HubSpot Operations Hub

While you can no doubt think of a few common rules you may want to have in place for formatting, like making all first names proper - “JOHN” to “John”, HubSpot goes a level beyond this, using AI to look for common formatting issues and recommend turning on automation to always clean up your data for that issue. Once you set a formatting rule, you can basically set it and forget it, knowing your data is cleaning itself whenever it is updated. Goodbye to “@gmail.comm” and “JoHnSmith” forever; hello nice and clean data you can use for outreach!

HubSpot’s artificial intelligence doesn’t stop at providing formatting recommendations, it will also look through your database, at the contacts and companies in your CRM and proactively identify potential duplicates for you. Once you have a chance to review this list, you might feel a bit overwhelmed with cleaning it up - with Operations Hub you have the additional ability to select multiple contacts or companies to merge simultaneously, saving you hours and hours of tedious clicking.

Arguably one of the most exciting parts of Operations Hub, programmable automation is exactly that: the ability to directly program automation steps in your workflows. Using JavaScript and Python, you are able to manipulate records and data in your CRM to accomplish a huge range of tasks. Maybe you want to format international phone numbers, turn a full name into a first and last name, calculate a daily interest rate for late payments or lookup data in an external database to bring back into HubSpot and use for other automation steps. Programmable automation will let you do all this and more if you can code it, or hey, look online; there are a lot of amazing folks, including the BizzyWeb team, who have already written or can help you create the custom code you need to get the job you want done.

Automation that goes from HubSpot right into other systems? Say less. Workflow extensions extend the capabilities of your workflows, allowing you to trigger external reactions based on your workflows - like sending a Slack message, a Zoom invite, or maybe creating a task in Asana. This functionality can really bring your tech stack together to create a more cohesive experience for your entire team.

There are a lot of moments where you will want to run certain automations on a regular basis, rather than simply whenever it is triggered. Maybe you want to set up an annual renewal outreach cadence based on the day the contact became a customer or run a once-a-month workflow to count the number of deals that are in a certain stage of your sales cycle. While it might seem simple at first, you’ll find this feature saving you plenty of headaches and hassle as you create your workflows.

As your business grows, so does the volume of your data. This can make it challenging for your team to generate reports, often relying on operations teams for specific data requests. This situation can lead to slower, less consistent reporting and strain your ops team as they try to keep up.

However, with datasets this process becomes much smoother. Operations teams have the ability to organize pre-selected data into clear, consistent collections. These curated datasets can then be easily accessed by other team members to create their own reports. This not only saves time for the operations team, giving them better control over data management but also enables other business users to gain quicker, easier and more reliable insights. It's a win-win for everyone involved, streamlining your reporting process and making data analysis more accessible across your organization.

Especially when you first get started with HubSpot (or any CRM, really) having your existing data available in the system is not a nice to have; it’s typically a necessity. While we will dive into integrations and data sync as a whole below, it’s worth calling out the value in pulling not only new data as it is created and updated in other systems but existing historical data as well. 

With Operations Hub you’ll have access to Calculations in 2 ways - through programmable automation if you need to run a formula at certain times to calculate something (like the monthly payments due for a specific client) and through Calculation fields. While this field type is included with other parts of the platform, you’ll have access to a greater number with Operations Hub, giving you more control and the ability to dig into your data and tell the story your team and leadership are looking for. 

While you have the option to code your own integration with HubSpot, and sometimes that might be the best answer, it can often be costly, in both time and money. When you don’t have that kind of investment time, you can instead turn to the integrations already built and maintained by HubSpot and other platforms and partners. You’ll always want to start here; why reinvent the wheel after all, you’ll find a huge selection of integrations, including those powered by Data Sync, a two-way syncing engine that connects your CRM with external apps, in an easy-to-use, code-free environment.