Ainhoa Rodriguez-Muguruza
As the Q1 2023 fades away in the distance, product brands are actively seeking innovative ways to boost their marketing, sales, and service processes. How do you want your business to look like by Q4 2023? If you are looking for a change, it is likely that this needs to happen hand-in-hand with an adaptable, fully customized CRM. This blog will keep you in the loop on the most significant HubSpot updates throughout the month of April.
If you're new to my blog series, welcome aboard! My name is Ainhoa, and I am Insynth's Head of Platform Consulting—your friendly in-house HubSpot expert. Since April 2021, I've been diligently compiling HubSpot's monthly updates to ensure you never miss a beat when it comes to their latest offerings. If you're eager to delve into every ground-breaking feature introduced this year and want to catch up with Q1 2023, be sure to explore my archive of monthly posts below!
Marketing Hub
#1 Workflow Branch Optimization
Workflow branching is an essential feature for implementing sophisticated logic in automation processes. However, with the variety of branch actions and filter options available, it can become challenging to manage large branches and identify the ideal branch configuration. HubSpot’s update offers optimization recommendations for your workflow branches, ensuring they remain organized and efficient without altering the logic or behaviour of your workflow.
To use this feature, simply click on the “clean up” button, which appears when optimization opportunities are detected within your workflow. You can review and accept the proposed improvements for a simplified representation of your branching logic that remains operationally effective. This update is available for users of Professional or Enterprise HubSpot plans.
#2 [BETA] Exciting Updates to Filters and Lists
You can now create Saved Views, which allow you to focus on important sub-sections of your lists and export them as needed. With this update, new properties have been added to help you find crucial lists, such as 7-day change, Last Record Added At, and Last Record Removed At. These enhancements are geared towards helping you more efficiently manage and navigate a growing number of lists, letting you see and share only the relevant lists with your team.
This feature is available for all Hubs and tiers and can be accessed through various functions within the Lists section, including Saved Views, New Properties, and Recently Deleted Lists.
This is a BETA, and your portal would need to opt into it if you wanted to use it (we can help with that!).
Sales Hub
#1 Mandatory Questions in Playbooks
Undoubtably one of the most useful tools within the sales features HubSpot offers, playbooks allow users to create interactive content cards displayed in contact, company, deal, and ticket records. When speaking with prospects and customers, they can reference these and create standardized notes. From now on, some of those can be made mandatory within a playbook. This ensures that users cannot log an engagement, note, or update linked CRM properties until all required questions have been answered.
The importance of this update lies in its ability to enhance data collection and guarantee a minimum level of essential information is provided before any engagements or notes are logged. To implement this feature, playbook authors and editors can simply mark a question as required by checking the 'Required' box found in the “Edit question” panel. This update is available for users of Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise as well as Service Hub Professional and Enterprise.
#2 Enhanced Deal Prioritization with Coloured Tags
Sales pipelines are probably one of the main reasons users decide to start using HubSpot. The latest update allows you to create coloured deal tags for a more visually accessible and prioritized board view. Super admins can create up to ten deal tags based on various conditions, making it easy for sales reps to rapidly scan the board and identify essential deals. This enhancement significantly streamlines the deal tracking process, reducing time spent on digesting information!
Sales reps can filter the view to display deals with specific tags, further simplifying their workflow. This update caters to businesses of different sizes, with Sales Starter users having access to deal tags for all pipelines, while Sales Professional and Sales Enterprise users can apply them to specific pipelines. However, it's essential to note that only super admins can create and edit deal tags, and coloured tags are currently only available for the deals object and on the board view.
Service Hub
#1 [BETA] Custom Phone Number Property
HubSpot is simplifying how users store and manage phone numbers. Previously, only default phone number properties like phone, mobile phone, and fax were automatically validated and formatted. Now, custom phone number properties can take advantage of the same features, streamlining the process of handling various number formats, country codes, and other inconsistencies across all objects.
To benefit from this update, simply create a new property and select "phone number" or convert an existing custom property. Standard formatting and validation based on country code will be applied automatically. Extensions can also be included by entering 'ext' after the number. Users have the option to remove automatic formatting if desired. However, calling custom phone number properties is not available yet.
