Automate file views on files to trigger custom workflows in HubSpot using CloudFiles. CloudFiles enables many new things in HubSpot. One of the key feature requests on the community has been to trigger workflows and filter contacts based on Sales Document Views. Although HubSpot Documents tool provides client tracking and file security, it does not integrate well with records (company/contact/deal). Due of this, you cannot automate your content.

With CloudFiles' HubSpot Integration, you can now trigger workflows and filter contacts based on document views, downloads, time spent etc... right from your HubSpot. Here is an infographic to demonstrate how to do this. You can also refer to the detailed steps below the infographic.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to trigger workflows and contact lists in HubSpot using CloudFiles -

This is an important first step and only a one-time step that you perform when you have just installed CloudFiles. Timeline activities not only let you see the document activity live on your record's timeline, they also help debugging issues with workflows when using CloudFiles. 

Go to any record in your HubSpot and enable CloudFiles' timeline activity as shown below. The activity will then be enabled for all your records.

Now that we have the setup out of the way, let's upload a file. Choose any record and open the CloudFiles content library. Either upload a new file or use an existing file for the next steps. Make sure you have the name (useful for creating workflow) and the link of the file (useful for triggering the workflow).

Now you need to create a workflow. The trigger of that workflow should be the CloudFiles: File Viewed event. This is something that is not provided by the HubSpot Documents tool. You can configure a number of properties on the event such as file name, number of views, downloads, time spent etc...

Note: For the purpose of this tutorial, we have configured number of views and file name. We are also going to use a personalized link to trigger the workflow on ungated asset. This is demonstrated in the next step.

We are going to use a personalized link to tell the app of the contact on which to trigger the workflow. This method is suitable for email campaigns and templates. For sharing links on CTAs & social media, a more suitable method is using soft or hard gating which requires the viewer to enter / verify their email before accessing the document. Learn how in the CloudFiles Security Features Tutorial article.

To personalize the links, simply add the email parameter to the CloudFiles link as shown below

https://cloudfil.es/[email protected]

To trigger the workflow, access this link in Incognito mode.

When this link is accessed, CloudFiles will check your HubSpot for a contact with email [email protected]. If this contact does not exist, it will create a new contact. It will then trigger your workflow / contact list on this contact. 

If you still have questions about this feature, reach out to us at [email protected] or simply chat with us (See the chat bubble at the bottom right corner).