How we use HubSpot at Picker Administrator’s guide — getting started with HubSpot at Picker Picker | 2026
How we use HubSpot at Picker Admin guide — for the HubSpot administrator Picker | 2026
This guide is for the HubSpot administrator. It covers governance rules, user and property management, and keeping the system clean as the team grows. Confidential.
1. Your role as admin What you are responsible for Creating and archiving contact, company, and deal properties Managing user access — adding new users, removing leavers, adjusting permissions Creating and governing subscription types Reviewing and approving new forms before they go live Maintaining the naming convention and folder structure Running quarterly data quality checks Being the first point of contact for HubSpot questions from the team
No one else should be creating properties, subscription types, or forms from scratch without your approval. This is the single most important governance rule.
What has been configured — system overview This section documents everything built and configured in HubSpot as part of the Phase 1 and 2 engagement. Use it as a reference when troubleshooting or onboarding new team members.
Pipeline The Master Pipeline has six stages: Expression of interest (10%), Scoping/response prepared (25%), Proposal sent (50%), Contract negotiation (80%), Closed won (100%), Closed lost (0%). Required fields are cumulative — if a deal skips a stage, all required fields from skipped stages are enforced at the next stage the deal lands on.
Workflows
UTIL | Deal — Set Quarter from Close
AI Data Agent workflow. Fires when a deal close date is set or updated.
Date
Determines the financial year quarter (Q1 Apr–Jun, Q2 Jul–Sep, Q3 Oct–Dec, Q4 Jan–Mar) and writes it to the Quarter property. Re-enrolment on. Monday–Friday.
UTIL | Deal — Stage task creation
Fires when a deal moves to any pipeline stage. Creates a task for the deal owner with the relevant next action. The Contract Negotiation task includes the address collection form link. Re-enrolment on. Monday–Friday.
UTIL | Deal — Renewal reminder
Fires when Contract end date is set on a Recurring revenue deal. Delays 90 days before the Contract end date then creates a task to begin the renewal conversation. Re-enrolment on. Monday–Friday.
UTIL | Contact — 12 month no
Weekly workflow. Enrols contacts in the SUPP | No engagement 12 months |
engagement archive
Active list with no active deal. Sets marketing contact status to non-marketing and creates a review task for the contact owner. 365-day delay at end prevents looping.
UTIL | Contact — Lead assignment
Fires when a new contact is created with no owner and lifecycle stage is not MQL, SQL, Opportunity, or Customer. Assigns to the HubSpot admin and creates a 3day review task. Re-enrolment off.
UTIL | Contact — Programmes
Fires when the Programmes opportunity form is submitted. Creates a deal at
opportunity form submission
Expression of interest, maps Latest contact properties to the deal, and creates a review task for the admin. Re-enrolment on.
Key properties to know
Quarter
Auto-populated by workflow. Do not edit manually. Based on April–March financial year.
Contract end date
Required for Recurring revenue deals at Closed Won. Without this the renewal reminder will not fire.
Picker Deal Type
Picker’s custom deal type field. Values: New Business / Renewal / Cross-Sell / Upsell. Do not use the HubSpot default Deal type field.
Loss reason
Required at Closed Lost. Values: Ability to deliver / Budget not available / Issues with spec / Low strategic fit / No capacity to bid / Combination of factors / Other.
Latest [property] fields
Contact properties mirroring deal fields (Latest deal type, Latest portfolio pillar etc.). Used to capture deal information via the Programmes form and pass to the deal via workflow.
Forms UTIL | Contact Address Collection
Internal form shared with contacts at Contract Negotiation stage. Link is in the
Form
stage task. Submissions write directly to the contact record.
UTIL | Programmes Opportunity
Public form for Programmes rota users. No HubSpot account needed. Creates a
Submission Form
deal and notifies the admin on submission. URL: https://2f6cei.shareeu1.hsforms.com/2n6t8lYJETe-IeMh7mRmy0g
Key suppression lists ACTIVE | Contacts that have bounced
Critical suppression list. Must be applied to every marketing email send. Never
or unsubscribed
archive or delete.
SUPP | No engagement 12 months |
Active list of contacts who have engaged previously but not in 12+ months, are
Active
not Customers/Opportunities/SQLs, and have no active deal. Feeds the archiving workflow.
2. User management
Permission levels Super admin
Full access including users, properties, integrations, and billing.
Sales / core seat
Can create and manage deals, contacts, and companies. Can use tasks and log activity. Cannot access settings or create properties.
