In this tutorial, we explore how you can share file portals through HubSpot - CloudFiles integration. Learn how to automate folder creation at specific deal stage, establish an empty data room with a sharing link, upload files to internal folders, selectively share files with the data room, and analyze portal analytics for valuable insights.

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

The GIF below shows the expected output. If you have a basic grasp of these concepts, you can expect to finish 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 the deal reaches a certain stage. 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 the deal reaches a certain stage as shown in the GIF below. You can chose any stage as the deal stage.

Create Folder action can be used to create folders in any location on any cloud storage platform from HubSpot flow action. We will use this action to first create the folder as internal repository to store the files.

To use the “Create Folder” action, simply click on add button and search for ‘Create Folder’ as shown below. Once you add this action, it will ask you to fill in certain parameters.

This action requires a few parameters. The Library parameter is the desired Cloud storage where you wish to create the folder. Select the desired storage from the drop down field. The Folder name is the name you wish to give your created Folder. We simply use the Deal’s name but you can also create a complex text formula variable as well.

The GIF below shows how to populate the Library & Folder name parameter.

We also need to enter values for Shared Drive ID & Path to Destination. These are -

These parameters can be easily copied from CloudFiles app library. Follow these steps -

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

For a detailed description of the Create Folder action, refer to the Create Folder detailed guide. Here’s how our final Create Folder action looks like -

The Create Attachment action is used to associate created folder to HubSpot records. Attaching (or associating) our newly created folder is important since this will enable us to see and operate on the folder contents right from the HubSpot record.

To use this action, simply click on add button and search for ‘Create Attachment’ as shown below. Once you add this action, it will ask you to fill in certain parameters. “Shared Drive ID” and “Library” parameters will be same as above.

The “Path to folder” will be the exact and full path of the newly created folder. You can simply copy from the meta data info in the CloudFiles Library using the same steps as specified in the shared drive ID section above.

Here’s how our final Create Attachment action looks like -

A Dataroom is a file portal, where you can link multiple files & folders, organize them in groups and even request files from your customers. We will use “Create Dataroom” action to create empty empty datarooms where selected files can be shared with customers from the internal repository.

To use this action, simply click on add button and search for ‘Create Dataroom’ as shown below. Once you add this action, it will ask you to fill in certain parameters. “Name” is the name of dataroom that appears on the dataroom, “Description” is an optional field that can be used to give additional description for conveying more information.

To read more about this action, visit Create Dataroom Action. Refer to the GIF below to get a visual understanding of above steps.

Here’s how our final Create Dataroom action looks like -

The Create Attachment action can also be used to associate created dataroom to HubSpot records. To use this action, simply click on add button and search for ‘Create Attachment’ as shown below.

After you add this action, you will have to fill 3 parameters. For attaching a dataoom, Library parameter should always be ‘CloudFiles’. Resource type will be ‘Dataroom’ and Resource ID will be ‘New Dataroom ID’ derived from the output of previous create Dataroom action.

Refer to the GIF below to have a visual understanding of this steps -

Here’s how our final Create Attachment action for Dataroom looks like -

Once the Dataroom is created and associated to the record, we will create sharing link for the Dataroom using ‘Share Attachment’ action.

The Share Attachment action enables you to share attachments using HubSpot workflows. Sharing an attachment is exactly the same as manually creating a sharing link of a file / folder / dataroom from HubSpot record.

To use this action, simply click on add button and search for ‘Share Attachment’ as shown below. This action has only one parameter that can be set to specify the Attachment to be shared. You can derive this from the return value of previous Create Attachment action - ‘New Attachment ID’.

Refer to the GIF below have a visual understanding of this step -

This is what the final Share Attachment action looks like -

In this step, we will copy the link created in the last step to a deal property. For this, first create a single-line text property in the HubSpot Deal Settings. We created a property called ‘Shared Files Portal Link’. To copy the shared link to the above property, we will use the Copy Property value action. For the ‘from’ parameter, we will choose the output ‘URL’ of the last action. For the ‘to’ parameter, we will use our newly created deal property.

The GIF below shows the configuration for the Copy Property Value action.

That’s it. Save and activate the flow. In the next section, we will test the workflow and check the Analytics.

To test the workflow, create a new deal and set the stage to the one used in the trigger. Give it a minute to execute. Refresh the page. You will be able to see the dataroom link in the deal property and also the folder attachment in the CloudFiles widget in the right side.

Start by adding some files in the folder. Once added, you can choose selective files to be added to the Dataroom. If you open the dataroom link, you will see these selective files.

These steps have been illustrated in the GIF below for a better understanding -

Click on the Dataroom link and browse the files. Scroll through so you can get richer analytics. Refresh the page so you can collect multiple views. Once you feel enough analytics has been collected, go back to your HubSpot. You can check the analytics in multiple ways -

Go to CloudFiles Widget and locate the Dataroom. In the Action drop down menu, select ‘Analytics’ to get a detailed analytics view.

You can access this analytics from the contact record page of HubSpot as well. Make sure you enable CloudFiles checkbox in the Filter Activities as shown in the GIF below. With this, you will see File View events on the deal and can click ‘View detailed analytics’ button.

Refer to the GIF below to get a visual understanding of this step -

CloudFiles can also create File view custom object records in HubSpot for each view that happens in the file. There is various information available in this record including view date, time spent, scroll depth and more. You can create a variety of charts & reports using this data.

You can read more about this in the 'Create Analytics Dashboard section' of E-mail Attachment Tracking Dashboard For Marketers.