Unknown user appearing on reports

[Bakertc]

TLDR: Don't use Hubspot Teams, enumerate your users in filters on reports to avoid getting 'Unknown User'.

We are growing our BDR team so I have been trying to manage users under two buckets: AE Team and BDR team.  However the implementation of "Teams" in HS is not working out quite the way I expected since you can't select a team as an option on user-oriented fields like 'created by', etc., but I digress.  The reason for this post is I figured out another short-coming of HS Teams.  When I try to filter using Hubspot Team = BDR Team on reports like Activity Totals, I get this 'unknown user' column added. 

When I drill down into it, I only find existing BDR team members, no unknown users.  When I reported this, the AI generated the following:

“Unknown User” typically appears on HubSpot reports whenever the system can’t match a record to a known HubSpot user. Several scenarios can cause this:

1. User Removal or Deactivation

• If a HubSpot user was previously associated with data in the report but was later removed or deactivated from your account, HubSpot may show “Unknown User” instead of the original user’s name.

2. Missing or Incomplete Data

• Contacts or activities might be logged without a valid user association. For example, an offline import or a record created through an integration missing owner data can appear as “Unknown.”

3. Permissions or Visibility Issues

• Occasionally, if a user doesn’t have permission to see the user’s name (e.g., the user was assigned a role that’s restricted), the name field could display as “Unknown.” This is less common but worth verifying.

4. Connecting the Correct Owner or User

• In the Contact records, check the HubSpot Owner property for blank or unassigned owners. Update as needed, then revisit the report to confirm the correct names appear.
• If it’s an activity or engagement log, be sure the activity is associated with the correct user.

5. Re-save or Refresh the Report

• Open the report at https://app.hubspot.com/reports-list/2254131/1518229/ and click any “Edit” or “Actions” option. Adjust filters if needed, then click Save. This ensures the latest data is displayed.

If these steps don’t resolve the “Unknown User” label, let me know. I’m happy to guide you further!

This message is AI-generated and may contain mistakes. Please let us know if you have any feedback or questions. If you discover any errors in this message, report this content.

Did that help?

No!

I discovered that replacing the filter for Hubspot Team with Created by: and enumerating the users eliminated the Unknown User column.  This basically defeats the purpose of Hubspot Teams and means I now have manually adjust every report on every dashboard that tries to group users by function whenever we hire or fire someone.

[Josh]

Hi @Bakertc,

Generally, I agree that there are flaws in how HS teams interact with reports.

What type of report is this, and how was it created? I see that the left column is activity type, but the right column appears to by count of activities, yet the heading is user-specific. 

If you can direct me to the type of report and what tool you used to create it, I'd like to dig into this a bit. 

[Bakertc]

The report was initially created as a canned activity report on KPI's (HS template). When we started expanding our BDR team, I converted the visualization to a table:
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[Bakertc]

Hi Josh,

I'm happy to hop on a quick teams/zoom call if helpful.

Cheers,

TC

[Josh · Accepted solution]

Hi @Bakertc,

Sure! Here's my meeting link: https://www.protocol80.com/meetings/joshc/hubspotcommunity

Josh