HubSpot contacts sync

Overview

Front’s HubSpot contacts sync feature is a one-way sync of contacts from HubSpot into Front. After you’ve synced contacts into Front, your team will be able to:

Automatically tag, assign and route conversations in Front using contacts data from HubSpot
Access helpful contact information in your inboxes
Associate contacts with companies inside Front
Leverage contact auto-suggestion when composing in your inboxes

If you’d like to sync HubSpot companies to Front accounts, please see the instructions here.

How it works

Contacts are synced one-way from HubSpot to Front
Synced contacts will appear under “Shared Contacts” in the “Contacts” section
Contacts are automatically synced every 24 hours to keep data up to date, but you can manually trigger a re-sync at any time by opening the HubSpot sync page in Front
You can sync contacts from the HubSpot companies you’ve synced, or pick a list view from HubSpot that contains the contacts you want to sync
Field mapping allows you to control which contact fields will be synced from HubSpot to Front
You must be a workspace or company admin in Front to set up the contacts sync

Instructions

Step 1

Click the Contacts icon on the top left corner and select Shared Contacts in the left sidebar to access the Contact Manager in Front.

Step 2

Click the Import button at the top right, then select from Hubspot to open the HubSpot sync page.

Step 3

Click Log in to Hubspot to connect HubSpot to Front. Note: if you’ve previously logged into HubSpot, you might need to log out and re-login to refresh your authentication.

Step 4

You can choose to enable either accounts sync (HubSpot companies), contacts sync, or both by clicking on the toggles. Sections to set up the sync will be displayed.

Step 5

For the accounts sync, please see here for details about the HubSpot company sync.

For the contacts sync, you can first choose which contacts to sync from two options:

From synced accounts: this will sync contacts belonging to HubSpot companies that have been synced to Front. Contacts with be automatically associated with their respective companies. You can only select this option if you have enabled the HubSpot company sync.
From a list: you can select a HubSpot contact list to sync.

Note: Front supports syncing a maximum of 1M contacts.

Step 6

Select the contact fields you’d like to sync from HubSpot. Then choose the Front fields they should be mapped to. Front will automatically merge the First name and Last name fields into Name inside Front.

Step 7

Click Sync to start the contacts sync. You can edit or pause the sync at any time from the sync settings.

Step 8

After you’ve set up the sync, you’ll see contacts from HubSpot appear under Shared contacts in the Contacts Manager. If you click on a contact you’ve synced from HubSpot, you’ll see a banner indicating when the last sync occurred.

If you hover over contact fields synced from HubSpot, you’ll see an option to Edit in Hubspot. This ensures your data remains consistent between Front and HubSpot.

Contact sync logic

When a contact from HubSpot is synced to a contact in Front, a link is established between the externalId property on the Front contact and the HubSpot contact ID.

When a contact from HubSpot is being synced to Front, we first try to find a matching contact by the following logic:

If an existing Front contact is found with the externalId property equal to this HubSpot contact’s ID, the existing Front contact is updated
If the HubSpot contact has not yet been linked to an existing contact in Front, Front will search for an existing contact with at least one of the same handles (e.g. email domains, phone) as the HubSpot contact. This search is only performed if the user has mapped a handle field in the sync settings.
- If an existing Front contact is found and that contact is not already linked to a HubSpot contact, the Front contact is updated and linked to the HubSpot contact
- If an existing Front contact is found but it’s already linked to an existing HubSpot contact A, we skip syncing HubSpot contact B and log an error.
If no existing contact is found, Front will create a new contact and link it to the HubSpot contact

Note that if a contact is deleted in HubSpot, the contact will stop syncing to Front but the Front contact will not be deleted.

Handling sync errors

If Front encounters errors while syncing contact data, the user that triggered the sync will receive an email notification. Errors can be viewed from the HubSpot sync settings page.

Common error types and how to resolve them:

Error type	How to resolve
Contacts do not include an email or phone number and were not synced	For each affected contact, include at least one handle (e.g. email or phone) to sync to Front
Emails were already taken by other contacts and were not synced	For each affected contact, check the email property in HubSpot and replace it with a unique email.
Phone numbers were already taken by other contacts and were not synced	For each affected contact, check the phone property in HubSpot and replace it with a unique phone.
Contacts were not synced because accounts sync failed	View and fix account sync errors and restart the contact sync.
HubSpot field not found If one of the fields you mapped from HubSpot is deleted in HubSpot, Front will stop syncing that field and you’ll have to choose a new field from HubSpot.	In sync settings in Front, choose a new HubSpot field to sync to Front.
HubSpot list view not found If the list view you were syncing from HubSpot is deleted, Front will stop syncing all contacts and you’ll have to choose a new list view to restart the sync.	In sync settings in Front, choose a new HubSpot list view to sync to Front.

Using HubSpot sync alongside the API

Contacts synced through the HubSpot sync in Front are accessible through the Front API. Each synced contact will have the externalId property set to the ID of the HubSpot contact it’s linked to.

Pricing

This feature is available on the Growth plan or above.