As mentioned in another post, I am integrating a third-party system (HubSpot in this case) with Kinetic. My business goal is to update Deals in HubSpot with Quotes from Kinetic. Also previously mentioned, I prefer linking over syncing. On the Quote, we created a UD field that holds the ID of the deal. I have a working function that will retrieve Deals into a DataView. Now, here’s my question:
What UI strategy would you use to assign the ID to the QuoteHed UD field?
Use a slide out search?
Use a ComboBox and bind the Id directly?
Use a Selection List with a single selection?
???
Today, I’m listing all Deals in a single category (unquoted), but it seems that there may be times where they may want to also include other categories in the pipeline.
And maybe there’s a better workflow. Create an application that displays the deals and create a Quote from there?
Linking is putting a reference to the other object. So, I have the HubSpot ID in Kinetic which is all I need to pull in the current version of the object as I need it.
Syncing is making a copy of each object in the other application and keeping them the same, i.e. in sync.
But I suppose it may depend on the amount of information the user needs (and you can provide) in order for them to make the right choice.
If you’re dictating the ID… you can just do a row-update to a text box.
But if you’re providing a dropdown or a search, then you must be giving the user the option to choose and/or update that field, correct?
Is the ID number enough? Or do you need to show more information so they can make the selection? If it is maybe just a couple columns, then a dropdown could be nice (as long as the number of rows isn’t overwhelming).
If the number of rows and/or columns you want to provide is larger, then a search may be more ideal as the user can sort & filter in the search to find the right choice.
I have the combo pulling in the Deal Name but the Id is in the DataView too, so yes, it’s just a couple of columns at the moment.
But I like your idea to create a search, which would allow me to alter the REST call on the fly to reduce or increase the number of results. It should be around 100 for open/active deals.
Once the Deal Id is on the record, I will have a BPM for the Quoted method that will update the Deal in HS. This actually is a bit of a one-way sync but it’s a summary and not a line for line copy, if that makes sense.
I agree with you that Linking is better. even with a little 2-way ID synch.
But I’m not sure I’m following the rest (lol) with the search and dynamic REST calls. Until that point, I was thinking that you could(should) also have a Customer ID/# cross reference between HS and Kinetic so your dropdown would be filtered to deals for the Customer on the quote. I like a slide-out panel with a grid for this sort of thing.
But then you also said
I think this is the safest bet assuming it’s filtered for only deals that have not been quoted. It’ll assure a one-to-one link and is less prone to selection/human error IMO.
Although I’m now wondering about error correction - if they are linked, what’s the process to remove the link and start again?
We’re going to be integrating to HubSpot this year too so I’ll be keeping my eye on this thread. I too like @dcamlin idea on a search as I’m sure the list of “deals” will grow quickly.
