Hey there,
I’d like to propose an improvement to the search functionality when associating objects in HubSpot. The current limitation in searching for companies to associate with contacts or deals is causing inefficiencies and potential errors in our workflow.
When associating a company with a contact or deal, we can only search by company name. This becomes problematic in scenarios where multiple companies share the same or similar names, but are differentiated by other properties such as location or CompanyID.
For example, we work with numerous childcare centers that often have identical names but are located in different cities. When attempting to associate a company, we’re presented with multiple options of the same name, making it challenging to identify the correct one without additional context.
That’s why I suggest implementing a configurable search function that allows users to search by additional company properties beyond just the company name. This could include:
CompanyID
City
State/Province
Custom properties
For example, you may add a dropdown menu or additional search fields next to the company name search, allowing users to select and search by secondary properties.
We work with many educational institutions and I continually hear about the pain point when trying to manually associate a company from a different object record (contact, deal, ticket, etc.)
Here’s what my users see when trying to associate a contact to “Jefferson Elementary”
Create Date and Contacts associated are great. But I really need to see more context. City, State, Phone Number or most importantly our custom property “Customer Number” that connects to our ERP. Ideally we could add one or many of those to another column in the search results rather than the tooltip detail card.
It is currently impossible to choose the correct company in a list like this that returns over 100 results, which is pretty much every time a school is named after a US president.
We absolutly agree here. It is a pain to associate Records. Often we have this problem in Tickets when a new Contact is writing us. I have spend some time searching in the community and found severeal Posts for this topic:
Maybe the community admins can merge some of these posts or merge them in a new overall post so that the impact is better to understand for the product team.
What all posts mean is we need more flexibility to see which record is shown. Here are some possible easy to program solutions:
make the record id searchable and maybe show it behind the name in the list
let us change the properties we can see on hover over the search result
let us set custom one additional property to show in the search result list and make this also searchable
use the same searchable properties and the same tooltip additional properties we can use and see in the regular search bar
I think the first point is the easiest and have to be done as soon as possible, but also the product team need to review the other points additionally, because the search for rercord association is very important but at the moment its a shame.
I work for a religious organization where most of the companies that we work with have the exact same name (i.e. Trinity Church, St. Paul Church, etc.). When our client services team is attempting to associate tickets and other objects to the company, we can get a list of 100 churches with the exact same name. It is nearly impossible to tell one Trinity Church from another. To make matters worse, many of them do not have websites, so using the url to search doesn’t always work either.
The functionality of the global search is amazing! With it, I can search our external ID number and it finds the correct record 99% of the time. It would be great if you would make the association search functionality as dynamic as the global search. I could then search on the city rather than the name to narrow my search.
In addition, it would be helpful to not only display the NAME of the company, but also its City and State.
Agreed, I would ideally like to see location displayed for us as this is a key differentiator - the ideal would be to have one/two configuration options for what might be displayed
It would be really helpful to be able to search for a Hubspot Company ID or Contact ID (or other ID, like Products or Services) directly in the Hubspot search bar. Seems like this search bar looks at everything except ID numbers, which would be a simple thing to include and help us.
We include Hubspot IDs to track the results of some marketing campaigns, associating them with certain URLs, etc. to determine the company that likely clicked, etc.
Summary
When associating one CRM record to another, the association interface provides only a basic search bar with no filtering options or property visibility. As databases grow, this makes it difficult for users to quickly identify and select the correct record.
Current Limitation
The association modal displays a long list of records from the chosen object type, without the ability to:
Filter by properties
View key identifying fields directly in the list
Limit results by criteria such as pipeline, lifecycle stage, object status, or any custom attribute
Because of these limitations, users often rely on strict naming conventions or manual workarounds to distinguish records.
Impact
Slower record association workflows
Higher risk of selecting the wrong record
Increased dependence on naming hacks
Reduced accuracy in downstream reporting and automation
Poor scalability as the number of CRM records increases
Request
Enhance the association search experience across all CRM objects by adding:
Filters based on object properties (including custom properties)
Ability to display selected properties in search results
Other sorting options
Structured filtering in addition to text search (e.g., “show only records where X = Y”)
Optional pipeline/status filters where applicable
Desired Outcome
A faster, more accurate, and more scalable way to associate any CRM objects, improving data quality, user experience, and the usefulness of associations throughout HubSpot.
Hi everybody -- I’d like to see how we might be able to help make this a reality. We are looking for folks who may be interested to connect with us to share their feedback and review some concepts. If you are open to chatting, please book a time with us here.
Fully agree — this has a significant impact on production:
Time loss: the company name can be shared by several companies, so we have to add them first and then check which one matches the correct customer code provided.
This leads to human errors in company assignment and can have serious consequences (GDPR incident)
Our company operates exclusively based on Customer Code or SIREN.
100% agree this is needed. Most of our business is with the education section, a lot of the companies have identical company names but different addresses. It’s not possible to search that specific type of information as it is right now.
