topic Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property? in Lead Capture Tools

Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

RHughes0 — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 21:03:49 GMT

It would be AWESOME if a form could have items that people fill out that aren't necessarily "contact properties" so that we could gather information for something like an event registration, where certain details don't need to be tied to their profile as a property forever.

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

chutchens — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 22:34:58 GMT

A workaround for this could be creating custom properties for your event or one-time use case, and then delete those properties once you have what you need.

It's not an ideal situation, but you wouldn't tie anything significant to the main contact record or properties if you created custom ones for your one-time use cases -- and then just delete them after use.

Chris

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

karstenkoehler — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 05:32:52 GMT

Hi @RHughes0,

The big question is: Where else would the captured information be stored then? Properties/fields are deeply embedded into HubSpot's logic. It seems wasteful to create that many properties, however without those properties, you wouldn't be able to filter, build reports and do all of the good stuff. By default, HubSpot allows you to create 1,000 properties so the limit shouldn't be an issue.

To keep things clean in the portal, I'd recommend following a clear naming convention for custom properties: "Event | Information", "Event | Information". These do not need to be the final field labels as you can adjust those within the forms editor. You can then place these custom properties into folders to have everything sorted nicely.

Hope this helps!

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

RHughes0 — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 15:30:08 GMT

This is an interesting way to think about it. I am newer to HubSpot, and am not sure if this is still the right move. Let me share some more context with you and get your opinion.

I would like to create a form that acts as an event registration for our participants, but am also interested in using this form to gather information like which time slot they would want to choose, whether they've participated in one before, if there is someone they want to attend with them and their contact information, etc.

Essentially it's a lot of unique information pieces speciifc to the event that I don't know would end up being messy on information or logging things that really arent useful. (For example, I don't see myself needing a report on people who participated in a specific time slot over another).

Like I said, I'm newer to the platform and am willing to take any perspective you may have.

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

karstenkoehler — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 05:25:31 GMT

Hi @RHughes0,

I get where you coming from. Properties are still required. You need to make available some kind of container for information on the contact record – otherwise HubSpot wouldn't have any place to store this information. Even if there was a way to bypass this (I'm not aware of one), you wouldn't be able to filter, segment, report based on those form fields. Properties are at the very core of HubSpot.

Don't think of it as cluttering your HubSpot portal. It's common practice.

Best regards!

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

RHughes0 — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 15:45:34 GMT

Thanks for your insight. I appreciate your input!

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

RHughes0 — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 15:45:52 GMT

Thanks for the ideas here. Great to consider moving forward!

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

VRamsey — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 17:29:12 GMT

Karsten - I understand the need to have properties to store the information. However, I don't want to store it in the Contact Object, I want to store it in the Deal Object. Is there anyway to build a form that includes Contact and Deal properties together? If not, then do I create a property within Contact Object that basically serves as a temporary holding and gets overwritten the next time the person completes the form? Thanks in advance.

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

WvanderGarde — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 12:45:09 GMT

Would be great if it was possible to put the questions and awnsers on a not, which is storable in HubSpot. We would like to use the form as a pre-intake survey so that we can better prepare for the intake, those awnsers will not be used afterwards ever again, but are important for that one time.

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

cbz — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 21:23:18 GMT

The problem is Properties get overwritten every time. A simpler solution is the ability to tie a Text form field to an "Activity Note" property, that creates an Activity Note (either for the Company or the Contact) with any data filled out in the form at that time. The field could be hidden, allowing query string data to help write out an activity note or log certain sources, actions, etc. in the Activity Note.

Re: Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

DBusch — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 14:23:09 GMT

I was hoping to use hubspot form to build some kind of maturity audit with info like "how long does it take you to do XXX".

That's not an info I want on a contact object, I'm fine with keeping this info under a "form" object and then use this info to trigger the creation of an audit report PDF, or just log the form answers on my contact timeline just like any other task would