All HubSpot accounts can use the
primary label for companies
,
but in accounts with a
Professional
or
Enterprise
subscription, you can create custom labels. Association labels can describe relationships between all CRM objects, including contacts, companies, deals, tickets, and custom objects. For example:
A contact can be
Manager
at one company, but also
Former employee
at another company.
A deal can have multiple associated contacts, one who is the
Decision maker
and another who is the
Billing contact
.
Two company locations are associated, where one is the
Headquarters
and the other is the
Regional Office
.
Multiple contacts from the same family are associated, with labels for
Partner
,
Pa
rent
, and
Child
.
If you'd like to automate associations in your system, learn more about operations-related apps in the
HubSpot App Marketplace
.
Create association labels
Users with
Super admin
permissions can create custom association labels. You can create up to 50 labels per object pair (e.g., Contact to Deal, Contact to Contact).
To create an association label:
In your HubSpot account, click the
settings
settings icon
in the top navigation bar.
In the left sidebar menu, navigate to
Objects
, then select the
object
for which you’d like to create an association label.
Click the
Associations
tab.
Click
Create association label
.
In the right panel:
Click the
Objects you're associating
dropdown menu, then select the other
object
relationship
for which you're creating the label (e.g.,
Deals-to-Contacts).
A single label
: the associated records are related in the same way, so the label can apply to both records (e.g.,
Colleague, Partner
).
Once a label has been created, navigate to a record and refresh the page. The label will now appear for you to select.
Manage association labels
You can edit or delete existing association labels, as well as view more information about a label's history and API details. To manage existing association labels:
In your HubSpot account, click the
settings
settings icon
in the top navigation bar.
In the left sidebar menu, navigate to
Objects
, then select the
object
you’d like to create an association label for.
Click the
Associations
tab.
Click the
Select object associations
dropdown menu and select the associations for which you want to view labels (e.g.,
Deals-to-Contacts).
You can also use the
Filter by
dropdown menus to filter your labels based on cardinality (1-to-many or 1-1) or which user created the label.
To edit a label, hover over the
label
, then click
Edit label
. In the right panel, edit the
name
of the label, then click
Save
.
To delete a label, hover over the
label
, click
More
, then select
Delete
. Select the
checkbox
to acknowledge that you can't restore a deleted label, then click
Delete
to confirm. If a label is used within records or other HubSpot tools, you'll first need to remove the labels from those assets before deleting. To view where a label is being used:
Hover over
Delete
, then click
View which automations your association label is used in
in the pop-up box.
In the right panel, click a record or tool
name
to navigate to the asset that uses the label.
To view the history of an association label, hover over the
label
, click
More
, then select
View history
. In the dialog box, view how the label was created, the object relationship it applies to, when it was created, which user created it, and a timeline of changes.
To copy an individual value, click the
duplicate
copy icon
.
To copy all values, click
Copy all to clipboard
.
Set or update association labels on records
On a record, you can add or remove labels for its associations. You can also
set association labels in bulk via import.
To add a new association with a label, or update a record's primary company, learn how to
add
or
edit
associations on a record.
To update the labels for an individual association:
To add or edit labels for an existing association, hover over the
association card
, click
More
, then select
Edit association labels
.
In the dialog box:
To add a label, click the
dropdown menu
and select the
label
.
To remove a label, click
x
next to the label.
Use association labels in HubSpot tools
Once you've created association labels to describe relationships between records, you can add association labels to new or existing associations
on a record
or in
bulk via import
. You can then filter by these labels in HubSpot tools such as lists, workflows, and custom reports.
When creating a contact or company-based list, you can filter your records based on their associations. For contact-based lists, you can filter based on contacts' primary company associations. Users in
Professional
and
Enterprise
accounts can also filter records in lists by association labels.
Click the
Filtering on
dropdown menu, then select the
object
from the
Associated object
section (e.g., in a contact-based list, select
Company
to filter based on the contacts' company associations).
By default, the list will include records when
any
associated records fit the criteria.
To set your criteria based on the primary company association or a custom association label, click
[Object] is associated to: Any [object]
, then
select a
label
in the dropdown menu.
This will filter the records based only on associations with that label, so the list will include a record only an associated record has that label
and
that record meets the criteria.
Once you've created association labels, you can use them to trigger enrollment and certain actions within workflows. For example, you can automatically send an email to contacts based on attributes of their associated primary company, or
if a deal moves to a different deal stage,
automatically update the stage of its associated deals.
You can use association labels in contact, company, deal, ticket, or custom object-based workflows when setting
enrollment triggers
. To set triggers based on association labels:
In the left panel, click
When filter criteria is met
.
Click
+ Add filter.
Click the
Filtering on
dropdown menu, then in the
Associated object
section, select the associated
object
.
Select a
property
to filter by, then set your criteria.
By default, the filter will be based on
Any [object]
, which means a record would be enrolled when any of their associated records meet the criteria.
