Cleanup Lead Owners

Remove departed employees from HubSpot and reassign their CRM records. Orphaned records with no active owner fall through the cracks.

Prerequisites

• A HubSpot service key (HUBSPOT_ACCESS_TOKEN in .env; an existing legacy private app token also works) with crm.objects.owners.read and contact/company/deal write scopes
• Python 3.10+ with uv
• A list of current employees (to compare against HubSpot users)
• A default owner or round-robin assignment rule for orphaned records

Step-by-Step Instructions

Stage 1: Plan

Confirm with the user before starting:

1. Who receives reassigned records — a single default owner, or territory/round-robin rules?
2. Which flagged users should be deactivated vs merely stripped of records?

Stage 2: Before

Identify non-employee owners via the Owners API:

import os, requests
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()
TOKEN = os.environ["HUBSPOT_ACCESS_TOKEN"]
BASE = "https://api.hubapi.com"
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {TOKEN}", "Content-Type": "application/json"}

active = requests.get(f"{BASE}/crm/v3/owners", headers=HEADERS,
                      params={"limit": 100, "archived": "false"}).json()["results"]
deactivated = requests.get(f"{BASE}/crm/v3/owners", headers=HEADERS,
                           params={"limit": 100, "archived": "true"}).json()["results"]

Cross-reference with your current employee list. Flag:

• Deactivated HubSpot users who still own records
• Active HubSpot users who are no longer employees
• Contractors or vendors who should not own records

For each flagged owner, count how many contacts, companies, and deals they own.

Stage 3: Execute

1. Reassign records owned by non-employees:
   • Use the batch update API to reassign contacts to the appropriate active owner
   • Apply round-robin or territory-based rules if no specific owner is obvious
   • Reassign companies and deals associated with the same contacts
2. Deactivate users who are no longer employees (requires Super Admin in HubSpot Settings > Users & Teams).
3. Run /assign-unowned-contacts after reassignment to catch any records that ended up without an owner.

Stage 4: After

1. Search for contacts where hubspot_owner_id matches any deactivated owner ID — count should be zero.
2. Confirm all reassigned contacts have an active owner.
3. Check that no workflows broke due to owner changes (some workflows may filter by specific owners).

Rollback

• Owner reassignments can be reversed by batch-updating the hubspot_owner_id back to the original value.
• Keep a log of original owner assignments before making changes.
• Deactivated users can be reactivated in HubSpot Settings if needed.

Tips

• Run this whenever an employee leaves the company — do not wait for quarterly cleanup.
• Set up an offboarding checklist that includes HubSpot record reassignment.
• Pairs with /assign-unowned-contacts for comprehensive ownership hygiene.