Limiting data export abilities for users

[TChappell5]

From the below screenshot I see how users can "Export" data from Contact and Company views.  I was also able to see as a Super Admin how we can keep track of those exports.  Is there a way, however, to set any kind of permissions or limits around users exporting data?  Thank you!

[Olivia_Bagnall · Accepted solution]

Hi @TChappell5 

My name is Olivia and I an ex-HubSpotter turned HubSpot export for Baskey the agency. Happy to help here!

There is indeed a specific user permission setting that you can toggle on and off called 'Export'.

When you click to edit a users permissions, you will find the Export option in the section called 'CRM Tools'. 

Here is the guide on how to update permissions https://knowledge.hubspot.com/settings/hubspot-user-permissions-guide#account

I hope this helps!

[Jigar_Thakker · Accepted solution]

Hey @TChappell5 

You can switch the toggle off to limit your data export by following the steps : 

In your HubSpot account click the settings icon in the main navigation bar in the left sidebar click on users and team hover over to the user and click edit permission in the CRM dropdown menu you will find the option shown in the screenshot: 

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

If my post was helpful in addressing your query, Support the community by indicating it as the solution.

[AA-Ron · Accepted solution]

If you haven’t seen this Beta yet and you qualify, I highly recommend checking it out:
🔗 HubSpot Export Approvals Beta

This feature is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Now, if a user tries to export more than 25K records (or any limit you set), they must request approval from a Super Admin (or any permission group you designate). Users can choose who to send the request to when they create the export.

This is a great solution to address large data export concerns—provided you have the qualifying HubSpot environment.

Thank you, HubSpot—you always seem to be one step ahead of what we need!

[AA-Ron · Accepted solution]

If you haven’t seen this Beta yet and you qualify, I highly recommend checking it out:
🔗 HubSpot Export Approvals Beta

This feature is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Now, if a user tries to export more than 25K records (or any limit you set), they must request approval from a Super Admin (or any permission group you designate). Users can choose who to send the request to when they create the export.

This is a great solution to address large data export concerns—provided you have the qualifying HubSpot environment.

Thank you, HubSpot—you always seem to be one step ahead of what we need!

[BPR]

I agree this is a great solution. Unfortunately, you can still export reports without approval or limitation, which can contain massive amounts of data. Hopefully we see more work here soon.

[AA-Ron]

There are limits that you can set. You could even set to require permissions to even export 1 record. I would look over the documentation again as I am using it presently, and reports are not exported without my approval.

Once it is installed go here and click the edit link

There you can set up the approvals to whatever you want. THEN do not forget to go into your Users & Teams under settings and set if they have they have permissions to even export under Permissions Sets.  Its all there and you have FULL controll.

Have fun!

[BPR]

I've set those limits. The options are quite basic:

The report you saw me export in the Loom video in this thread had 105 records in it. Didn't trigger an approval. Just exported another report with 900 records and no approval trigger, nor did it trigger the large export notification, even though it's in the export audit log:

Here are the permissions for the user doing these exports, from the permission set applied to the user:

End of the day, at least in my deployment (unless I'm missing something), it seems like neither the export approvals beta, nor the alerts, apply to reports. Are you sure you definitely get this in reports? Can you show a screenshot of it at all?

[BérangèreL]

Hi @BPR, I hope that you are well!

Thanks for reaching out to the HubSpot Community!

I understand that you are commenting about the lack of controls to limit or restrict users' abilities to export reports and large amounts of data from HubSpot.

On this article "Require approvals for exports", I can see that you can set up an approval process for CRM exports so that user exports must be reviewed and approved before records are exported from your account. When export approvals are turned on, users whose exports meet the specified criteria will be unable to export records, segments, or property history without approval.

Can you confirm that the export approvals are on, in your account, please?

If the feature is on, can you please share more details into what exactly is not working or the steps you followed, so that we can take a look.

The more info, screenshots (without sensitive/confidential information), and details you can provide, the better the Community can assist.

Thanks and have a great day!
Bérangère

[BPR]

Hi Berangere

You can see the difference between exporting from CRM and exporting from Reports here:

https://www.loom.com/share/0be115120ec74426b03e2fe4aaeb4880

I believe this is by design, but it's flawed. An attacker that can't export from CRM can simply create or modify a report (assuming the user has access to edit or create reports), and then export all the unsummarised data from there instead.

[BérangèreL · Accepted solution]

Hi @BPR, I wanted to let you know that we’re aware of the current limitation with report exports and are working to address it, which is why this feature remains in beta.

Once we can, implementing export approvals across all types will be a priority.
 

Are there any other export types you’re concerned about, or is it just reports?
 

Thank you and have a wonderful weekend!
Bérangère

[BPR]

Hi Berangere. Thanks for this. Any place that exports occur, the same controls should be applied. It looks like Datasets can also be exported without approval, however given these aren't used as widely as reports for most organisations, it's easy enough just to turn off people's access to datasets to mitigate this. Everyone uses reports, though, so I would have that at the top of the priority list!

[BérangèreL]

Hi @BPR and thanks for getting back to me!

I’ll share this additional information with the product team.

If you have other ideas or specific use cases, feel free to add them here!

Thanks so much and have a lovely day!
Bérangère

[BérangèreL]

Hi @BPR, thanks so much for taking the time to send a video!

Also, I'd like to thank you for sharing your valuable feedback! This means a lot to us.

I have shared it internally to bring more visibility to it.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with. I'll be delighted to do so!

Have a great day!
Bérangère

[DikshaG]

Olivia_Bagnall: Can we limit users that they should only be able to export the records owned by them or their team?

We don't want all our org users to take export of all data, and are looking for such solution?

If not via HubSpot, is there any marketplace app which would let us export only reports and not any other database? 

[Jigar_Thakker · Accepted solution]

Hey @TChappell5 

You can switch the toggle off to limit your data export by following the steps : 

In your HubSpot account click the settings icon in the main navigation bar in the left sidebar click on users and team hover over to the user and click edit permission in the CRM dropdown menu you will find the option shown in the screenshot: 

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

If my post was helpful in addressing your query, Support the community by indicating it as the solution.

[Olivia_Bagnall · Accepted solution]

Hi @TChappell5 

My name is Olivia and I an ex-HubSpotter turned HubSpot export for Baskey the agency. Happy to help here!

There is indeed a specific user permission setting that you can toggle on and off called 'Export'.

When you click to edit a users permissions, you will find the Export option in the section called 'CRM Tools'. 

Here is the guide on how to update permissions https://knowledge.hubspot.com/settings/hubspot-user-permissions-guide#account

I hope this helps!

[AGeorjon]

Hi @Olivia_Bagnall sorry, but I don't see on your link where to limit the export only to their local data. Can you please specify?