In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through the process of automatically creating folders and sub-folders in any external storage system, and how to directly share a link to any specific subfolder from a HubSpot record using the CloudFiles-HubSpot Integration. We’ll use CloudFiles flow actions to automate the creation of these folders and sharing links efficiently.

By the end of this tutorial, you can expect to:

The GIF below demonstrates the expected outcome. If you're familiar with these concepts, you should be able to complete the tutorial in under 10 minutes.

Before you start with the set-up, please ensure you have installed CloudFiles and connected it to your cloud storage of choice.

CloudFiles is available on the app marketplace and can be installed using the standard app installation process. Check out Installation guide for CloudFiles HubSpot Integration.

Login to your external storage of choice such as Google Drive, SharePoint etc. through the CloudFiles interface. This will give you instant access to your external files within HubSpot. The GIF below shows the steps quickly. Check out Quick start for file connector in HubSpot for more information.

In addition to installing CloudFiles in HubSpot, you also need to set an automation user for the workflow to work. This is the integration user that will be used by the workflow actions to pass files into the cloud storage.

To connect an automation user, simply head over to app.cloudfiles.io > Settings > Integrations > Google Drive and login through your google account. What is an 'Automation User' and how does it work? this article explains everything you need to know about the automation user, including what it is, why it's useful, and how it operates.

After connecting the desired storage, we will proceed to create deal-based workflow which will be triggered when a new deal is registered. Here’s how our final workflow looks like. We will detail these elements in the sections below.



Create a new deal-based workflow from scratch and select the trigger to fire when a new deal is created as shown in the GIF below.

The "Create Folder" action allows you to create folders in any location on any cloud storage platform directly from a HubSpot workflow. We'll use this action to first create the Parent folder, within which sub-folders will be automatically created.

To use the "Create Folder" action, click the "Add" button and search for "Create Folder". Once added, you'll need to fill in a few required parameters.

The GIF below shows how to populate the Library and Folder Name parameters.

You can easily get the values for the "Shared Drive ID" and "Path to Destination" from the CloudFiles app library. Here’s how:

Check the GIF below for a quick walkthrough of these steps.

For a detailed explanation of the "Create Folder" action, refer to the Create Folder detailed guide. Here's how our final "Create Folder" action looks:

To create sub-folders, we’ll use the same "Create Folder" action as before, with just a couple of simple adjustments.

Here’s how your second "Create Folder" action should look:

You can create as many sub-folders as needed by duplicating the "Create Folder" action. You can also create sub-sub-folders and even deeper hierarchies using this method.

The "Create Attachment Action" is used to link newly created Shared Documents and Internal Documents sub-folders to HubSpot records. Associating these sub-folders is crucial as it allows you to view and manage the sub-folder contents directly from the HubSpot record.

To use this action, click the "Add" button and search for "Create Attachment," as shown below. After adding this action, you’ll be prompted to fill in a few parameters. The "Shared Drive ID" and "Library" parameters will remain the same as mentioned previously.

The "Path to folder" should be the exact, full path of the subfolders you’ve created. You can easily copy this from the metadata in the CloudFiles Library, following the same steps as described in the Shared Drive ID section above.

Here’s how the final "Create Attachment" action should look:

The "Share Attachment Action" allows you to share attachments through HubSpot workflows. This process is similar to manually creating a sharing link for a file, folder, or dataroom from a HubSpot record.

To use this action, click the "Add" button and search for “Share Attachment.” This action has a single parameter where you specify the attachment to be shared. You can get this attachment from the return value of the "Create Attachment" action of the Shared Documents folder - “New Attachment ID.”

This is what the final Share Attachment action looks like -

In this step, we will link the URL created in the previous step to a deal property. To do this, first, create a new single-line text property in the HubSpot Deal Settings. We’ll name this property “Shareable Link.”

Next, we will use the “Edit Record” action to set the shared link to this property. For the "Property to set" field, select “Shareable Link.” Under the “Shareable Link” field, set the value to the “URL” output from the previous action.

The GIF below demonstrates how to configure the Edit Record action.

Now that everything is set up let's test our workflow. Start by creating a new deal in HubSpot. The workflow may take a few seconds to execute, so you might need to refresh the page if necessary.

Once the workflow completes:

You can now share this link with your contacts, and they will be able to access the documents.

The GIF below demonstrates this process.