Marketing seat
Can create and send emails, manage forms, campaigns, and lists. Cannot access pipeline settings or create properties.
View only
Read-only access. Cannot edit records or send emails.
Remove users as soon as they leave or no longer need access. It is always easier to re-add someone than to clean up after a compromised account.
2FA enforcement Ensure all paid seat and admin users have two-factor authentication enabled. Settings → Security → Two-factor authentication.
3. Property management When to create a new property Only create a new property when it has been discussed and agreed, no existing property covers the need, and the dropdown values have been agreed with the relevant team.
Property integrity is managed through training and governance rather than technical field locking. Document which fields should not be edited after certain stages and reinforce through user guides and onboarding.
Key properties to be aware of
Quarter
Auto-populated via AI Data Agent workflow from the deal close date. Based on Picker’s April–March financial year. Do not edit manually.
Contract end date
Required for Recurring revenue deals. Populated at Closed Won. Triggers the renewal reminder workflow 90 days before the contract expires. Without this field populated, no reminder will be sent.
Close date
For new business: the date the deal is agreed. For recurring deals: do not confuse with Contract end date. These are separate fields.
Loss reason
Required at Closed Lost. Values: Ability to deliver / Budget not available / Issues with spec / Low strategic fit / No capacity to bid / Combination of factors / Other.
Organisation type / Geography on
Access these via the associated company record rather than duplicating as deal
deals
properties.
Archiving a property Go to the property, click the three dots and select Archive. Archiving hides the property but preserves existing data. Never delete a property that contains data.
4. Forms governance No new forms should be created from scratch. The only exception is a genuinely new use case with no existing form to clone from.
When someone requests a new form, check: Does an existing form already cover this use case? If cloning, is the consent field included and mapped to the right subscription type? Is the form named correctly and saved in the correct folder? Is it associated to a campaign?
Important forms to monitor The Newsletter Sign Up form has over 400 submissions and is the most used form in the system. Monitor its consent mapping and check it is correctly tagged. Any form without a tag needs reviewing.
5. Subscription types Active subscription types
Picker Information
General Picker communications. Default for most marketing sends.
Picker Learning and Development
L&D courses, toolkits, and resources.
Picker Newsletter
Picker Experience Awards newsletter.
Picker Experience Awards Information
Awards-specific updates.
Picker Survey Recruitment
National survey participant recruitment.
One to One
HubSpot default. For direct individual emails only. Never for bulk sends.
6. Naming convention and folder structure [TEAM/TYPE] | [PURPOSE OR AUDIENCE] | [YYYYMM]
Folder structure L&D — Learning and Development forms, emails, and lists PEN Awards — awards-related assets Programmes / NSS — workshop and programme assets Campaigns — campaign-specific assets Lifecycle — lifecycle monitoring segments Press — press contact lists International — Middle East and international contacts Suppression — suppression lists (unsubscribed, unengaged) Archive — retired assets Test — test assets (review and delete regularly)
How to create and use folders Folders work differently depending on the asset type. Here is how to create and use them for each.
Lists / Segments
Go to Contacts → Lists. Click the Folders icon on the left sidebar. Click New folder, name it, and drag lists into it. Note: lists cannot be archived — only deleted or moved to a folder. Use folders as your archive equivalent for lists you want to keep but not action immediately.
Forms
Go to Marketing → Forms. Click New folder (top left), name it, and drag forms in. To archive a form: click the three dots next to the form and select Unpublish first. Once unpublished, click the three dots again and Archive becomes available. If Unpublish is greyed out the form is still embedded on a live page or used in an active workflow — remove those associations first.
Emails
Go to Marketing → Email. Click New folder on the left sidebar, name it, and drag emails in. Archived emails can be filtered using the Status dropdown.
Workflows
Go to Automation → Workflows. Click New folder on the left sidebar, name it, and drag workflows in. Turning off a workflow does not archive it — move it to the Archive folder if it is no longer needed.
Files (images, documents)
Go to Marketing → Files. Click New folder, name it, and organise by team or campaign. Delete unused files quarterly to keep storage clean.
Always save new assets into the correct folder before publishing. An asset with no folder is harder to find, harder to audit, and more likely to be duplicated by mistake.
7. Data quality — quarterly checks The following saved views have been set up in HubSpot to make data quality monitoring quick and easy. Go to Contacts and use the view dropdown to access them.
Contact data quality views
Contacts with no company associated
Every B2B contact should have a company. Review each contact — some may be B2C (toolkit downloaders, individuals) where no company is appropriate. For genuine gaps, associate to the correct company record.
