Automating Sanctions Screening with HubSpot Workflows

HubSpot workflows are the most powerful way to run sanctions screening at scale. Once set up, screenings run automatically, triggered by the criteria you define – with no manual intervention required.

This article covers how the workflow actions work, how to build the most common screening workflows, and how to use App Events to notify your compliance team when action is needed.

Topics Covered

→ Workflow 1: Screen Every New Contact Automatically

→ Workflow 2: Screen Contacts When a Deal Reaches a Stage

→ Workflow 3: Periodic Re-Screening of Your Database

→ Workflow 4: Notify Your Compliance Team When a Match Is Found

→ Workflow 5: Notify the Contact Owner When Results Need Review

→ Combining Workflows: A Recommended Starting Setup

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Before you begin

Workflow actions require HubSpot Professional or Enterprise (any Hub). They are not available on Starter plans. Manual screening via the App Card works on all HubSpot plans.

The Screen Contact and Screen Company workflow actions are available immediately after installation; no additional configuration is needed to use them.

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The two workflow actions

Both actions are asynchronous. The screening is submitted when the workflow step executes, and results are returned once the API has processed the query. A HubSpot App Event ("Screening event completed") is logged to the record's timeline when results are ready; this App Event can itself be used as a trigger for a downstream notification workflow.

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Workflow 1: Screen Every New Contact Automatically

This is the most common starting point. Every contact created in HubSpot is screened at the point of entry, ensuring no new contact enters your CRM unscreened.

How to build it:

1. In HubSpot, go to Automation → Workflows → Create workflow
2. Choose Contact-based workflow
3. Set the enrollment trigger to: Contact is created
4. Add action: Screen Contact
5. Turn on the workflow

Tips:

• Add a short time delay (e.g., 5-10 minutes) before the Screen Contact action if your contacts are created by a form or integration that populates additional fields after creation. This gives the system time to populate country, identifiers, and other fields that improve screening accuracy before the query is submitted.
• If you also want to screen companies associated with new contacts, add a second branch that uses Screen Company on the associated company record.

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Workflow 2: Screen Contacts When a Deal Reaches a Stage

For teams that need compliance checks at specific points in the sales or onboarding process, for example, before issuing a proposal or at the contract stage.

How to build it:

1. Create a Deal-based workflow
2. Set the enrollment trigger to: Deal stage is changed to [your chosen stage]
3. Add action: Enroll associated contacts in your contact screening workflow, or use a Go to other workflow / Re-enroll action depending on your HubSpot tier
4. Alternatively, use a Contact-based workflow triggered by an associated deal property changing

Tips:

• Deal-based workflows cannot directly run the Screen Contact action; the action must be on a contact-based workflow. The cleanest approach is a deal workflow that re-enrolls associated contacts in your screening workflow.
• If your deals are created or updated by an external system (e.g., an ERP syncing overnight), be aware that those automated updates will not trigger HubSpot workflow stage gates. Workflow-based compliance checks only fire for stage changes made within HubSpot.

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Workflow 3: Periodic Re-Screening of Your Database

For teams that need to re-screen their entire contact database, or a specific segment, at regular intervals.

How to build it:

1. Create a Contact-based workflow
2. Set the enrollment trigger to a date-based condition, or use a HubSpot list as the enrollment criteria (e.g., all contacts where Lifecycle Stage = Customer)
3. Enable re-enrollment so contacts can be screened on each cycle
4. Add action: Screen Contact
5. Set the workflow to run on your desired schedule (e.g., the 1st of each month)

Tips:

• For large databases, stagger enrollment across several days using time delays to avoid submitting a large volume of screenings simultaneously.
• Monitor your screening volume before running a large batch and confirm you have sufficient volume remaining. 
  Go to Settings → Integrations → Connected Apps → sanctions.io for HubSpot 

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Workflow 4: Notify Your Compliance Team When a Match Is Found

Rather than expecting your team to check HubSpot manually for new results, use a workflow to automatically notify when a screening returns a match.

How to build it:

1. Create a Contact-based workflow
2. Set the enrollment trigger to: App Event – "Screening event completed" (available as a workflow trigger once the integration is installed)
3. Add a filter condition: Sanctions Pending is greater than 0 (this ensures the notification only fires when there are actual unresolved results, not for every clean screening)
4. Add action: Send internal email notification or Create task – assigned to your compliance manager or team
5. Optionally add a branch: if Sanctions Status = Blacklisted, send a higher-priority alert or notify a senior contact

Tips:

• The App Event trigger ("Screening event completed") fires whenever a screening completes, whether or not matches are found. The Sanctions Pending filter in step 3 is important – without it, your compliance team will receive a notification for every clean screening, which will quickly become noise.
• You can also trigger on the "Error event" App Event to alert your team when a screening fails (e.g., due to an expired API token), ensuring errors don't go unnoticed.

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Workflow 5: Notify the Contact Owner When Results Need Review

A lighter-touch alternative to a central compliance queue, notifying the individual HubSpot user who owns the contact record when their contact has unresolved screening results.

How to build it:

1. Create a Contact-based workflow
2. Set the enrolment trigger to: Sanctions Pending is greater than 0
3. Add action: Send internal email notification to the Contact owner
4. Optionally add a re-enrolment condition so the notification repeats if the result is still unresolved after a defined period

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Combining Workflows: A Recommended Starting Setup

For most organizations, getting started with automated screening, a simple three-workflow setup covers the core compliance requirements:

• Workflow A - Screen on creation: Screen every new contact automatically.
• Workflow B - Notify on match: Trigger on App Event "Screening event completed" + Sanctions Pending > 0 → notify compliance manager.
• Workflow C - Periodic re-screen: Re-enroll and re-screen your active contacts or customers on a monthly schedule.

This gives you automatic entry screening, immediate alerting on matches, and regular ongoing monitoring – all running without manual effort.

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We're here to help!

If you have any questions or require further assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.

• Chat: Available directly on the Help Center page
• Email: help@sanctions.io