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  • Using Google Sheets to perform calculations on contact details in HubSpot and update contacts with new data - lagging
Question

Using Google Sheets to perform calculations on contact details in HubSpot and update contacts with new data - lagging

  • 15 June 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 106 views
J

I am currently creating a Zap in which when a contact is updated or changed in HubSpot, the contact is imported into an a Google sheets and certain statistics are calculated based on the imported data. Once the statistics are calculated, the contact details in HubSpot are updated with the new statistics. The final step in the zap is to delete all the imported data

I’ve managed to get this to work when small numbers of contacts are changed. However, I encounter a number of issues when larger numbers of contacts are changed. (I’ve tested by changing 100+ contacts in one trigger):

  1. The zap itself becomes laggy when it is triggered. I imagine this is because the zap is importing details, exporting calculations and then deleting the row for each contact. The lag results in some rows not being deleted.
  2. The number of tasks used is extremely high since the zap has 5 tasks and the zap technically runs for each updated contact. If the zap runs 100s of times a day, its likely that the monthly task limit will be quickly reached.
  3. The zaps are automatically held if there is a large number of clients updated. Is there a way to adjust these settings?

My understanding is that Zapier isn’t meant to handle large volumes of data in the way I’ve set it up. I also feel as though I may not have designed this zap in the most efficient way possible. If anyone could offer some of their perspective on these issues I would greatly appreciate it!

 

This post has been closed for comments. Please create a new post if you need help or have a question about this topic.

4 replies

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hi @jeremyNovigi 

Try adding a Delay After Queue step to the Zap: https://zapier.com/help/create/customize/add-delays-to-zaps#delay-after-queue

 

Can you post screenshots of your Zaps steps in order for us to further evaluate?

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
J

Hi Troy,

Thanks for your response. I’ve attached an image of the steps in the zap below. I think adding a delay will help avoid overlapping zaps which would be useful, however, it seems like I am expecting 10 000 + clients to be updated daily so 10 000 rows will be created in the excel spreadsheet. With the way the steps are laid out right now, the zap will go through this process individually for each contact.

Does Zapier have a way of downloading all contacts into the spreadsheet and then bulk updating contact information?

 

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

@jeremyNovigi 

 

Q: Does Zapier have a way of downloading all contacts into the spreadsheet and then bulk updating contact information?

A: No, you might be better off doing this manually.

 

What’s the purpose of Step 3 and Step 5?

 

Make sure to reference the available help articles about using GSheets with Zaps: https://zapier.com/apps/google-sheets/help

Change the size of your sheet or use a different sheet

Your sheet cannot contain more than:

  • 5,000,000 cells.
  • 40,000 rows.
  • 18,278 columns.
  • 50,000 characters per cell.

If you exceed these limits, you must delete data from the sheet or use a different sheet.

 

In general GSheets isn’t a great solution for large volumes of data, you should consider a truer database app.

Many people use Airtable: https://zapier.com/apps/airtable/integrations#triggers-and-actions

Here are the other database apps that have Zap app integrations: https://zapier.com/apps/categories/databases

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
J

Thanks for clarifying the bulk import/export question.

Steps 3 is to identify the relevant rows in a different sheet other than what was imported and update HubSpot with those details. The way the Google Sheet is set up right now is that the updated contacts are inserted as rows in one sheet (Import), and there is another sheet (Calculation) with formulae that reference cells in ‘Import’.

Step 5 is to select the inserted row created in step 2 in order to delete that row.

I’ve just received more details about the load I should be expecting to be placed on this Zap and the idea would be to pass ~13000 contacts through the Google Sheets and update the corresponding HubSpot contact daily. Given this volume of data, it doesn’t seem like a Google Sheets integration with Zapier is not an appropriate approach for my goal.

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