Modern AI assistants and HubSpot's Model Context Protocol make it possible to perform comprehensive portal audits without hiring expensive consultants. Here's your practical guide to getting started.
As HubSpot consultants, we've seen countless portals over the years, from pristine setups to digital dungeons where workflows go to die. The common thread? Most businesses have no clear picture of what's actually happening under the hood of their CRM. Until recently, comprehensive portal auditing required either expensive external consultants or countless hours of manual detective work.
That's changing fast.
With the emergence of AI powered tools and HubSpot's Model Context Protocol (MCP), businesses can now perform sophisticated portal audits themselves. While this doesn't replace the need for expert strategic guidance, it can provide valuable insights and help you identify issues before they become problems.
HubSpot grows with your business, but that growth often creates complexity that goes unnoticed:
The traditional approach involves manually checking dozens of different screens across multiple hubs, a time-consuming process that most teams postpone until problems arise.
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) creates a direct connection between AI assistants like Claude and your HubSpot data. Instead of clicking through countless screens, you can ask questions (known as prompting) like:
This systematic approach mirrors HubSpot's own audit methodology but automates the data collection and analysis.
Screenshot from Claude Desktop executing the prompt "Let's do a HubSpot audit on my portal (using MCP)"
Based on HubSpot's own audit framework, here are the key areas you should regularly review:
AI Assistant Query: "Analyze our subscription usage and identify underutilized paid features."
Screenshot from Claude Desktop showing an excerpt of above's prompt with ROI Optimization opportunities
AI Assistant Query: "Check our domain connections, user permissions, and identify any security configuration gaps."
AI Assistant Query: "Perform a data quality assessment and highlight integrity issues across our database."
AI Assistant Query: "Analyze our email performance over the last 6 months and flag any concerning trends or deliverability issues."
AI Assistant Query: "Show me form performance data and identify optimization opportunities."
AI Assistant Query: "Audit all workflows and highlight any that need attention or have performance issues."
AI Assistant Query: "Review all integrations, map data flows, and flag any sync issues or compliance concerns."
AI Assistant Query: "Check social media connections and advertising account performance."
AI Assistant Query: "Review our data retention practices and identify any compliance risks or cleanup opportunities."
Prerequisites:
Step 1: Create a HubSpot Private App
Step 2: Set Up MCP Connection
"your-token-here" with... your token provided in Step 1{
"mcpServers": {
"hubspot": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@hubspot/mcp-server"],
"env": {
"PRIVATE_APP_ACCESS_TOKEN": "your-token-here"
}
}
}
}Step 3: Connect Claude With MCP configured, Claude can now directly access your HubSpot data through structured queries and commands.
Step 4 (optional): Download Brave web browser and setup an MCP connection. This allows Claude to search for information on the web. This improves the result of your audit as it enables your AI auditor to search through HubSpot documentation if needed.
Once connected, you can ask Claude to perform various audit tasks:
"Show me all inactive workflows and identify which ones were critical to customer onboarding."
This might reveal that key automation was accidentally disabled during a recent update, potentially causing leads to fall through cracks.
"Analyze the associations between our custom objects and identify any gaps or inconsistencies."
You might discover that certain customer records aren't properly linked to their programs or territories.
"Which custom properties haven't been used in the last 90 days, and are there any workflows still referencing them?"
This helps identify bloat and potential cleanup opportunities.
"Review user permissions and flag any users with access that doesn't match their current role."
Critical for maintaining proper data governance as teams evolve.
Here are real examples of problems that systematic AI auditing typically reveals:
License inefficiency
Paying for Professional features while only using Starter-level functionality, or maintaining user seats for team members who rarely access the platform.
Data integrity problems
Duplicate company records causing confusion in reporting, or contacts with incomplete information that impacts lead scoring and segmentation accuracy.
Security configuration gaps
Users maintaining admin access after role changes, or private app tokens that haven't been rotated in months.
Email deliverability issues
Email authentication problems that gradually worsen deliverability rates without triggering obvious alerts.
Abandoned workflows
Automation that was paused during a campaign or update but never reactivated, causing leads to miss critical follow-up sequences.
Data retention concerns
Contacts from old campaigns being retained indefinitely without business justification, potentially creating compliance risks.
Integration performance
Third-party app connections that are syncing data inefficiently, causing delays or creating duplicate records.
While AI powered auditing is powerful for technical health checks, it has limitations:
AI can identify that email open rates are declining, but it takes human expertise to understand whether that's due to:
AI might flag a complex workflow as inefficient, but that workflow might serve a specific business requirement that makes the complexity necessary.
Identifying issues is different from fixing them strategically. Complex portal changes often require careful planning to avoid disrupting ongoing operations.
AI powered auditing is excellent for:
However, consider professional auditing services when you need:
The barrier to entry for AI powered portal auditing has never been lower. Start with these simple steps:
Even spending 30 minutes with this setup can provide insights that would take hours to discover manually.
We're entering an era where comprehensive CRM auditing becomes as routine as running antivirus software. AI tools are democratizing access to insights that were previously available only through expensive consulting engagements.
This doesn't eliminate the need for strategic expertise, if anything, it makes strategic guidance more valuable by freeing consultants from purely technical documentation tasks. Instead, they can focus on interpreting findings, recommending solutions, and guiding implementation.
For businesses using HubSpot, the question isn't whether you should audit your portal, it's whether you'll do it reactively when problems arise, or proactively to prevent them.
The tools are available. The setup is straightforward. The insights are waiting.
Your portal's health is now just a conversation away.
Ready to take your HubSpot optimization further? While AI powered auditing is a powerful starting point, strategic portal optimization requires deep expertise and business context. Contact HubScan for comprehensive HubSpot audit services tailored to Benelux businesses.