LiSEC Integration HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics | Elixir Solutions

LiSEC is a globally operating group that has been offering innovative individual and complete solutions in the field of flat glass processing and finishing for more than 50 years. The performance portfolio includes machines, software solutions, and services. 

Lisec reached out to Elixir Solutions when their Microsoft Dynamics/HubSpot integration wasn’t behaving as expected. Indeed, duplicates were made in their CRM, some data was being wrongly overwritten… Investigating those issues was a first step, but it didn’t stop there. As integration specialists, we made sure to apply our best practices.

1) Setup of a separate test system

When we work on an integration it is important that we are able to test the changes we would like to perform. It is always possible that a situation we had not envisioned occurs. So, we first set up a parallel test system that was an exact copy of their production system. 

This setup would provide us and the end-users with the opportunity to test all scenarios once the integration issues were resolved. And this way they could see if the updated integration aligned with their needs and business cases.

2) Mapping of the integration.

Next, the integration had to be carefully analyzed because each platform has its own sets of fields and naming conventions. To make sure we covered every field we helped them create a mapping file. This provided a good overview of all the fields that needed to be synced because not all information had to be sent from HubSpot to Microsoft Dynamics. We put in place a filter to ensure that only Sales-Qualified contacts were sent to Dynamics.

During the data mapping process it is important to work with the employees who use the systems so we know what fields can’t be overwritten. In addition, the HubSpot mashup was added to Dynamics, to display HubSpot timeline events to inform their sales team without creating unnecessary properties.

3) Support data cleaning

Having clean data before integration is very important. But keeping the data clean after integration is equally as important. As more data would come in, processes also had to be put in place to ensure that data being sent from one system to the other was clean. 

We put in a lot of effort to identify contacts that contained invalid information, no information, or low-quality information. An example of low-quality information is email addresses that have “@gmail.com”.

Invalid information can also be caused by the initially faulty integration, or by human-made errors when importing excel files into HubSpot. 

One point that is important when we clean data is to pay attention to the properties. Updating the dropdown values in HubSpot can take a lot of time, and data cleaning is also about making improvements on this aspect. 

Best practices to integrate Hubspot and Microsoft Dynamics

This story proved to us once again that an integration that works has to be set up according to the implementation best practices. The three elements mentioned above are some of those practices : 

• Creating a test environment to test the integration and solve the issues before putting it live. 
• Mapping the fields that have to be covered during the integration
• Having a clean database is essential before and after the integration. The information that will be sent to the other tool has to be relevant to the team working in it. 

Want to learn more stories like this? Download the story of CNH Media, and how they used CRM extensions to have a better view on their customer data in HubSpot