.  Does anyone know if this is supported or how the person accounts will show up in hubspot, if they show up at all?  

[nicolebrenner]

Hey @asgJim, welcome to the community! We'd love to help you out. 

I'm not sure if you've checked out our knowledgebase, but you may have found this article about Hubspot syncing to Person Accounts. It's a good resource, but what it doesn't really provide is specific information about how to get data from a Salesforce Person Account into your HubSpot account. I've put in a request to our Knowledge Team to get this updated. In the meantime, I've compliled some information below:

This challenge comes from the fact that by definition of a Salesforce Person Account, the records in that particular instance are a unique type, and aren't technically considered "contacts" in the way that our connector and Salesforce would define them.

Under the default settings, if you turn the sync on, the Persons in your Salesforce account will sync to HubSpot as Companies instead. In order to have theses Persons imported into HubSpot as Contacts, then you will have to turn off the CRM Sync for Salesforce Accounts and HubSpot Companies. This setting can be found under Integrations > Salesforce Settings. 

Adjusting this setting will allow you to Import these persons from Salesforce using the standard method and will mean you won't have to export a CSV from salesforce and import that file into HubSpot. 

Now, another thing you may want to consider (and this will vary depending on your particular sales process), is whether or not you want contacts created in HubSpot to sync over to Salesforce. 

If that is the case, in the Salesforce settings, you will want to ensure that they are being imported as leads, since contacts won't exist in a Person account. That setting will look like this: 

I hope this additional information helps you get sorted! Let me know if you have any additional follow questions about this process! 

Best, 

Nicole 

[asgJim]

@nicolebrenner, thank you! This is the most informative answer I've received from anyone at hubspot about person accounts.  I'm very familiar with the article you provided and you hit the nail on the head - it doesn't provide any information about getting person accounts into hubspot including best practices for person accounts (manually importing csv file vs using the integration import feature).  

I do have a few follow up questions.  I imported a test Lead into hubspot via csv file.  Then converted that lead in salesforce into a person account and opportunity.  In hubspot, there is still a contact and a new company record and deal record.  Is the contact record there because it's "left over" from the lead record?  I.E. Does hubspot only see person accounts as Companies?  Or, as both a contact and a company?

Also, just to clarify your instructions, you're saying if I disable salesforce accounts sync, run the Import from Salesforce, and chose the Everything option that it will import all my person accounts as contacts only (vs a contact and a related company)?  Additionally, if those person accounts have related opportunities, will hubspot automatically relate those as deals to the relevant contact in hubspot?  Lastly, should I turn the salesforce accounts sync back on after the import? 

We will be putting contacts from hubspot into salesforce as Leads.

Another questions I have that isn't related to person accounts; is it best practice to import absolutely everything into hubspot to have a complete copy of what's in salesforce and then segragate out the contacts we want to market to in hubspot?  E.G. we have a lot of dead / lost leads in salesforce that we won't be marketing to.  Is it best to import them anyways and put them in a list of "dead" based on their salesforce lead status.  Or, is it better to only bring it contacts and companies that we want to market to? 

Thanks in advance.  

[_Kevin · Accepted solution]

Hi @asgJim -- I work on the Salesforce connector at HubSpot, and I happened to notice your question. Firstly, I agree it's unclear and our documentation on Person Accounts need to be improved. We're working on that this week, and should have a new draft up sometime next week. In the meantime, I'm happy to help shed some light on the subject.

I imported a test Lead into hubspot via csv file.  Then converted that lead in salesforce into a person account and opportunity.  In hubspot, there is still a contact and a new company record and deal record.  Is the contact record there because it's "left over" from the lead record?  I.E. Does hubspot only see person accounts as Companies?  Or, as both a contact and a company?

 To answer your question directly, HubSpot 'sees' a person account as both a contact and a company. A person account in Salesforce is both a contact record and an account record with a particular record type ID that are displayed as one layout in Salesforce. This article does a good job explaining this nuance in depth, and demonstrates that a record is created on both the contact and the account object via SOQL.

Because a person account is a contact and an account, HubSpot will create a contact and a company. This is why @nicolebrenner advised enabling the account sync option from your Salesforce integration settings within HubSpot. 

Also, just to clarify your instructions, you're saying if I disable salesforce accounts sync, run the Import from Salesforce, and chose the Everything option that it will import all my person accounts as contacts only (vs a contact and a related company)?  Lastly, should I turn the salesforce accounts sync back on after the import? 

If you plan to sync person accounts, you should keep account sync enbabled at all times. There is no way to import person accounts 'as contacts only', becuase you'd really only be importing half of the information from Salesforce.

Additionally, if those person accounts have related opportunities, will hubspot automatically relate those as deals to the relevant contact in hubspot?

Yes.

In the HubSpot spirit of transparency, I'll be the first to admit that this can be confusing. We have a small number of customers using person accounts with HubSpot, but after understanding that person accounts are stored in the Salesforce data model as both a contact and an account, there are very few other issues.

Please let me know if you have other questions and I'll be happy to help.

Kevin Walsh

Product @ HubSpot

[asgJim]

I thought I would post an update that may help other person account users out with initial data import.  Working with our account manager, we used the built in import method and chose the everything option.  Our plan was to clean up the people we didn't want to market to after the fact in hubspot.

It worked MOSTLY as expected.  We had an issue where if the current person account started as a lead in our system and was converted in salesforce to a person account ( account and contact record ) it would assocaite the deal (opportunity) to both the contact and the company in hubspot.  However, if we only put the person account in as an account it created the contact and company in hubspot but only associated the deal to the company.  Our account rep helped us fix this with a workflow in hubspot.

Other than that, everything seems to be working now.  

Thanks for the replies and for updating the person account documentation.  

[gustavo1212]

Hi @asgJim @_Kevin,

Thanks for this post, we have the same issue.

Would you mind to post how you created the workflow? How did you find the correct contact to link with the opportunity?

[asgJim]

@gustavo1212

Sorry, We no longer subscribe to hubspot so I don't have that info for you.  We were using person accounts so there was only ever one contact for each opportunity.  

[gustavo1212]

Thanks so much @asgJim. Understood.

Do you remember how did you build that workflow in Hubspot? I'm unsure how can I build a trigger in the deal that is able to query the contacts.

Did that workflow in hubspot find the contact through the company? It seems to me not possible to be done as they are the workflows now.

I'm very used to salesforce but not much to Hubspot. 

[jennysowyrda]

Hi @gustavo1212,

Wanted to tag in some Salesforce experts who may be able to speak to this functionality: @bradmin and @SalesforceScott do you have any insight into @gustavo1212's question? 

Thanks,

Jenny

[bradmin]

Hi, @gustavo1212. It sounds like you're trying to associate person accounts with deals on the HubSpot side. Is it possible to just do this on the Salesforce side? When you add a person account as a contact role on an opportunity in Salesforce, the person account-deal association happens automatically in HubSpot.