HubSpot does not currently have a permanent fix related to an issue we are having related to duplicate contact handling. We are not able to support the feature where HubSpot moves contacts between CRM accounts in an attempt to consolidate duplicates. We need HubSpot to leave our contacts within the account we have them housed in, even if there are duplicate contacts. While we try our best to de-duplicate contacts within any given account, there are times when a business need arises where a duplicate may need to exist across several different accounts or properties. We need HubSpot to ensure that a contact is not moved out of the account we’ve left it in if HubSpot deems the contact to be a duplicate.
When contacts are relocated within the CRM without us doing this ourselves, it causes both data integrity issues for our downstream ERP system, as well as data access/security concerns when any of those contacts are potentially community access authorized against an account and are now moved to a new account. It seems as if the HubSpot connection to Salesforce wasn’t archived in such a way to account for a seamless integration between the two systems, which seem to have different mechanisms for how they handle duplicates, and should be updated to allow these behaviors to be enabled or disabled as desired by customer business needs and not always enforced as they are today.
We see that other customers have raised this in the Community.
Note that we initially posted the above issue on the Community as an idea in May. We have yet to have a permanent fix. HubSpot has provided some guidance to reduce occurrences, and while the volume of occurrences has declined quite significantly, we do occasionally see an account association removed. Because this could result in a significant security breach, we are having to have people monitor the system daily. Therefore, it is still very important to us that there is a permanent fix for this.
The connector doesn't "move contacts around", specifically. The unique identifier on a HubSpot contact is the email address. If you create or update a Salesforce record with a duplicate email, the connector will start syncing to that duplicate record instead.
If your organization has a need for duplicate records with the same email in Salesforce, you may want to try a combination of duplicate rules, and/or storing the email in a custom field with an email data type in Salesforce instead.
Brad Mampe, Salesforce Analyst, Fidelity I'm probably wrong. I may not be right about that.
You seem to be experiencing an issue with HubSpot's duplicate contact handling and the automatic movement of contacts between CRM accounts. You are requesting HubSpot to leave contacts within the account they are housed in, even if duplicates exist. This is necessary for data integrity, ERP system compatibility, and data access/security concerns. You mentioned that the current behavior of HubSpot's integration with Salesforce needs to account for seamless integration between the two systems when handling duplicates. You believe that customers should be able to enable or disable these behaviors based on their specific business needs. You have already raised this issue on the HubSpot Community, and while there have been some guidance and reductions in the occurrence of the problem, a permanent fix has yet to be provided. Due to the potential security breach caused by contacts being moved between accounts, you must monitor the system daily. Hence, you emphasize the importance of a permanent solution. It is best to contact HubSpot's support team directly or continue engaging with the HubSpot Community to receive the most up-to-date information on this issue and any potential plans for a permanent fix. They will be able to provide you with the most accurate and relevant information regarding your specific concern.
Hi @RKhare - I never explored the selective-sync path (to hide intended mutliple contacts with the same address). I headed more down the @bradmin path, the way it was intended to work, that all email addresses are unique. So I got more aggressive with duplicate rules in salesforce (to not allow). And tried to get agreement with users that this is how we will handle it.... let's say there are 2 different people in our customer's service dept who both mainly use service@customer.com as their email adddress - their names are Tim K and RK Hare. We will create 3 different contacts in salesforce (and sync as normally to HubSpot):
Contact 1: name = Tim K with either no email address (or a personal email address - that could be opted out...)
Contact 2: Name = RK Hare (email address - same as above)
Contact 3: Name = Service Contact with the email address of service@customer.com.
We would put notes in all the records that the Service Contact "covers" activity related to contact 1 and 2.
The connector doesn't "move contacts around", specifically. The unique identifier on a HubSpot contact is the email address. If you create or update a Salesforce record with a duplicate email, the connector will start syncing to that duplicate record instead.
If your organization has a need for duplicate records with the same email in Salesforce, you may want to try a combination of duplicate rules, and/or storing the email in a custom field with an email data type in Salesforce instead.
Brad Mampe, Salesforce Analyst, Fidelity I'm probably wrong. I may not be right about that.
We have countless salesforce recrods that use the same email address for specific business reasons. Some of these contacts are not receiving critical emails because HubSpot is syncing with the incorrect record. Can you explain a little more about this concept:
Try a combination of duplicate rules, and/or storing the email in a custom field with an email data type in Salesforce instead.
Hi @ChaeliKay I have recently started up in HubSpot with a tight integration with salesforce - we also have a business case where several SFDC contact records have the same email address. (generally we are seeing more and more businesses using shared mailboxes vs personal mailboxes). My tale of woe is that I had configured a 2-way sync with most fields including First, Last, Title, Phone (thinking that if we had a HubSpot form submit, then it really was better information than what we had prior). So you probably know what happened to me. On the initial sync, the email address was associated to one of the salesforce contact IDs. Then all other different salesforce contacts with the same email address changed/updated its First, Last, Title, Phone - overwritten with the synced contact since HubSpot thought it has more updated information than those salesforce records. I was able to identify the records changed from a recent back-up, I restored the values in salesforce and I changed a bunch of fields from 2-way sync to prefer salesforce. Did you have any additional insight to this issue? I am thinking about setting up the HubSpot recommended "selective-sync" and try not to expose those contacts I want to preserve to HubSpot. For that to work for you, you may need to have a contact in salesforce only for the purpose of syncing HubSpot for your outbound emails - and all other contacts are hidden.
The connector only syncs changes on the out-of-the-box Email field on leads and contacts. If you have custom fields on those objects with an email data type, the connector can see them (and even sync to HubSpot if mapped), but duplicate addresses in these custom fields are ignored by the connector.
If duplicates exist within the standard Email field, the connector could start syncing to an unintended record. This would not happen if standard Email addresses were unique, but duplicates lived in a custom email field.
Brad Mampe, Salesforce Analyst, Fidelity I'm probably wrong. I may not be right about that.
