Business card scanner for HubSpot.

How it works

Somebody on your stand photographs a card with the CardParse app. The card is parsed into named fields, anything the parser is unsure about is flagged for a person to check rather than guessed at, and the contact appears in your dashboard.

A contact in your portal, created or updated, matched on email address. The fields that make the journey are below.

Connecting it

Press connect and approve CardParse in HubSpot. You choose the portal during the approval, which matters if you have more than one.

Scanning works with no signal. Cards queue on the phone and upload themselves when the connection comes back, which matters more at a trade show than anywhere else: a hall full of people is a hall full of phones fighting over the same cell.

Automatically, or when you say so

Each destination is set to one or the other. Automatic means every card arrives within seconds of being scanned, with anything flagged for review held back until somebody confirms it. The alternative is that nothing leaves on its own: you select the contacts you want on the contacts table and press send, whenever you are ready.

Which one suits depends on the show. A stand qualifying as it goes usually wants to check before sending; a stand collecting as fast as it can usually does not.

Worth knowing

• Two permissions, both on contacts: read to find an existing one, write to create or update it. CardParse cannot see your deals, companies or conversations.
• A card whose email already exists updates that contact rather than creating a second one, so scanning the same person at two shows does not leave you with a duplicate to merge.
• The contact owner is the person who scanned the card, decided at the moment it arrives rather than assigned afterwards.