To set your criteria based on an association label, click
[Object] is associated to: Any [object]
, then select a
label
in the dropdown menu. This will enroll the records based only on associations with that label, which means the workflow would enroll a record only if they have an associated record with that label
and
that record meets the criteria.
Once you're done setting your triggers, at the bottom, click
Save
.
Click the
Filtering on
dropdown menu, then in the
Associated object
section, select the
object
.
Select a
property
to filter by, then set your criteria.
By default, the filter will be based on
Any [object]
, which means the record would progress down the branch when any of their associated records meet the criteria. To set your criteria based on an association label, click
[Object] is associated to: Any [object]
, then
select a
label
in the dropdown menu.
This will move records based only on associations with that label, which means the a record would progress down the branch only if they have an associated record with that label
and
that record meets the criteria.
If creating a value equals branch:
Click the
Property or value to branch on
field, then select a
property
in the
[Associated Object]: [Refinement criteria]
section. The refinement criteria will determine which associated record the value will be copied from (e.g., the most recently updated, a specific label). This will only appear if you've added the association type as an
available data source.
Click
Next
.
Enter or select the
value
to branch on, and add additional branches as needed.
Once you're done, click
Save
.
To set or clear a property value for associated records, click
Set property value
or
Clear property value.
Click the
Target object
dropdown menu, then in the
Associated object
section, select the
object
.
By default, the property update will be set based on
All [object]
, which means all associated records' property values will be set or cleared. To set or clear the property value only for associations of a certain label, click the
Association to object
dropdown menu, then
select a
label.
Select the property to set or clear, then click
Save.
To copy a value between associated records, click
Copy property value
.
In the available data panel, select the
property
to copy
from
.
To copy the property's value
from
enrolled records
to
the associated records, select the property in the
Enrolled [object]
section.
To copy the property's value
to
enrolled records
from
the associated records, select the property in the
[Associated Object]: [Refinement criteria]
section. The refinement criteria will determine which associated record the value will be copied from (e.g., the most recently updated, a specific label). This will only appear if you've added the association type as an
available data source.
Click the
Target object
dropdown menu, then select an option:
To copy
from
enrolled records
to
the associated records, in the
Associated object
section, select the
associated
object
.
To copy
to
enrolled records
from
the associated records, in the
Current object
section, select the
enrolled
object
.
When copying from enrolled records to associated records, by default, the property update will be based on
All [object]
, which means an enrolled record's property will be copied to all associated records. To set your criteria based on an association label, click
Association to object
dropdown menu, then
select a
label
.
This will copy the property only to associated records with that label.
Select the
property
to copy
to
.
Once you're done, click
Save
.
In a contact or company-based workflow, to send an email to associated contacts, click
Send email
. In a contact-based workflow, in the
Send to
section, select
Associated contact
.
To edit which associations should receive the email, click the
Association label
dropdown menu, then select the
labels
that should receive the email, or click the
x
for a selected label if that association type should not receive the email.
Choose the email to send to the associated contacts, then click
Save
.
In custom reports, you can use association labels to specify which records to include in the report based on their labels. You can also use association labels as an axis, break down field, or filter in your custom report.
In your HubSpot account, navigate to
Reporting & Data
>
Reports
.
In the upper right, click
Create report
.
In the left panel, select
Custom report builder
.
Select your
data sources
:
Select the primary source by clicking the
Primary data source
dropdown menu and selecting a primary source. The primary source you select affects which labels are available. For example, a report with a primary data source of
Contacts
will only include labels you've created within your
contact
association settings.
Select your
secondary sources
by choosing from the
CRM, Marketing, Sales, Service
, and
Custom objects
sections. To use labels for cross-object associations, you'll need to select
at least one
additional CRM object.
At the top of the data source editor, click
Choose association labels
.
In the dropdown menu, select the
labels
you want to include in the report.
For cross-object associations, you can select the
All [objects]
checkbox to include all associated records of that object, regardless of their labels. This will be selected by default if there are no defined labels for an object relationship.
For same object associations, you can only select
one
same object association label per report.
For
paired labels
, the direction you select will impact the data included in the report (e.g., if you select
Child Company to Parent Company
, companies labeled
Child Company
will be the primary data source of the report, and companies labeled
Parent company
will be an additional source).
You can click
Back to data sources
to continue editing your sources, or click
Next
to continue. You can update your data sources and associations at any time in the report builder by clicking
Edit data sources
in the left sidebar.
Add fields to your report as an
axis, break down field
, or
filter
. By default, fields from the primary source label are shown in the left panel (e.g.,
Contacts (primary)
,
Companies (Parent Company)
, etc.). To access the association's fields, you can search across the sources, or click the
Browse
dropdown menu, then select the
object with the specified label (
e.g.,
Contacts (Partner), Companies (Child Company)
, etc.).
