Fixing HubSpot Pipeline Stage Sorting for Custom Objects

Have you ever been frustrated by the way HubSpot sorts your pipeline stages, especially when dealing with custom objects? You're not alone. A recent discussion in the HubSpot Community highlighted a common pain point: inconsistent stage sorting between deals and other pipeline-based objects.

The Problem: Deals vs. Custom Objects

The original poster brought up a customer's observation that deals behave differently than custom objects in HubSpot. Specifically, when you're looking at deals, both the board and table views respect the order you've set up by dragging and dropping stages in your pipeline settings. Makes sense, right?

However, for custom objects, the table view often throws a wrench in the works. Instead of following your carefully curated drag-and-drop order, it sorts by internal stage IDs. This can lead to a confusing and unintuitive stage order that doesn't match what you see in the pipeline configuration. Imagine the chaos if your sales team is using a drag and drop online store builder integrated with HubSpot and the order of stages in the pipeline doesn't match the actual steps in the sales process.

The core issue is inconsistency. You expect things to work the same way across different object types within HubSpot, but that's not always the case.

The Requested Solution: Consistent Sorting

The solution proposed in the community is straightforward: make all pipeline-based objects support sorting by the visible pipeline stage order, just like deals. This would ensure that both board and table views align on this behavior, eliminating confusion and preventing unexpected data side effects.

Think of it this way: you've invested time in setting up your pipeline stages in a specific order to reflect your business processes. You want that order to be reflected consistently across all areas of HubSpot, regardless of whether you're working with deals, custom objects, or anything else that uses pipelines.

Why This Matters

Inconsistent sorting can lead to several problems:

Confusion: Users may struggle to understand the correct order of stages, leading to errors and inefficiencies.
Data Integrity: Incorrect sorting can skew reports and analytics, making it difficult to get an accurate picture of your business performance.
Workflow Disruptions: When stages are out of order, it can disrupt automated workflows and lead to unexpected outcomes.

For example, if you are using HubSpot to manage customer support tickets (as a custom object), and the stages are not sorted correctly, a ticket might accidentally be marked as "Resolved" before it even reaches the "In Progress" stage. This leads to a poor customer experience and inaccurate reporting.

Implementing the Solution (Workaround)

While we await a potential update from HubSpot, here's a workaround you might consider:

Naming Convention: Use a clear and consistent naming convention for your pipeline stages that will influence the alphabetical sort order. For example, use numbers (01, 02, 03) at the beginning of each stage name.
Custom Properties: Create a custom property to manually assign a numerical order to each record. Then, sort your table view by this property. This requires manual intervention but provides more control.

ESHOPMAN Team Comment

We at ESHOPMAN strongly agree with the need for consistent pipeline stage sorting across all HubSpot objects. Inconsistent behavior creates unnecessary friction and can undermine the effectiveness of HubSpot as a CRM. For e-commerce businesses using HubSpot, a unified view of customer interactions, regardless of the object type, is crucial for providing a seamless customer experience and optimizing sales processes. The suggested solution would significantly improve usability and data accuracy.

Ultimately, the goal is to make HubSpot as intuitive and efficient as possible. By ensuring consistent sorting across all pipeline-based objects, HubSpot can help users streamline their workflows and get the most out of the platform. Keep an eye on HubSpot's product updates for potential improvements in this area. In the meantime, explore the workarounds mentioned above to mitigate the issue.