Structuring 2x custom objects for tracking attendance at offline events

[TheHSExpert]

Hi there,

I’m hitting a bit of a wall when it comes to setting up custom objects for offline Events and tracking Contact attendance.

I’ve read several threads that suggest creating an Event object for event records (e.g. Event 1 – March 2024) and a separate Event_status / Registration_status / Attendance object for registration statuses (e.g. Registered, Attended, Cancelled).

However, none of these threads actually go into any detail about how to correctly structure & associate the two objects, and then associate them correctly to Contacts.

Several other threads suggest using one Event object associated to Contacts with association labels to indicate attendance (Registered, Attended, etc.)

Here’s what I’ve done so far…

I have created an Event custom object (shown as Marketing Activity below) to hold records of each event my client’s company runs (they run 50+ per year). I have associated that to Contacts and set up association labels for Registered, Attended, Cancelled, and No Show.

This seems to be working OK as a way of tracking Contacts’ attendance, although I’m struggling to find a simple way of getting lists of all registered/attended/no shows/etc. directly from the Event object record rather than having to create separate active Lists, which would quickly get messy with 50+ events per year. Any advice on that would be extremely helpful.

However, I’m also looking into the second Event_status (or whatever) object as a way of tracking attendance. I’ve set up an Event_status object with a single property called Registration Status. I’ve then associated that object to Contacts and Events, but haven’t created any association labels as I’m not sure what they would be.

Here’s what my Event_status records look like (ignore the Downloaded, Viewed records):

Have I taken the right approach to Event_Status records or have I missed something? Am I supposed to set up new Event_status records for every Event record? (that feels messy) Or will these generic ones do the job?

What I’m struggling with is how to make the two custom objects work together, as well as with Contacts. How do I structure the associations to effectively track Contacts’ attendance (via the Event_Status object) to specific records in the Event object?

Can anyone share an example solution with me to help me wrap my head around this and get it working effectively? I’d appreciate any help anyone can give me.

Warm regards,

Alex

[Mike_Eastwood]

Hi @TheHSExpert

I can see how much work you’ve put into Custom Objects but…

I recommend you investigate Marketing Events they should be able to do most of what you need without using Custom Objects.

Have fun

Mike

Here to learn more about HubSpot and share my HubSpot Knowledge. I’m the founder of Webalite a Gold HubSpot Partner Agency based in Wellington, New Zealand and the founder of Portal-iQ the world’s first automated HubSpot Portal Audit that helps you work smarter with HubSpot.

[TheHSExpert]

Thanks, Mike.

I’ve looked into Marketing Events, including third party apps that extend the functionality to include offline events; however, no solution I’ve found is flexible enough to handle the complexity of what my client is after, therefore I believe custom objects are the best choice in this instance.

[Mike_Eastwood]

I agree @TheHSExpert , even with the recent improvements to Marketing Events there’s still more needed.

Thinking about your lists, what about Custom Properties, in the Contact, to hold Number of Events Attended, Last Event Attended? (assuming Assciations could trigger a Workflow to increment the properties). It would make your lists eassier and great for reporting.

Have fun

Mike

[CBalasooriya]

Hey did you find a solution for this?

[TheHSExpert]

Yes… with a caveat.

In the end, I stuck with one custom object for Events and used association labels to track attendance.

Automating the association between Events and Contacts (e.g. when a contact registers for an event by submitting a form) was easy using the Associ8 app from Marketplace (HubSpot Marketplace). It offers a free tier giving you 50 associations per month and works fine for associating a custom object to standard objects. If you needed to associate 2 or more custom objects, you’d need their Pro plan.

The caveat is that it’s still not great for easily pulling lists of contacts by attendance status (i.e. association labels), and I’ve had to resort to Lists to achieve this, but I’m quietly confident that the ability to filter contacts by association label in the CRM view is a feature that will become available in the not too distant future.

Creating custom Contact properties to track various things – number of events attended, date of last event, last Event record ID, etc. – has also allowed me to associate relevant Deals to specific Events to give an indication of influenced revenue from events.

I’m happy with the results and, more importantly, so is my client!

[Sam_Campbell]

Hey there!

I’m with the team over at hapily and stumbled across your post. Awesome way to use our app Associ8! We just launched an app for folks who use HubSpot that can manage your events in-platform called event•hapily, and we’re able to shorten this process.

Our custom object schema that you get automatically installed with event•hapily solves your issue! We have separate objects for events and sessions which is SUPER helpful when managing an event with multiple days, or multiple sessions happening under one umbrella. The hierarchy of the two is incredibly useful.

You can eliminate the need for dropdowns and neverending lists using our check-in module to track registrations and attendance in one place. You can implement this into any content hub landing page or web page!

(You can customize the fields desired for check-in as well to fit your needs)

Once someone checks in, they are associated with the event as “attended”. As for lists, the event or session pages have a section where attendees or registrants can be sorted out! These are intuitive to use and really cuts back on time and energy trying to battle with making it from scratch.

We have a few chopped up videos of specifics inside of event•hapily on our youtube channel, but our beta preview video gives the gist of what else we can do, especially for 50+ events a year. A lot of our team has dealt with the trials and tribulations of event management in the past, and this was made to take some of the pressure off.

Hope that helps! Saw your post and figured we’d hop in and give you some info. Let me know if you have any additional questions or would like to chat further!

Sam Campbell

Marketing Coordinator @ hapily

hapily - LinkedIn

hapily - Website