HubSpot Operations Hub

An unsung hero of HubSpot, Operations Hub is often misunderstood and overlooked. How often has your team looked for a way to find the information they KNOW is in the CRM, but they just don’t know how to get to it? How often have you encountered dirty or duplicate data? Is your team filling out all the fields you have in place? With Operations Hub, you have a secret bullet to solve all these problems and more.

Operations Hub is a unique tool in HubSpot. It often serves as a power-up to other Hubs, rather than having a set of particular tools for outreach at different points in the customer journey the way other Hubs do. With the ever-increasing demand for personalization and reliable data, it’s important to consider the impact that Operations Hub can have on every part of your business, from improving email deliverability to automatically setting up an annual renewal call.

So, What Is Operations Hub?

HubSpot Operations Hub is a set of tools and additional functionality for other Hubs designed to clean, format, manipulate and generally better use and understand the data in your CRM. You can use Operations Hub to potentially fill gaps in other systems - perhaps you’re lacking in a way to validate email addresses, concatenate your address fields into a single property for direct mailers or distribute new leads to various members of your organization based on territory.

However, Operations Hub is most often used in conjunction with one or more of the other HubSpot Hubs. With Operations Hub, your other Hub(s) will be able to deliver more impactful connections with your customers and give you access to a much more customizable CRM. 

The Components of Operations Hub

Exploring a little deeper into HubSpot Operations Hub, let’s look at the core components that help your teams accomplish their goals and make your Operations Hub powerful with this acronym: STAMP - Structure, Time Savers, Automation, Measurement, Productivity

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Structure: Data Quality Command Center and Data Health Trends

Data Quality Command Center

Not only do you have to worry about data decaying at an alarmingly high rate as folks change roles and companies go through big changes, but you also have to worry about the accuracy of the data entering your database in the first place. It’s an ongoing struggle to keep your data consistent, clean and up to date. With the Data Quality Command Center, you have a single place to monitor your entire CRM. You’ll be able to visualize your data structure with Data Model to understand how all of the records in your CRM connect with each other, proactively correct errors in imports BEFORE they enter your database and monitor the health of your data with Data Health Trends.

Data Health Trends

Fixing something is impossible without knowing that there is a problem in the first place. Data Health Trends will give you the insights to find these problems. No more wondering if your team is entering important data they are gathering from customers; you can proactively see if any of your fields are not being used, are underutilized or are duplicated - so you can ensure your CRM is as clean as possible and there is no confusion around which field is used where. You’ll also have access to see the state of your overall database, including formatting issues and the number of duplicates you currently have, which HubSpot will conveniently search out and list for you to easily review.

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Time Savers: AI-Powered Data Formatting and Bulk Duplicate Management

Saving time is what Operations Hub is ALL about, but AI-powered data formatting and bulk duplicate management, in particular, are focused on being as efficient as possible.

AI-Powered Data Formatting

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!

Bulk Duplicate Management

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.

Automation: Programmable Automation, Workflow Extensions and Scheduled Workflow Triggers

Automation is the name of the game in Operations Hub; while the goal is efficiency, automation is the process by which that goal is accomplished. Operations Hub will give you access to not only more powerful workflow actions but will also let you create your very own custom-coded actions to get really nerdy with your data. 

Programmable Automation

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.

Workflow Extensions

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.

Scheduled Workflow Triggers

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.

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Measurement: Datasets and Historical Sync

Besides giving you a HUGE boost to the number of reports and dashboards you can create (Professional and Enterprise take you from 100 reports to 3,100 and 3,500 custom reports, respectively), Operations Hub also brings you much better ways to view and manipulate your data to get the answers you need through Datasets and the Historical Sync.

Datasets

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.

Historical Sync

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. 

