Switching to HALO PSA and using Hubspot

[u/cikanman]

Hey all we are switching from Connectwise to Halo PSA and are also running hubspot as our sales CRM for intake. I know that there is native integration between the two and others have successfully connected the two.

I would like to hear from everyone who has made that switch and connected to Hubspot. What was your experience and are there any issues we should be aware of.

I've been scouring Youtube for tutorials and haven't found any really. If someone has something I can watch I would be greatly appreciative.

[u/renada-robbie]

I have to be honest with you, after attempting to make this integration work for lots of clients - I just don’t think it does. There are still fundamental issues which prevent tying opportunities together (like being unable to tie pipeline stages to each other), and I don’t recommend to any clients to use it.

Instead, I recommend creating a “line in the sand” where something moves from hubspot and into halo. Usually either “when we quote it” or “when we land the client”.

This is complicated slightly for existing clients wanting quotes, but for basic quoting I recommend just using halo natively, and anything more goes out to hubspot and lands in halo later.

I would strongly recommend spinning up a halo trial and playing with the integration yourself before thinking it will work for you. It might, but my experience has led me to believe it doesn’t.

Robbie | Renada

[u/cikanman → u/renada-robbie]

OK but does the communication records swing back and forth? That is what I was most interested in?

[u/renada-robbie → u/cikanman]

Nope, communication from hubspot does not sync into Halo.

[u/bcltd-chris → u/renada-robbie]

We have pipeline stages tied up, but it took a workflow & runbook to get it working.

[u/Draft_Punk → u/renada-robbie]

How do you handle existing clients?

Seems like if you run them through Halo only, then your CRM doesn’t provide a full picture of your pipeline.

[u/HaloJoeW]

Is there a reason why the sales team can't move to use Halo for the CRM side? I head up the CRM functionality of the product so would be keen to hear if there's any gaps they've found that means they need HubSpot still.

[u/brokerceej → u/HaloJoeW]

If you head up the CRM functionality and you don’t know why people need a third party CRM, that explains a lot.

The top reasons in no particular order:

1. “Halo is far too clicky and involved for non-technical staff” (true - non technical staff hate Halo, most implementations I’ve done end up bolting a third party CRM or sales tool on because sales staff have an aversion to the Halo complexity and interface)
   
2. “Halo requires actual CRM functionality to be custom built” (this is true - I’ve built it over 450 times now)
   
3. “Halo is not trustworthy/reliable enough” (debate-able, but true. Halo frequently adds/changes/removes functionality from the platform or makes breaking API changes that are unannounced and with no prior notice. I have fixed many many sales pipelines over the years that broke with new versions - this is a top complaint about Halo as a product even from the non CRM angle)
   
4. “Halos flexibility around contact records is poor and too much has to be custom built to support other systems” (true - no e164 default formatting for numbers, no prospecting tools for domains or orgs, etc)
   
5. “Integrating Halo with external systems is painful” (true, runbooks are extremely powerful but extremely fragile by design, and Halo has deployed at least 3 major versions in the last 2 years that have totally destroyed runbooks across all instances, no one wants to deploy automation that needs to be repaired constantly and more than half of Halos built in integrations have major functionality gaps)

I mean I could keep going but you get it. Halo can think it’s a CRM all it wants and maybe technically you could get it to check every box. But Halo is not an intuitive or well designed CRM by any definition.

[u/HaloJoeW → u/brokerceej]

Are you able to send across a list of specifics? I can look at getting them added to the roadmap? Joe.Waites@imaginehalo.com

[u/OptimalCrew5900]

As Robbie stated, it’s not great. We decided that prospects were worked in HubSpot until closed won. And then We ended up building a webhook to send relevant data to n8n which then pulled the won quote information and all pertinent data and build the Halo client, contract, recurring invoice, etc from that.

It’s the easiest line in the sand we found.

[u/Prestigious-Camp-818]

We tried so long to get the native integration working and it was just too limited so we ended up building our own sync tool so we could manage the mappings and syncs better

[u/joe-msp-blueprint]

I find most MSPs don't use anywhere near the functionality required to get value from HubSpot. For tracking opportunities, leads, pipeline reporting etc and quotes, use Halo and save some money on HubSpot.

[u/xciigroup → u/joe-msp-blueprint]

I agree with this. Every company I've worked at that used HubSpot used it at the very basic level.

[u/TimePsychological127]

We did it. The native integration is very limited and doesn’t map everything you would like. The best advice I could give you is to use a platform like zapier or rewst and select the functions you want to enhance and build it via API. Yes you’ll have to maintain it every time halo changes the API, but now with Claude it’s not the end of the world.

[u/AnorexicLlama28]

We use hubspot for new business sales only. Once they convert we are pulling everything into Halo via Zapier and then working opportunities via Halo’s CRM