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 contact as "C Suite" or "Decision Maker." You can customize your association labels for each object type from HubSpot.

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

You can create associations between:

• Standard or custom objects of different types (such as a product custom object with deals).
• Contacts, companies, and deal objects of the same type (contacts-to-contacts).
• One object and many objects (for example, one company to multiple deals). Learn more about making multiple associations.

Explore the Associate dropdown under Step 2 for all the options for each object type.

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 company has several branches in different states, so you now want to add an association for the company branches to the appropriate contact records.

Under Step 2 on the Simple tab, select the "Branch" Label to classify this association in HubSpot.

If the different locations have different domains, you could match the Email Domain of the contact to the Company Domain field of the company records. This would assign the contacts to branches based on their email addresses. 

Or, if all of the branches have the same email and domain name, you can also add the State/Region or Country field so contacts are associated with the company in the right location.

As another example, if you want to associate all contacts from the same company, you can use the Email Domain to associate all contacts based on a shared domain. Then, you can apply a custom Label, such as Colleague, to the relationship. 

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.

Whenever a company is associated with another record, if it's the first one added, the Primary label will automatically be applied in HubSpot. 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 all 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 could label relationships between contact records, such as linking administrative assistants to their managers:

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

For more details, review HubSpot's article about setting or updating record association labels.

Insycle provides a few ways to add more labels to existing associations.

Add Labels Based on Common Field Values

Under Step 2 on the Simple tab, use the Add Action to add the new labels.

In this example, we're only looking at records that already have a Primary association and adding the additional "Brand" label to that association:

Add Labels Based on Other Existing Associations

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.

Add Labels Based on Existing Labels

The Existing tab lets you use existing labels to control which records will be updated from the Filter Labels, then select the labels to add or remove under Action Labels.

In this example, all associations between two contacts with the existing label “Colleague” will also receive the label "C2C."

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.

In the Associate app, 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 shared common attributes with the contact, nor were they 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 the contact record and labeled as Primary:

In the Associate app, select the database and record type from the top menu. 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.

From here, you have two options for removing the associations:

Remove Associations Based on Existing Labels

Under Step 2 on the Existing tab, you use Filter Labels as a filter to control which records will be updated, then select the labels to remove under Action Labels. To completely remove an association, all the existing labels must be selected, as well as “Unlabeled.”

For instance, if you want to remove all associations that have the "3rd association" label, you need to select both the "3rd association" and "Unlabeled" Action Labels. If an association has the "3rd association" label along with other labels, only the "3rd association" label will be removed.

Before running the above operation, the below HubSpot record had two associated companies with the "3rd association" label. After running, the association with only the "3rd association" label was completely removed, while the association with both "2nd association" and "3rd association" labels remained, but with the "3rd association" removed.

Remove Associations Based on Common Field Values

To remove "Primary" associated companies on the Simple tab, 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.

Insycle provides two options for removing association labels from records.

Remove Labels Based on Common Field Values

Under Step 2 on the Simple tab, 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:

Remove Labels Based on Existing Labels

Under Step 2 on the Existing tab, you use Filter Labels to control which records will be updated, then select the labels to remove under Action Labels.

In this example, the "Brand" label will be removed from associations that have any of the labels “Primary” or “Branch.”

When using the Existing tab under Step 2 to remove associations, there are a couple of nuances to pay attention to.

Nothing happened, but it says it worked

You have the Action set to Remove, with the Action Label “Unlabeled.” When you run the operation in update mode, the Results modal and CSV say the label was removed, but the label is still there in the CRM.

The label was removed, but I wanted the association removed

In this case, you have the “3rd association” label selected for both the Filter Label and Action Labels. When you run the operation, it removes the “3rd association” label from associations.

Correct setup

If you want to remove an association, you need to ensure that it is not labeled so you need to remove all of them. To remove all labels in one go, you can select the "Unlabeled" option along with any other label that is currently applied to the association.

For instance, if you want to remove all associations that have the "3rd association" label, you need to select both the "3rd association" and "Unlabeled" options under Action Labels. If an association has the "3rd association" label along with other labels, only the "3rd association" label will be removed.

In HubSpot, you can see that the associations that only had the "3rd association" label were removed from this record, while associations with "3rd association" and additional labels just had the label removed.