Salesforce integration - no longer creating Accounts

[#1]

Hi there

We have Hubspot set up to create both a Contact and the associated Account within Salesforce when a new enquiry comes in. This has traditionally been working, however within the last week, it has stopped creating the Account in Salesforce, even though it is making the association within Hubspot.

I've made some layout changes to pages in Salesforce to hide various redundant fields, but haven't deactivated or deleted anything and in particular I haven't touched the Acount Name field on either Contacts or Accounts.

I've checked all the usual stuff in Hubspot to ensure syncing is still active, inclusion lists haven't changed etc.  The only change I've made in Hubspot is to add a custom mapping within Company Mapping of Industry to a new field in Salesforce called Hubspot Industry (since the standard Industry mapping wasn't working for some reason and there is no way to edit it). Possibly this might create a clash somewhere but I can't see it causing the problem we have.

I'm completely stumped on this one and out of ideas - if anyone has any ideas what else I can try I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks

[#2]

Hi, @TimMisson. I don't think the connector creates accounts by defaults when you choose the option to create contacts by default. It creates private contacts - contacts not associated with an account - instead, and would require some sort of automation (usually Apex) to associate those private contacts with an account. 

It's possible something's changed with the connector to allow for account creation, and if so, I'm guessing that enabling automatic contact and account association in HubSpot has something to do with that. If the connector does create new accounts by default, I'm uncertain what unique identifier it uses to create the account in Salesforce, so it's possible duplicates may arise. 

I'm guessing there's some separate automation, either in Salesforce or through another integration which is doing the account create for you in Salesforce. You may want to reach out to support to get clarification on the default behavior.

[#3]

@bradmin The connecter has indeed be upgraded(?) to create accounts automatically - but only in Sept 2018 it seems: 

[Now Live] Bi-directional Sync for Salesforce Accounts and HubSpot Companies

[#4]

Thanks, @Phil_Vallender, that's really cool. 

@TimMisson, my hunch might've been correct - check to see if that setting from that help article is enabled, which will allow for the automatic association of contacts to companies. Looks like that's a prerequisite for the functionality to fire correctly. 

[#5]

As for the mapping issue, ensure that the integration user (the user whose Salesforce creds are used in-app in HubSpot) has the ability to see the Industry field on accounts. Check the field-level security settings on accounts for their profile, and ensure this field is checked off. Best practice is to ensure all fields on all objects the connector talks to are visible on the integration user's profile, which will avoid any issues of HubSpot reading or writing to any record.

[#6]

Thanks @bradmin and @Phil_Vallender

This setting is indeed enabled (I'd already checked that one in fact) so it's not that which is causing the issue... 

[#7]

Thanks, @TimMisson. Try checking a couple of company records which are impacted in HubSpot, and go to their history. Search for "Account ID" in the history, and see if there are any prior account IDs which previously wrote to the company, then any subsequent update to the company - including adding contacts to the company - would update the existing account ID the connector wrote to. 

It also assumes the contact you're trying to create meets your inclusion list criteria, and has a valid and unique email address. If all those conditions hold up and you have example companies which are impacted, open a ticket with support so they can take a closer look.

[#8]

Thanks @bradmin

I've looked at a couple of the affected company records in Hubspot and I can't see any evidence of prior account IDs. 

One thing I've just noticed is that in order to create and associate companies with contacts, it says: Automatically associate contacts with companies based on a contact's email address and a company's domain.

We had a field in Salesforce against Accounts called Website Domain which essentially just grabs the domain (.com .co.uk etc) from the website address and displays it on the Account page. I'd moved this off the page because it didn't seem to be useful but I now wonder if it was necessary to trigger a match. I can't believe this is the answer as it was still active, just not visible on the page, but maybe it needs to be there?

If that doesn't solve it I guess I need to open a ticket with Hubspot.

[#9]

There's a default HubSpot company property called Company Domain Name that needs the match against the contact, in order for the contact-company association to happen automatically in HubSpot. If some of the impacted companies don't have a match against newly-created contacts, update the value. [I'm not sure whether this will fire when that happens.]

While Company Domain Name can be mapped to a Salesforce account field, the integration shouldn't be dependent on its value on the Salesforce side. 

[#10]

Makes sense. I can't believe it's anything that has happened on the Salesforce side.

A ticket is now open!

Thanks for your help @bradmin

[#11]

If your contact's emails don't match the Company Domain Name value on the company they're associated with, I wouldn't expect the connector to behave the way you're hoping. If you do have matching domain values, and companies aren't appearing in Salesforce, support will be able to look into that.