Contacts with no email address
Email is required for all HubSpot activity. Investigate source — likely manual entries or imports missing email. Update or archive.
Contacts with no lifecycle stage
All contacts should have a lifecycle stage set. Review and assign the correct stage based on the contact’s relationship with Picker.
Contacts with no owner
Every contact should have an owner. Assign to the relevant team member. The lead assignment workflow handles new contacts but existing unowned contacts need manual review.
Contacts with no job title
Job title is required on most forms. Update where possible — particularly for B2B commercial contacts.
Deal data quality checks Deals with no close date
Go to Deals, filter by Close date is unknown. Chase deal owner to update.
Recurring deals with no Contract end
Filter by Revenue type = Recurring AND Contract end date is unknown. Chase
date
deal owner — the renewal reminder will not fire without it.
Deals stuck in a stage
Filter by Last activity date more than 60 days ago. Review with deal owners and either progress or close.
Company deduplication HubSpot has a native duplicate management tool for company records. Run this quarterly to keep the company database clean.
How to access
Go to Contacts → Companies → Actions → Manage duplicates. HubSpot will present pairs of potential duplicates for you to review.
What to check
For each pair, review the company name, domain, and associated contacts. If they are the same organisation, click Merge. Choose which record to keep as primary — keep the one with more associated contacts and deals.
What not to do
Do not merge companies that are genuinely different organisations just because they have similar names. For example, University of Oxford and University of Oxford Hospitals are separate entities.
After merging
Check the merged record has the correct Organisation type, Geography, and any associated deals still intact. Merging preserves all data from both records onto the primary.
Parent-child hierarchy
For multi-site organisations (e.g. Eastern Health Cluster and its member hospitals), use HubSpot’s parent-child company feature rather than merging. Open the child company record, scroll to the About section, and set the Parent company field. This keeps individual hospital records separate while allowing group-level reporting.
9. Automations The three workflow types
Prefix
Type
What it is for and when to use it
UTIL
Utility / operational
System-level automations that keep the CRM clean and data accurate. Examples: deal stage task creation, quarter autopopulation, renewal reminder, lead assignment, archiving unengaged contacts. These run in the background and the team do not interact with them directly.
FORM AUTO
Form-triggered automation
Workflows triggered when a contact submits a specific form. Used for follow-up emails, confirmation emails, deal creation, and list additions. Examples: EBCD course booking confirmation, Co-Production taster follow-up, newsletter signup. Always name these after the form they relate to.
INTENT
Intent-based
Workflows triggered by contact behaviour — visiting a page multiple times, clicking a link, or engaging with specific content. Used to flag buying signals and update lifecycle stages. These are the building blocks of lead scoring. Examples: How we can help page visits, National Quarterly Pulse Survey clicks.
Workflow naming convention All workflows must follow this naming format: [TYPE] | [Object] — [Description] Examples: UTIL | Deal — Stage task creation FORM AUTO | Contact — EBCD course booking confirmation INTENT | Contact — How we can help page engagement
Managing workflows safely
Before turning a workflow on
Read the workflow description and open the actions to understand what it does. Check the trigger conditions and make sure they are correct. Use the Test contact button to preview what would happen for a specific contact. Check how many existing contacts meet the trigger criteria before turning it on — if a large number would enrol immediately, consider whether that is intentional.
Re-enrollment
Re-enrollment controls whether a contact can go through the same workflow more than once. Turn it ON for UTIL and FORM AUTO workflows where the same contact might trigger the workflow again (e.g. a contact who books multiple courses, or a deal that moves back and forward between stages). Turn it OFF for one-time workflows like lead assignment. Always think about what happens if the same contact meets the trigger criteria twice before setting this.
Turning a workflow off
Turning a workflow off stops new contacts enrolling but does not stop contacts already in the workflow from completing it. If you need to stop all activity immediately, turn it off and then unenrol any contacts currently active in it. Move retired workflows to the Archive folder rather than deleting them — they may contain useful logic to reference later.
Always add a description
Every workflow must have a description explaining what it does, what triggers it, and what actions it takes. A workflow with no description cannot be safely managed by anyone other than the person who built it. This is a governance requirement.
10. 8. Change control What requires admin approval Any new contact, company, or deal property Any new subscription type Any form created from scratch (not cloned) Any change to dropdown values on existing properties Adding or removing users Any change to lifecycle stage definitions or pipeline stages
Picker | How we use HubSpot — Admin guide | Confidential | 2026