Smile CDR's NetSuite to HubSpot integration, with companies gated by deal stage

The Customer

Smile CDR came to Lynton in June 2021 with HubSpot on one side of the business and NetSuite on the other, and records that had to be kept in step between the two. The engagement was a custom integration: contacts, companies, deals and products flowing between the CRM and NetSuite on rules the client set.

The Challenge

A sync between a CRM and NetSuite is a design job before it is a build job. Every record type needs a field map, a direction and a rule for when it moves. Smile CDR wanted its contacts, companies, deals and products kept in step between the two systems, and it wanted a rule for which companies belonged in the sync at all.

The rule for companies mattered most. Only companies with a deal at a qualifying stage belonged in the sync.

The Solution

We ran discovery and sync logic reviews with the client in the summer of 2021, then six field mapping calls through September and October to settle each map, with a further session on deals and products. The client reviewed and approved the sync logic and field mappings before development started.

The integration has six maps. Maps 1 and 2 carry contacts. Maps 3 and 4 carry companies. Map 5 carries deals, matched to opportunities in NetSuite. Map 6 carries products. To support the mappings we created the fields and dropdowns the CRM needed and built import templates for the initial data.

The companies sync carries a gating rule, added at the client’s request in August 2022. A company syncs only when it has an associated deal in the Land or Expand pipeline at one of five stages: Technical Evaluation, Proposal, Contract Negotiation, Contract Signing or Closed Won. Companies that don’t meet the rule stay out of the sync. The client also asked for the companies sync to be expanded, and accepted a quote for that work the same month.

Testing followed our standard for integrations. We drafted the UAT scenarios and setup documents, handed the sandbox to the client for testing, worked through the results, then moved the integration to production and ran a second round of UAT there. The integration was in production and through its second round of testing by August 12, 2022. A historical sync followed, with the parameters agreed with the client, scheduled, monitored and its errors reported. We finalized the documentation in September 2022 and handed the integration to Lynton’s support team on a call with the client.

What They Got

Contacts, companies, deals and products now move between HubSpot and NetSuite on rules the client approved, so both systems hold the same records. Companies appear in the sync once a deal reaches a qualifying stage.

The integration is documented and supported, so the client’s team can read how each map behaves and raise changes through support.

Wrapping Up

Our standard on an integration is that the client approves the sync logic and every field map before a line is built, tests it in a sandbox and again in production, and gets documentation at handoff. Smile CDR’s integration went through every one of those gates.

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