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Productivity: Calculations and Integrations

Making your team and overall your entire organization more productive, Operations Hub connects your existing systems, pulling in data in one or two-way syncs and can often serve as the connection point between two other systems that may not have any direct integrations with each other.  Productivity is about more than the time saved moving between systems and ensuring accurate data amongst them, though; it’s also about understanding the people within your database and being able to quickly surface important information and targeted individuals. 

Calculations

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. 

Integrations

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. 

Operations Hub: What’s In It For Me (WIIFM)

The ability to standardize and clean your data, while connecting it across your organization creates smaller ripples that quickly grow until you wonder how you would ever have managed without it in place. 

Dirty data, siloed data and data decay are all major issues any CRM faces. To see how quickly it ripples, let’s take an example: if you have a smaller database of only a thousand contacts, updating their names to fix any capitalization errors might take you about an hour to manually complete that entire update. Now if you take that hour and multiply it as you grow - as data gets overwritten when it is re-entered or synced again from different sources with different setups for fields and as new data gets entered incorrectly with a typo here and there - you’re looking at potentially hundreds of hours of work just to fix data. 

With Operations Hub, those fixes are done immediately, as they arise - with no manual work.

A Standardized CRM is a Happy CRM

Everyone makes typs, sorry, typos. “To err is human,” as they say. Unfortunately, people are often less forgiving of mistakes when they are on the receiving end of the errors caused by those mistakes.

With Operations Hub, you are able to see in your Data Quality Command Center any errors and create automation rules to fix common errors. For example - you can create automation rules around common spelling mistakes like changing “@gmail.comm” or “@gmail.co” to “@gmail.com.” 

Delivering a True All-On-One Solution

HubSpot has a lot of great tools within the platform, but oftentimes your organization will have other sources of data like your financial system, ERP or mobile app. Each of these will have a database that holds very important data about your business and your customers. When that data can’t talk to other systems, understanding the big picture can become impossible. 

This is where Operations Hub comes to the rescue, allowing you to use many of HubSpot’s pre-built data sync tools for many of the common databases and tools out there or create your own unique integration. Connecting all your systems and software directly to HubSpot and syncing through the data you need, will help your teams and make those properly informed decisions for your business.

Time to get Customized

Customization is the name of the game with Operations Hub. At the Pro and Enterprise level, it unlocks the ability to use programmable automation using JavaScript or Python in your workflows. For non-developers: what this means is that your team can take the limitations in workflows, where you have a predefined list of actions you can choose to happen, like sending an email, or updating a piece of information, and throw those out the window. The world is your oyster and your team can write their own code to dictate to the system what should happen in your automation processes.

Choosing your Hub Tier

Operations Hub comes in a few different tiers - understanding which one is right for your business is a crucial aspect of building your HubSpot portal & data syncs. Let’s take a quick overview of the main differences you can expect between Operations Hub Starter, Professional, and Enterprise.

Please note that at each level, Operations Hub is sold by the Core Seat - which gives those users the capability of having full edit access within the Hub. You can also get an unlimited number of View Only seats, which allow certain users to just view reporting, CRM and day-to-day activities.

Starter

With Operations Hub Starter, you’ll gain access to the essential operations tools for integrations and monitoring data health. You will gain access to the data sync tool to ensure you have a controllable sync set-up, be it one or bi-directional, as well as email health and reply tracking. The primary value point of Starter is definitely allowing the historical and ongoing sync with other platforms and would be a good fit for smaller teams that need to connect their various systems but are dealing with smaller quantities of data that can still be more manually managed and cleaned.

Professional

At the Professional level, you’ll experience a big leap in features and functionality, from adding the Data Quality Command Center to Programmable Automation and Data Health Trends. This tier equips your organization to handle the work behind the scenes; whether you have a dedicated ops team that will now have the tools they need to make your CRM run smoothly or you have individuals on various teams that are taking ownership of HubSpot, they will appreciate the capabilities within Operations Hub Professional.

Enterprise

As a Hub already dedicated to customizability and control, it’s no surprise that the Enterprise level of Operations Hub doubles down on that goal. With Custom Objects, Datasets, Advanced data calculations, and even a Sandbox environment to test new processes before deploying to the entire CRM, Enterprise is designed to give larger organizations with a more mature operations team the functions they need to succeed.

Play Well with Other (Hubs)

Operations Hub is the one most invested in connecting with your other Hubs. As mentioned earlier, it can technically stand on its own and serve as an operations tool set to handle automation and data quality for other systems, but its primary usage is by connecting it with other Hubs.

Marketing Hub

Paired with Marketing

Human error is the bane of every marketer’s efforts in personalization. The countless hours spent cleaning up the way people have entered their names or their locations and time zones to ensure you are sending content that will resonate, look good, and arrive at the right time. With Operations Hub your team doesn’t have to spend another minute stressing and can focus instead on creating that next great campaign.

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Paired with Sales

From advanced and weighted lead rotation by territory to enriching company data with BI services, Operations Hub can help supercharge your sales outreach efforts while at the same time taking what could otherwise be tedious and time-consuming tasks off the hands of reps who never get around to it and operations teams that have higher priority goals to keep.  Reps also depend on being able to quickly access the data on any given record in your CRM and have that data be in a usable format. While it might not seem like much, the minute here and seconds there to manually type in a phone number that’s been entered in an incorrect format or an email that bounces due to a typo add up fast and take away from what sales reps do best - sell.

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Paired with Service

When you connect Operations Hub with Service Hub, your team will be much more prepared to offer personalized and smooth customer experiences. From the ability to clean up formatting issues, helping your messages feel more human to reducing duplicate records, saving tickets from getting lost in the shuffle; Operations Hub lifts Service Hub to a new level. Of course the integrations and two-way data sync are a must for most service teams that are managing not only the tickets themselves but using external systems like Jira to manage development responses and solutions to issues.

Commerce Hub (crappy)

Paired with Commerce

Operations Hub is a huge support for Commerce Hub, especially when it comes to programmable automation. There are a lot of opportunities and challenges you may come across when it comes to collecting payments from your customers, and Operations Hub gives you the interconnected systems - from Quickbooks to Netsuite, and the customized actions - from calculating interest to sending personalized payment notices, that you will need. 
(Note: Payments are currently only available within the US.)

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Paired with Multiple Hubs

As you can imagine, bringing these various Hubs together is where HubSpot shines brightest. Having everything in one place allows for deeper reporting, smoother handoffs, and the ability to utilize complementary tools for every team that lives within other Hubs. Operations Hub is a hub unlike any other, and while it can sometimes be overlooked with the amazing features available in the other Hubs, you will quickly see it as the trusty partner to all of your other Hubs that power them up in ways you may never have thought of before. As you continue your HubSpot journey, you will continue to find more and more ways to combine the Hubs and the many amazing things you can accomplish with Operations Hub and the rest of the platform.

 

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HubSpot Operations Hub Onboarding from an Accredited HubSpot Platinum Partner

If you’ve made it all the way to the end, you probably are thinking: “this sounds complicated.” HubSpot is a powerful tool - and it takes a lot of time, effort and careful planning to unlock its full potential. 

BizzyWeb is a HubSpot Platinum Partner and we offer full-service HubSpot onboarding, clean-up and strategy for all hubs. Our team has over 191 certifications in HubSpot (and constantly growing). No matter what your HubSpot needs are, our team is ready to handle them.

Plus, we’re one of the handful of agencies in the world that holds the brand-new HubSpot Onboarding Accreditation AND we are the only agency in Minnesota with a Platform Enablement Accreditation from HubSpot!

What We Do

  • We work with you to learn your business, needs and goals - BizzyWeb is actively invested in making a solution that works for you, not just a standardized tool or an off-the-shelf install.
  • Onboard, implement, and build - Once we’ve reviewed your systems and current data, we put our plan into action.
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Related Content: When to DIY or Hire an Agency for HubSpot Implementation

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