Gaining Practical Experience and Certifications: My Journey with HubSpot at Empty Cup Digital
As a RevOps intern at Empty Cup Digital, I gained valuable experience implementing and optimizing HubSpot solutions for clients. Throughout my time here, I developed a range of valuable professional skills and gained practical experience with HubSpot. This blog will provide an overview of my internship experience, including my typical workday, major accomplishments, and the skills and knowledge I gained.
My Typical Workday
Each day began with a morning check-in meeting with my manager to review the day's to-do list and set expectations. Then, depending on the task, I would study available resources and acknowledge the toolkit required to complete my task or brainstorm with my manager to find the best approach. I would then work on building deliverables and check with my manager throughout the day if needed, receiving real-time feedback. I also utilized my downtime to explore the HubSpot academy and pursue courses to expand my knowledge of HubSpot solutions. Finally, my day ended with an afternoon check-in meeting with my manager to share updates and discuss future projects. This structured routine has helped me stay on track and achieve my goals during my internship.
Client Work
My most significant contribution to the company was implementing different workflows using custom code and webhooks to solve complex data architecture problems. I found custom code to be an essential tool for solving complex data problems, and I utilized various API calls to work with different types of objects, including custom objects. Additionally, understanding how objects associate with each other was incredibly helpful in solving data architecture problems and ensuring that the data was well-organized. Beyond the implementation work, I also helped put together documentation, which served as a valuable resource for clients and provide an essential reference for future use.
My Favorite Project: Create & Associate Contact to Enrollee
This project involved creating and associating Contacts with a custom object, Enrollees. To ensure that all Enrollee data is stored inside of HubSpot and is associated with a contact object to be able to send marketing communications, we wanted to use associate contacts and enrollees who share the same email address, which serves as a unique identifier in HubSpot. However, we encountered a problem when an enrollee did not have a corresponding contact record. We had to create a new contact record and perform the association in these cases. To solve this issue, we used the public_object_search_request to search for the enrollee's email among all contacts and either create a new contact record or associate the enrollee with an existing contact. I particularly enjoyed this project because of our creative approach to addressing the system not recognizing newly created contacts immediately, which led to our code throwing an error. As a resolution, We added a delay of one minute before associating enrollees with their corresponding contacts. This workflow now handles both situations automatically and efficiently.
My Most Challenging Project: HubSpot-Slack Integration
My most challenging project was automating sending messages from HubSpot to Slack. While there is a native HubSpot / Slack integration that allows you to send Slack messages, we wanted advanced customization and to learn more about how the two platforms talk to each other. Seamless communication with customers is critical, so we aimed to connect these two platforms and synchronize conversations. However, connecting with an external platform always involves more steps than internal data, and I had to figure out how to do it for the first time. To accomplish this, I needed to use a tool called a webhook to establish the connection between the two platforms first, then use a custom code section to authenticate myself and specify which channel and message to use. Unlike other solutions I had worked on, this project required a more complex approach. Nevertheless, the experience helped me become more familiar with connecting external data sources and more comfortable with tackling similar challenges in the future.
Outside of Client Work
Throughout my internship, I took full advantage of HubSpot's powerful learning resources and certifications. During my first few weeks of onboarding, I completed two certifications: HubSpot Sales Software & HubSpot Marketing Software. Then, as I began to work on more complex custom solutions, I enrolled in another academy course in HubSpot Architecture I: Data Models and APIs. By earning these three certifications, I gained a solid foundation in the fundamentals of HubSpot and learned how to navigate and utilize the platform's powerful features.
Another fun part of my internship is writing blogs about my HubSpot experience and knowledge. Formatting and publishing the blogs taught me the ins and outs of blog templates inside HubSpot. The blogs not only provided insights into my work, experience, and knowledge but also can be a valuable asset to the HubSpot community.
Conclusion
My internship at Empty Cup Digital has been a valuable learning experience that has equipped me with the skills and knowledge necessary for future career endeavors. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with such an amazing team and for the practical skills and knowledge I gained during my time here.
