I’ve been working in HubSpot for about 8 years now, and am currently the primary HubSpot admin for an Enterprise account with all Hubs and multiple business units.
Over all those years, I’ve learned a couple of things about how to handle a HubSpot error, outage, or issue notification. These are my top 5 tips:
It might seem like breaks, issues, or outages are completely random – and sometimes they are – but there do tend to be times when they are more likely to happen, and you can prepare for that.
In general, I’ve noticed that HubSpot can have a few more glitches around their major product updates. This makes sense – they're doing a lot of work in the background to update and add on to the platform, and sometimes that can cause some issues with other tools. It’s all worth it in the end when we get access to a suite of brand new products, tools, and updates to make the platform even more effective.
The two most important times of year for HubSpot updates are the Spring Spotlight (usually in April) and INBOUND (in September). At and around these two events, HubSpot typically puts out hundreds of product updates, from little fixes to major new releases.
As either of these two dates approaches, Admins should be prepared for a couple of things to go wrong. Keep some time in your week clear for fixes and get your data and assets in order beforehand.
It’s also an excellent opportunity to schedule two data and asset cleanup periods per year. Pick some time ahead of the actual day (think a couple of weeks).
Speaking of product updates, one way you can keep up with potential glitches is to stay ahead of the Product Updates. Not only will this give you an idea of what products might be changing or updating, but you can also get the opportunity to join in on a variety of Public and Private Betas to test out and provide feedback on new and upcoming features or products.
To see product updates:
So you’ve logged into HubSpot and there’s an error message. Now what? The first thing to check, of course, is whether the error or outage impacts your portal. Let’s say, for example, it’s regarding workflows, so it will impact almost everyone.
The first step is to prioritize the potentially affected assets. With workflows in particular, you can add an advanced filter for Latest Issue Date to discover which ones have had recent execution errors.
If there’s no such log for the error you are working on, prioritize by starting with your most frequently used assets or the ones that have the highest impact on your business process.
As an admin, you should always have a list (either as a folder in HubSpot or just somewhere offline) of your most business-critical of the following assets:
There are several HubSpot Admin communities you can join to stay up to date on the latest product updates, best practices, and admin tips shared by other professionals. These communities are also great places to ask questions about your processes and get advice from people who’ve been there.
I personally like being part of the HubSpot Admin User Group (HUG), which you can join here. From there, you can join the Sproketeer Slack channel, which I think is one of the best places to ask questions and review tips from fellow admins and HubSpot super-users.
You can also find some good information on the HubSpot Community generally – from looking through others’ questions, to posting your own, to reviewing and upvoting feature requests that will help your much-needed features get added to the platform, the community is a great place to find answers.
Seeing the red updates at the top of the portal when they log in can be worrisome for your HubSpot users. Make sure that if there’s a relevant issue going on (something they need to watch out for that might impact their day-to-day), you reach out and keep them up to date on what’s going on.
I also find that users appreciate it when they’re aware of major product releases and Betas. You can be selective with these updates. Only inform the users to whom the Betas might be relevant or who need to know what you’re testing out (in case the new feature doesn’t work the way you expected). But if you have a team member struggling with a particular aspect of the platform, sharing any betas or upcoming updates that could help them, and letting them know you’ll be testing it out for them is a bonus to keep the team happy.
After spending the last eight years deep in the HubSpot environment, I can tell you this — things are going to go sideways sometimes. It’s just part of working with a growing, ever-evolving platform. But with a bit of planning, a strong support network, and a few go-to troubleshooting habits, you can handle almost anything HubSpot throws at you.
If any of this resonated with you—or if you’re wondering how to make HubSpot feel a little more set-it-and-forget-it—don’t be shy. Reach out to our team and let’s talk about how to get your HubSpot portal working for you, not the other way around.