Multiple Associations and Labels in HubSpot

HubSpot allows you to associate many, related records of various object types to a single record. A company record, for example, could have associations with several contacts:

Or, a contact could have associations with multiple deals:

Each association may be labeled. For instance, you might label an associated company as a "Branch," or "2nd Association." You can customize your association labels for each object type from HubSpot. 

When a record is associated with multiple companies, perhaps a global parent company and several subsidiaries, the main company can be set as the Primary association. The Primary association is also considered a label.

Insycle makes it simple to add multiple associations to HubSpot records using the RevOps Acceleration > Associate app. 

In this example, let's say you have contact records that are already associated with a parent company labeled "Primary." The Primary company was associated using the Email Domain of the contact, and the Company Domain Name of the company.

The company has several branches in different states, so you now want to add an association for the company branches to the appropriate contact records. All of the branches have the same email and domain name, so you can use that as the first match criteria. 

Add the State/Region field so contacts are associated to the appropriate branch, then select the "Branch" Label to classify this association in HubSpot.

As another option for adding a "Branch" company association, you could match the Email Domain of the contact to the Additional Domain field of the company records. This would assign the contacts to branches based on their email addresses. 

HubSpot allows you to assign labels that describe the relationship between two associated records. When you use Insycle's Associate app to make these associations, you can apply these labels as part of the process.

The Primary label is only available for associated companies and should identify the main associated company on a record. You can create custom association labels for your other object types in HubSpot.

For instance, if you've associated a company with a contact, you might label the associated company as "Branch:"

If you've associated a deal with a contact, you could label it "Decision Maker:"

You can also assign multiple labels to an association, selecting from any label in your HubSpot database:

Whenever a company is associated with another record, if it's the first one added, the Primary label will automatically be applied in HubSpot. 

You can add additional labels to existing associations. In this example, we're only looking at records that already have a Primary association, and adding additional labels to that association: 

When using the Related tab to create associations, you can use labels to categorize the relationships or filter the related records. A Label option must be selected for each rule on the Related tab. If you don't want any labels applied, use the Unlabeled option.

1. Use the Association Labels to categorize the relationship. You can add, remove, or replace one or more labels based on the Action you've selected. In the below example, the new relationship between a deal and company will be labeled as "Primary."
2. The Related From Labels act as a filter where only the existing associated records with the matching labels will be used/looked at. In the example, only contact records with a "Decision Maker" label will be used.
3. The Related To Labels act as a filter where only relationships with the selected label will be copied to the source record. In this example, only companies with "Primary," or "Branch" labels will be added to deals.

Review HubSpot's article about setting or updating record association labels for more detail. 

If you want to remove existing associations and replace them with new ones, you can use the "Replace" action. This will remove current associations under the chosen labels, and replace them with new associations based on your matching settings.

Navigate to RevOps Acceleration > Associate, then select the database and record type from the top menu.

Under Step 1, adjust the filter to target the records that have the associations you want to replace. Make sure the records you want to update are what appear in the Record Viewer at the bottom of the page.

Under Step 2, select the Replace action and configure the association. Set up the fields for the association your records should have. Don't worry about what currently exists, Insycle will take care of all the cleanup automatically. 

Before running this operation, this contact had two associated companies. Neither of the two existing associated companies were labeled as the Primary company:

After running the Replace operation, both of the unlabeled company associations were removed. They were replaced with a company record that had the same Company Name and Country/Region values as found in the contact record, and labeled as Primary:

Navigate to RevOps Acceleration > Associate, then select the database and record type from the top menu. Then explore the templates for an existing solution that may be close to what you need. 

To remove "Primary" associated companies, for example, the Remove primary associations between Contacts and Companies template is a good place to start.

Under Step 1, adjust the filter to target the records that have the associations you want to remove. Make sure the records you want to update are what appear in the Record Viewer at the bottom of the page.

Under Step 2, if using the recommended template, the Labels options "Primary," and "Unlabeled" should be selected, but you can select any label in your HubSpot database. If the associations that you would like to remove have Primary designations, you'll need to remove those along with other labels.

Before running the above operation, this HubSpot record had an associated company with the Primary label:

After running this operation, the Primary associated record is removed. Any additional associations remain:

You can remove association labels from records while preserving the associations themselves. This can be done for any label on any record type.  

In the Associate app, select the database and record type from the top menu. Then explore the templates for an existing solution that may be close to what you need. 

Under Step 1, adjust the filter to target the records that have the associations you want to remove. Make sure the records you want to update are what appear in the Record Viewer at the bottom of the page.

Under Step 2, adjust the Labels option so only the label you want to remove is selected. 

Before running this operation, these two HubSpot records had associated companies with the Primary label:

After running this operation, the Primary label was removed, but the associated companies remain: