Inbound 2021: HubSpot Shares Their Latest Updates

HubSpot is "putting the C back in CRM" with their latest updates, helping them on their way to becoming the number one CRM for scaling companies. 

So, what's new? 

HubSpot Sandbox

The addition of sandboxes is an excellent leap in HubSpot's journey to rival Salesforce for the #1 slot for customer relationship management platforms. As HubSpot's CRM and integrations continue to expand, the ability to test new developments, initiatives, and integrations with a sandbox is a true game-changer.

However, the HubSpot sandbox feature will not be a full copy of your live account. Here's a look at what's included.

Included in the HubSpot sandbox feature:

• All account tools and features (except email and calling)
• All Super Admins on the account (you can manually add additional users)
• Standard and custom object definitions and properties to help you truly test with your environment
• Deal Pipelines
• Themes, templates, and modules

Not included in HubSpot sandbox:

• Contact, Deal, Company, Activity, Custom Object, or Ticket records
• Promote to production (new developments will need to be rebuilt in your production account)

As of now, sandboxes are only allowed for Enterprise accounts (1 sandbox/account). Ideally, this feature will grow and develop over time to include multiple sandboxes and full-copy sandboxes with the ability to push to production (as Salesforce has today).

For now, here are a few ideas to get you started with your sandbox:

• Integrating HubSpot and Salesforce? Cool! Do it in the sandbox first. Testing in the sandbox will help you prevent field duplication when you set up the integration and give you insights into any use cases for selective sync. Meaning, once you see everything the integration pulls over, you may like the opportunity to limit the data sent to HubSpot before it starts!
• Testing new webinar platforms in HubSpot? Try it in the sandbox first. It's so annoying to add a new app only to find that the workflow automation doesn't live up to what you need or that the reporting (or lack thereof) doesn't provide the insights you require. If you add all available webinar platforms to your sandbox, you can test which one works best without having to delete all of the fields from your HubSpot account if and when you decide to delete the app.
• Changing your website? Test new themes or apps on your website pages in the sandbox to avoid production-level errors or modifications.

Take the sandbox course on HubSpot academy

Permissions & Roles

Creating users in HubSpot used to be a bit of a pain as you had to select individual access levels for every user. Now, HubSpot has created a user permissioning model that is very similar to Salesforce's Profiles & Roles (but wildly easier to execute). You can now create custom roles for your users or choose from a pre-built set of roles created by HubSpot. This feature will make permissioning and provisioning new users for your HubSpot account super easy and reduce the burden on your HubSpot administrator. 

Payments 

Companies have grown very frustrated with Stripe and other payment processors over the high fees charged for receiving payments. With HubSpot's new native payments feature, you can replace Stripe with HubSpot payments for a more seamless experience.

Plus, HubSpot will be waiving fees for the first $50k in monthly ACH volume. How cool is that! For comparison, Stripe charges a 2.9% processing fee plus 30 cents per transaction when a credit card is used for ALL customer transactions regardless of volume. So, the $50k threshold is a considerable value prop for small to mid-size businesses.

Datasets

HubSpot's new feature, Datasets, is coming to Operations Hub Enterprise (available for purchase on November 1, 2021). Datasets put operations leaders in control and give businesses quicker, more consistent reporting. This development positions HubSpot as the source of truth for all departments including marketing, sales, service, and operations. Every department will have easy access to data without having to structure tables and filters for each report! 

Get an exclusive first look at Operations Hub Enterprise