This is a BETA, and your portal would need to opt into it if you wanted to use it (we can help with that!).
#2 Session Timeout for Private Content
Did you know that you can host private content through HubSpot? It is a quite unexplored feature that HubSpot has been offering since they first launched their Customer Portal and Knowledge Base features. Private content on HubSpot refers to webpages, blogs, and knowledge base articles that can only be accessed by invited contacts who have registered with a secure password. Password-protected content won't be included in search engine indexes but won't be encrypted either.
As of April 13, 2023, HubSpot is implementing session timeout for private content. This strategic update is designed to uplift your security posture, ensuring that private content remains protected from unauthorized access. When a user exceeds the pre-set inactivity period, they will automatically be logged out and returned to the login page—requiring them to re-enter their credentials for continued access. Session timeout is available for CMS Enterprise, Service Enterprise, and Service Pro users.
CMS Hub
#1 Hiding Modules and Sections in Themes and Templates
In an effort to provide a more streamlined experience for content creators, it is now possible to hide specific modules and sections within themes and templates. By disabling default modules in a theme, or both default and custom modules and sections in a template, you can effectively curate the options available to content creators, thereby simplifying their choices and optimizing the user experience.
This can be achieved by updating the theme.json file for theme-level changes and the template annotations for template-level configurations. This feature enhances adaptability and functionality within the HubSpot CMS, allowing for a more efficient content creation process that caters to the unique needs and preferences of each user. For a detailed guide on implementing this feature, visit HubSpot's developer documentation on hiding modules and sections in themes and templates.
#2 Unlimited Resyncs for CRM Object Definitions Now Available in Development Sandboxes
Sales and Service Enterprise users enrolled in the CRM Development Beta with Super Admin permission can now take advantage of a new and highly-requested feature: unlimited resyncs for CRM object definitions within development sandboxes. By enabling unlimited resyncs, this feature streamlines development workflows and saves valuable time, making CRM object definition management a much smoother experience.
Previously, developers would have to delete a sandbox and create a new one just to trigger a 1-time sync for CRM object definitions, which could be a time-consuming process. This new feature improves the overall efficiency for developers. You can set your development sandbox as the default in your terminal, and then execute the HubSpot CLI command: hs sandbox sync or you can click the 'Set up sync to sandbox' button on the Development tab within the Development sandbox UI in your HubSpot account.
Operations Hub
#1 Enhanced Data Control with Property Validations
If you have not heard about property validations, it is simpler than it first seems. In HubSpot, you can set validation rules for custom text and number properties to maintain consistent and accurate data. This is particularly useful for admins who care about consistent and reliable data. With the ability to set validation rules for custom text, number, and date picker properties, users can now ensure cleaner, more dependable data for better decision-making.
To implement these validations, head to your Settings and choose Properties, then follow the steps to create a property with specific validation rules for text, numbers, or date picker fields. Keep in mind, certain limitations apply, such as validations only applying to data entered manually via web or mobile devices. This feature is conveniently available to all HubSpot customers, enabling you to enhance the overall quality and trustworthiness of your CRM data.
#2 Validation Changes to the Industry Property on Company Records
And, on a similar note to the update above, starting July 14th, the industry property on company records will undergo a significant update in HubSpot. Previously treated as a string, the industry property will now be validated like other enumeration properties when creating and updating company records.
As a result of these changes, the Industry property updates made using the API may encounter property validation errors if they do not pass the validation check. Therefore, it is essential for users and developers to pay close attention to the validation requirements when handling the Industry property. HubSpot's commitment to its users is further exemplified by improvements like these, ensuring a seamless and efficient experience when working with company records.
ABOUT INSYNTH
At Insynth we deliver a predictable flow of leads, customers, and specifications for building product brands through our inbound marketing approach, proven to reach a technically demanding audience.
We use the latest marketing techniques such as construction inbound marketing, to equip building product companies to grow sustainability in this era of digital transformation.
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major in construction marketing. We have a proven formula of bringing a variety of functionalities together including CRM Implementation, Web Design, Sales Automation, SEO, and Email Marketing to achieve your ultimate aim: Growing your business and gaining new specifiers and customers.