Required field enforcement on contact creation (email or phone missing)

When to use it, when not to

Prerequisites

• Property: Data quality flag, internal name data_quality_flag, object contact, field type dropdown select, options Missing contact info / Missing phone / Missing email / Complete. Why: gives a single filterable marker independent of list membership.
• Static list: Needs contact info review, type static. Why: the workflow adds records here so a data owner can work a queue instead of hunting through reports.
• Confirm which person or team owns cleanup follow-up, so the internal notification and task go to a real owner, not a placeholder.

Enrollment

Steps

1. If/then branch: Email is unknown AND Phone number is unknown
   • Set property value: Data quality flag = Missing contact info
   • Add to static list: Needs contact info review
   • Create task: type "To-do", title "Get contact info - {{contact.firstname}} {{contact.lastname}}", due in 2 business days, assigned to data owner
2. Else if: Email is known, Phone number is unknown
   • Set property value: Data quality flag = Missing phone
   • Add to static list: Needs contact info review
3. Else if: Phone number is known, Email is unknown
   • Set property value: Data quality flag = Missing email
   • Add to static list: Needs contact info review
4. Else (both present)
   • Set property value: Data quality flag = Complete

Known pitfalls

• Workflows cannot stop a record from being created. This is a detect-and-flag pattern, not a hard block. For a hard block, use required fields on the form, or mark the property required on the contact create form (Settings > Objects > Contacts > customize the create form, Starter tier or higher); that setting only gates manual creation in the UI, not imports, API calls or workflow-created records (https://knowledge.hubspot.com/object-settings/set-up-fields-seen-when-manually-creating-records).
• "Email is unknown" and "Phone number is unknown" filters treat blank and unset values the same in most cases, and an empty string sent via the API clears the property, so it also matches "is unknown", which HubSpot defines as records with no value for the property (https://knowledge.hubspot.com/segments/determine-filter-criteria and https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/api-reference/crm-properties-v3/guide).
• Static list membership does not clear automatically once a record is completed later. Build a small companion workflow (trigger: Email has been changed OR Phone number has been changed, action: remove from list when both become known) if you need the queue to self-clean.
• Internal notifications sent to a fixed named user break silently if that person leaves the company. Use a team or a rotating owner instead of a hardcoded name.

Test plan

1. Create four test contacts: no email/no phone, email only, phone only, both present.
2. Open workflow history (Automation > Workflows > this workflow > History) and confirm all four enrolled.
3. Check each record's Data quality flag value matches the expected branch.
4. Confirm the two incomplete-info records landed in the Needs contact info review list.
5. Confirm the fully-missing record generated a task, visible in the assigned owner's task queue and on the record timeline.

The UAT script of this spec holds 4 cases: a negative case, one case per branch, the expected result of each and a sign-off sheet. It comes as Markdown and as a CSV for your spreadsheet.

Variants

• Company-level version: same structure, object company, trigger Company was created, check domain and phone number.
• Add a delay and reminder task for records still incomplete after 5 days, using a second branch on Data quality flag is not equal to Complete.
• Route to a specific rep instead of a shared queue when the source list (for example "Imported - trade show") implies a known owner.

Build spec

trigger:
  type: event-based
  event: contact_created
  criteria: []
  reenrollment: false
  suppression_list: null
branches:
  - condition: email_unknown AND phone_unknown
    actions:
      - type: set_property_value
        property: data_quality_flag
        value: "Missing contact info"
      - type: add_to_static_list
        list: "Needs contact info review"
      - type: create_task
        task_type: to_do
        title: "Get contact info - {{contact.firstname}} {{contact.lastname}}"
        due: +2_business_days
        assigned_to: data_owner
  - condition: email_known AND phone_unknown
    actions:
      - type: set_property_value
        property: data_quality_flag
        value: "Missing phone"
      - type: add_to_static_list
        list: "Needs contact info review"
  - condition: phone_known AND email_unknown
    actions:
      - type: set_property_value
        property: data_quality_flag
        value: "Missing email"
      - type: add_to_static_list
        list: "Needs contact info review"
  - condition: else
    actions:
      - type: set_property_value
        property: data_quality_flag
        value: "Complete"

Files and install

Take the PDF and build it by hand. One-click install comes with a category pack or the full library.

Nothing deleted, enabled or enrolled.

data-quality-001Spec version 2026-09