If you’ve ever been asked to update all your task copy across a dozen routing workflows by EOD, you know the pain. Clicking into every individual workflow, opening each task step, triple-checking that the copy is consistent and correct—it’s tedious, stressful, and way too easy to miss something.

So I started thinking: what if the task copy didn’t live in the workflow at all?

What if we had a tangible, centralized record we could bulk edit, reference, and reuse without constantly clicking around? Enter: Activations. A place to house all of your task components within Hubspot. 

How We Got Here

At first, I thought I’d create a brand-new custom object just for task components. But I already had a perfectly good Webinars + Events object in play—why not zhuzh it a bit? So we gave it a makeover, renamed it to Events + Activations, and started building out a reusable library of tasks.

This object became our single source of truth for everything task-related: copy, context, follow-up instructions—you name it.

What’s in an Activation?

Each Activation record holds all the components you’d need to power a great task:

• Priority: High / Medium / Low
• Action Type: Demo, Content Download, Webinar Poll, Live Chat, etc.
• Task Title & Summary: What shows up in the task record
• Action Steps: What sales is actually supposed to do
• Templates or Sequences: Handy links to follow-up content
• Context: Why this task exists in the first place
• Activation Type: Intent, Product, Content, Paid Referral, Sponsorship, etc.

No more hunting through workflows to find task text. If we need to update copy or logic? Export the Activation records, tweak in bulk, reimport. Done.

How It All Flows

Here’s how the routing setup works:

1. Start with the Form Fill.
   
   We add the Activation ID to the form settings so we know which Activation this submission should trigger.

Pro Tip, if the Hubspot form is not hosted on your website, the hidden fields don’t seem to work, so you should use the custom section mentioned in step 2. You’ll also be able to use something like event attendance or registration to trigger the activation association, you just need to make the association via a matching property.

2. Associate the Activation.
   
   A workflow runs to create the association between the contact (or company) and the Activation. During this, we do some UTM-source-based checks to make sure we’re using the right Activation—for example, a demo request from a sponsored page might need a custom Activation for better task context so we update that here before the association.
   
3. Route Based on Activation Type.
   
   From there, we break routing out into several workflows based on the Activation Type:
   
   • Demo
   • Content Download
   • Webinar
   • Paid Referral
   • Intent-Based
     
4. Each of those then branches further as needed. For example, demo routing splits by product—so if someone requests a RevOps Girly demo, they get routed to the RevOps Girly team (what a product that would be) .
   
5. Create the Task.
   
   Once we know the right Activation and team, we use the Activation ID to pull in all the relevant properties. The task uses that info to generate rich, contextual assignments that make sense and actually help the rep.
   
6. Clear the Deck.
   
   After the task is created, we clear the Activation ID and remove the association (we label it “activation” when we set it up—so it’s easy to find and remove cleanly).
   

Why This Works

• You can maintain task logic outside your workflows.
• Editing task copy doesn’t require touching a single workflow.
• It scales: new content? New activation.
• It flexes: sponsorship-specific follow-up? Just create a custom activation and update the association workflow to match the source values.
  

And maybe most importantly: it’s rep-friendly. Every task that hits their queue has the right title, the right context, and the right follow-up instructions. No more “uh, what is this?” moments. The best part? It’s given us way more ability to have custom language for every sales hand off. Each download will have an email template for reps to use with specific-to-that-activation language. 😎

So if you’re tired of reinventing task logic every time your content strategy pivots, consider giving your routing a custom object makeover. Trust me—your workflows (and your future self) will thank you.