Why has my data changed?

Sometimes, you might notice that your data in HockeyStack has changed. While this can seem concerning at first, many of these changes are expected and intentional—even if they appear "wrong" at first glance. There are well-documented scenarios that explain why these updates happen.

Why the data might change:

1. Definitions changed

   The first—and most common—cause is a change in definitions. Even a slight correction to a goal, defined property, or report can impact the numbers you're seeing. What to do: Start by consulting with your team to check if any updates were recently made to definitions, naming conventions, or reporting logic. This is often the quickest way to confirm the reason for the change.

2. New data uploaded If you upload more data (for example, add information about people attending an event to your CRM) or pull historical data (HockeyStack does this for customers during onboarding, or when there is a request to pull in more data), your attribution reports will change. HockeyStack’s attribution model updates dynamically as new data comes in. For example, you might initially see that ⅕ of a deal was attributed to LinkedIn. But then, you add event to your CRM. If a customer attended that event, it shifts how credit is distributed across channels, reducing the share originally attributed to LinkedIn. Because attribution in HockeyStack is recalculated when new qualifying touchpoints are added, your historical reports can change over time. This isn’t an error—it’s a reflection of improved context. As your data becomes more complete, attribution adjusts to reflect the full customer journey. This is especially important if your team frequently imports historical data, updates events, or integrates new tools. In those cases, it’s expected that even past deals may show different attribution splits as we incorporate the most accurate and up-to-date touchpoint data.

3. Account merging

   HockeyStack merges accounts to keep your data across different platforms unified. You can read more about this in the Merging in HockeyStack doc. Merging can't cause data changes on its own; however, if something changes in your CRM, this may trigger different account merging in HockeyStack, which will result in the data looking different. For example, Salesforce cleans your data in the background and performs operations on contacts that most SFDC users aren't aware of. HockeyStack merges contacts that have the same email and takes the one modified most recently as the primary one. If Salesforce modifies the contact that wasn't primary in HockeyStack, it becomes the primary contact (because it was more recently modified). Now, this matters because a contact’s company determines which opportunity its touchpoints contribute to. If a contact was previously associated with Company X (e.g. HockeyStack inc.), and Company X had an open opportunity, its touchpoints were included in attribution. But if after the change, the merged contact now points to Company Y (e.g. Hockey Stack EU), its touchpoints will no longer be included in attribution to Company X opportunity.