In 2021, HubSpot released a brand new Operations Hub that unlocks incredible potential to maintain better data hygiene in your CRM and enables business leaders to streamline data to the teams that work under them.
HubSpot Operations Hub includes the following features:
- Data Sync
- Data Quality Automation
- Programmable Automation
- Custom Reports Builder
- Snowflake Data Share
- Data Sets
This article will focus on explaining the value and usefulness of HubSpot Data Sets for your organization and hopefully remove some of the clouded mystery that comes along with a shiny new software feature.
What are HubSpot Data Sets?
To begin, it's important to understand the relationship between Data Sets and the Custom Reports Builder. In its essence, Data Sets were created to remove the complexity of building a custom report in HubSpot for downstream teams.
Data Sets allow for operations or business leaders to create tables of data. These data tables are a collection of object properties and data points with a specifically defined purpose that can be saved for future use in the Custom Reports Builder.
HubSpot Data Sets also includes a fancy new feature that recreates the ability to perform formulas in HubSpot similar to what you would experience in Excel. As you may imagine, being able to formulate complex equations natively within the software opens incredible potential to dig deeper and create more meaningful reporting.
Learn more about general HubSpot reporting here!
How Does Data Sets Benefit Your Business Teams and Functions?
Did you know that unstructured data is a problem for 95% of businesses? (Source: Forbes) Unless you work for an outlier company, you have most likely faced the pain that comes with unstructured data.
Like a doctor prescribing Tylenol to take care of your headache, Data Sets is HubSpot’s solution to simplify and streamline the way data is structured and how your teams can interact with it.
One of the most diagnosed symptoms of unstructured data is a lack of standardization across team members and departments. By creating pre-approved, out-of-the-box data tables that include all of the key data points your team needs to build a particular custom report, you are able to define parameters and document a standard procedure more efficiently. In turn, this allows leadership to create consistency and ease that supports your business intelligence reporting.
How To Create and Use a HubSpot Data Set
Step 1: Navigate to the Data Sets Tool
HubSpot Data Sets are only available to portals that include Operations Hub Enterprise. If your organization has purchased this Hub, you can navigate to the tool by selecting “Data Sets” under the “Reports” tab of the main navigation menu.
Step 2: Select Your Objects and Data Points
Once you are in the main Data Sets dashboard, you will be prompted to select the objects and data points that you are looking to report on. This tool allows for cross-object reporting, as well as other key analytics such as website or sales activity.
Step 3: Drag-and-Drop Key Properties and Create Formulas
After clicking the orange “Next” button in the top right corner of the dashboard, you will be taken to a new screen where you can select the key object properties for reporting. These properties will populate in the Custom Reports Builder when a user selects your Data Set, so choose wisely.
This step is also where you can create a custom formula by using functions or calculations in combination with the data in your CRM.
Step 4: Create Filters to Include/Exclude Specific Properties
The final step before reviewing and publishing your Data Set is adding any filters that exclude unnecessary data from your table. This filter property works similarly to the filter tool included in the Custom Reports Builder.
Example: Let’s say you want to report on the sales KPIs for a specific industry in the Data Set that you are creating. You would be able to create a filter based on the “Industry” property that would only include defined industries that you have selected.
Step 5: Review, Publish, and Use Data Set
Lastly, you will want to review the Data Set and make sure it achieves your intended purpose before saving it for your team's use. Make sure to document best practices and communicate with your team about the new Data Set and how it can be leveraged for reporting purposes.
After saving the Data Set, your team will be able to access it under the “Data Sets” tab in the Custom Reports Builder.
What are the Limitations to HubSpot Data Sets?
Your reporting can only be as good as the integrity of the data in your CRM. If you are thoughtfully capturing the correct data points, there is a tremendous amount of opportunity to be creative in your reporting. You are only limited by what you collect and your knowledge of visualizing data with the HubSpot Custom Reports builder.
If you would like more information and support, the HubSpot Academy has an excellent reporting certification as well as numerous other written and video resources, all linked below:
- HubSpot Reporting Certification
- Building Custom Reports in HubSpot
- Creating Custom Reports in HubSpot
- Create reports with the custom report builder
- Create custom reports
- Designing Compelling HubSpot Dashboards
- Create and manage your dashboards
- Customize your dashboard
- Use custom objects
- Manage your properties
Is your enterprise looking for technical HubSpot experts to assist in the execution of your HubSpot implementation plan?
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