Manage contact property formatting issues

To maintain an organized CRM, users with Super Admin or Data quality tools access permissions can view possible formatting issues for contact property values and correct them (e.g., a First name value in all capital letters). Addressing format issues can help your team more easily search the CRM, as well as ensure personalization tokens used in emails or content are formatted consistently.

If your account has an Operations Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription, you can automate formatting fixes and view an overview of your data in the data quality command center.

View and manage formatting issues

All Operations Hub accounts can fix formatting issues for contact properties. To view and manually accept or reject recommendations for formatting issues:

• In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Contacts.
• In the upper right, click Actions.
• In the dropdown menu, select Fix formatting issues.

• In the left sidebar menu, view properties that have a possible format issue, and the number of records with issues for that property. Click the property name that you want to manage format issues for.
• In the table, view possible issues and accept or dismiss proposed resolutions:
  • Contact: the record whose property value has a possible formatting issue.

• • Issue: why the value was detected to have a formatting issue (e.g., Fewer characters than expected).
  • Current: the current property value that has a formatting issue.

• • Proposed fix: the proposed solution or new value to resolve the formatting issue.

• • Actions: select whether to Accept or Reject the proposed resolution. If the issue can be solved by an automation rule, click Automate to manage your automation settings. 

• To accept or dismiss in bulk, select the checkboxes next to each format issue, then click Accept or Reject at the top of the table. To select all, click the checkbox in the top left of the table.

• Once you've chosen to accept or reject the resolution, the format issue will be removed from the list. If you choose to accept, the contact's property value will be updated to the value shown in the Proposed column.

Set rules to automatically fix formatting issues (Professional and Enterprise only)

If your account has an Operations Hub Professional or Enterprise subscription, you can turn on settings to automatically fix certain formatting issues for contact properties. The rules you set will automatically accept suggestions for records currently listed in the table and for new records moving forward.

• In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Contacts.
• In the upper right, click Actions.
• In the dropdown menu, select Fix formatting issues.
• In the top right, click Automation.
• In the right panel, on the Rules tab:
  • Click a section to expand its rule options.
  • Select the checkbox to turn on automation for a formatting rule (e.g., Capitalize First Name). If a rule is turned on, values with that formatting issue will be automatically fixed (e.g., a contact with the first name jOhN will be updated to John).
  • Clear the checkbox to turn off the automation for a specific rule.

• Click the Changes to records tab to view all records whose values have been updated by the automated rules. Click the dropdown menus to filter records based on the issue or when it was updated.
• Once you're done, click Save.

The following issues can be automatically detected and fixed for the Email, First Name, and Last Name contact properties:

• Capitalization: the value has missing or unexpected capitalization (e.g., JOHN would be updated to John, macdonald would be updated to MacDonald, EXAMPLE@HUBSPOT.com would be updated to example@hubspot.com).
• Combined fields: the values for first and last name are combined (e.g., JohnSmith would be updated to John Smith).
• Spacing and punctuation: the value contains unexpected spacing or punctuation. Examples of how these fields will be fixed:
  • Remove special characters from the end of names (e.g., ,!#$&*+\-/:;<=^_|~?.)
  • Remove special characters from within names (e.g., ;:<)
  • Remove whitespace characters at the beginning/ends of names.
  • Clean up names with missing spaces (e.g., Chris's to Chris, St.James to St. James, John! to John, JohnDoe to John Doe).

Set formatting preferences for location data

You can adjust how the State/Region and Country properties' data should be formatted for contacts. Once a preference is set, your formatting recommendations will detect the incorrect format and suggest the preferred format for you to accept.

To update these preferences:

• In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.

• In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Objects, then select Contacts.

• For the default State/Region property, select your preferred formatting, either Full state name (e.g., Massachusetts) or State abbreviation (e.g., MA).

• For the default Country property, select your preferred formatting, either Full country name (e.g., United States) or Country abbreviation (e.g., US).

• Your changes will be automatically saved. You can now access your detected formatting issues to fix State/Region or Country property values to fit your preferred format.

Formatting issues detected by HubSpot

To identify records and provide recommendations, certain properties are automatically evaluated for possible formatting issues.

Please note: HubSpot uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify potential issues, so you may disagree with a detected issue or suggested fix. In this case, you can dismiss the suggestion.

• The value has missing or unexpected capitalization. Possible issues include:
  
  • The value contains all capital letters.
  • The value contains no capital letters.
  • The value contains other unexpected capitalization (e.g., JoHn, SMith, test@HUBSPOT.com)
  • The values contains another character that should be capitalized but is not (e.g., Desantos instead of DeSantos, macdonald instead of MacDonald).
• The value contains text that isn’t commonly recognized as an email address or name.
• The value contains at least one unexpected number.
• The value contains a URL or domain that isn’t commonly included in the property.
• The value contains an unexpected salutation (e.g., Mr., Mrs., etc.).
• The value contains incorrect first and last name formatting. Possible issues include:
  • The values for first and last name may be combined.
  • The values for first and last name are the same.
  • The values for first and last name may be swapped.
• A different format may be preferred for this property.
• The value is empty.
• The value for email address is likely temporary and invalid.
• The value is not a valid email address.
• The format is unexpected or invalid for the property.
• The value contains unexpected characters or text that isn’t commonly included in the property.
• The format is unexpected or invalid for a name.
• The value contains unexpected or possible inappropriate text.
• The value includes common placeholder text (e.g., n/a, Unknown).
• The value contains unexpected spacing or punctuation. This includes special characters at the end of names (`,!#$&*+-/:;<=^_|~?.`), special characters within names (`;:<`), spaces at the beginning and ends of names, and missing spaces.
• The value contains an unexpected number of characters (i.e. the value is either too long or too short).

A contact will be included in the list if any of the following issues are identified for the State/Region and Country properties:

• The value has missing or unexpected capitalization.
• The value has unexpected spacing or punctuation (e.g., UnitedStates, USA?).
• The value is empty.
• The value is wrong (e.g., the incorrect time zone is selected). 
• A different format may be preferred for this property. The recommended fix will be based on your location formatting preferences.