New practical exercises in HubSpot Software Certifications create a disaster in existing portals

[JorieMunroe]

To do inbound marketing well, you need to start your journey with the HubSpot marketing software the right way. It’s a big platform with a lot of tools, and to get the most value out of them, you need a foundation of knowledge and an understanding of how they all work together.

During the past six months, the HubSpot Academy team has been working hard to update the HubSpot Marketing Software Certification. And it’s here.

These new lessons will equip you with the fundamental understanding you need to do marketing well using HubSpot. From content strategy to social media, lead nurturing, workflows, and reporting, this certification tests your knowledge of inbound marketing best practices and your ability to apply those practices using the HubSpot marketing tools. The new course offers 17 lessons made up of three hours of video content, quizzes, and practical exercises, and a 70-question final exam.

This was one of the HubSpot Academy team’s most collaborative projects yet — we worked with people all around the company to create this training. So a BIG thank you goes out to @cbsembler, @Champion,  @crystalking, @jausura, @gdelloue, @dliechty, and @KyleJepson! 

The revamp of this certification course was motivated by the data, research, and direct feedback from certified users. We LOVE to get feedback from you. It helps us improve our education and provide training that helps you grow. So will you do us a favor? Go take the new course and tell us what you think. Send your feedback to academy@hubspot.com.  

Take the new course here.

[jennysowyrda]

Thanks for sharing @JorieMunroe! 

I know this new certification has many updates including covering some of HubSpot's newer tools, such as pillar pages. There's a whole lesson around how to create content using topic clusters and pillar pages, which I was excited to see! 

 @TallAllie, @Aakar, @Iva-AxonGarside, @Brennan, @SeanHenri, @JohnNiggl, @Babel_Izzy I know you have all shared your thoughts and expertise on Pillar Pages in the past. Have you had a chance to look at the new Marketing Certification? What are you excited to see included? What lessons do you look forward to taking? 

Thanks,
Jenny

[Aakar]

@jennysowyrda No, I haven't checked it yet. But I'm planning to go through it. 
Thanks.

[LeaThybo]

In the new HubSpot Marketing Software Certification, there are some practical exercises that need to be completed in an existing portal. 

We are many employees working in the same portal, and therefore, we are managing people's permissions very strictly, so we can control what work is being done in the portal.

Therefore, we don't want the certifications to give people a back door to functions in HubSpot that they don't normally have permission to access. However, when people click the link in the practical exercise, that is exactly what happens; people are directly sent to the function where they have to do the respective exercise regardless whether they have permission or not.

This is a disaster for several reasons:

1: We will have a lot of trash in our portal which is already complex

2: The persona exercise is by far the worst one: We use the persona property in our forms, so when someone adds a new persona to the persona property, it will appear in all of our forms (many forms in different languages resulting in weird looking options for the registrants, and leads not being enrolled in workflows because they have chosen a persona that doesn't exist in our organization. 

3: Our "students" are not even able to delete their certification work again, because they don't have permission to access the tools that they were granted access to through the certification

4: We use the certifications for training of new employees, so we can't expect them to know the consequences of their actions in a system that they don't know yet - like what happens when you enroll someone (real) in a workflow, or where the social media post ends up - just to name a few examples.

So this is a very humble proposal from a confused HubSpot Partner employee to the people responsible for the Academy programme: Please fix this in some way (for example, that the certification can be done in a test portal).

[JorieMunroe]

Hi @LeaThybo,

Thank you for your patience! Could you provide some additional information on the behavior you're currently experiencing so that we can dig into this issue further?

• Which step of the certification are you seeing this behavior on?
• Was there a specific user who was able to create something they shouldn't have had access to in your or your client's portal?
• Do you have a link to the specifc contact/workflow/etc. that a user edited that they weren't supposed to have permission to?

This will help us narrow down what could be causing any unexpected behavior.

Best,

Jorie

[LeaThybo]

When our employees click the link to create a persona for the practical exercise, they are directed into the properties tool - this happens no matter if they have permission to edit properties or not. I found a new persona in our forms by accident, and this is how I found out that it happened. 

We have tested this on several employees who don't have access - they all get access to the properties tool. The same happens with the workflow exercise. I am not happy to give names in an open forum. I don't think that would be fair the the emplyee who made the mistake. 

[JorieMunroe]

Hi @LeaThybo,

Totally fair! Mind sending me the details at mmunroe@hubspot.com? I have an open ticket with our development team and they are requesting this information.

Best,

Jorie

[JorieMunroe]

Hi @LeaThybo,

Thanks so much for the feedback! I am currently looking into this issue with the team and will keep you updated as soon as I have any further information.

Best,

Jorie