Change Custom Object Association Cardinality

[JeffBantz]

I have just begun playing around with Custom Objects so any assistance would be appreciated. I would like to set some of the associations to be ONE_TO_ONE rather than ONE_TO_MANY.  I've dug through the documentation and don't see the means to update the cardinality anywhere. 

{
"fromObjectTypeId": "2-1137866",
"toObjectTypeId": "0-1",
"name": "metro_to_contact",
"cardinality": "ONE_TO_MANY",
"inverseCardinality": "ONE_TO_MANY",
"id": "31",
"createdAt": null,
"updatedAt": null
}, {
"fromObjectTypeId": "0-1",
"toObjectTypeId": "2-1137866",
"name": "metro_to_contact",
"cardinality": "ONE_TO_MANY",
"inverseCardinality": "ONE_TO_MANY",
"id": "32",
"createdAt": null,
"updatedAt": null
}

[ArdenM]

It's been three years since this documentation was just removed and there hasn't been any kind of movement that can be seen here. Even if this causes UI issues, wouldn't it be better to just include it in the documentation with a warning so that there's not just this floating gap?

[JTBuys]

If you have a pro+ hub you can request access to a private beta that provides this functionality from the Custom Object wizard. I agree that the documentation should still be updated. But, this is the most movement I've seen on this yet.

[Jassy]

Hey JT, Are you able to share the BETA you are referencing here? I cannot find any information on what you describe

[JTBuys]

It's titled "Configure Association Limits" in the Product Updates section of your portal. I always have a hard time finding these things again. 

It is a private beta. So, no guarantee that you will get access to it right away.

[dennisedson]

Hey all! 
On the API front, we are still a ways out from delivering something.  Sadly, I do not have a timeline on it, but I did speak with the team and they are aware.  I showed them this thread as well.  In the interim, I would recommend taking @JTBuys , advice and applying for the private beta.  It should be coming out of private beta at the end of November, or early December at which point it will be self enroll.  

Hope this helps a bit! 

[RCasey90]

OMG thanks!

[ArdenM]

You are an absolute legend, thank you so much for flagging this!

[BradySheridan]

+1 on this

We're beginning to implement custom objects and various associations via custom code workflows. Having the ability to set cardinality when creating associations would be super useful.

[Micole]

Any updates on this? we need to change cardinality, doesnt matter if its in UI or API but deffinitely needed.

[khookguy]

Any update here? I'd like to create associations that are 1-1 in the UI.  But that seems impossible.

[rc1]

Any update on this? were really do want a one-to-many in one direction only. 

[JesusR]

Hi, i'm looking to update an association definition to change association cardinality between contacts and a custom objects, is this something that's possible or do i need to recreate the association definitions?, because in the custom objects api i only see endpoints to delete associations and to create them but not to update.

Not sure if this is possible in associations api v4, i see an endpoint to update the definitions but there's not much information there.

Thank you very much in advance, any help would be very appreciated!

[arlogilbert]

I'm in the opposite boat. We did in fact implement this before they removed the API mechanism for doing this and it works fine... but now we need to modify the cardinality that is one_to_one to become one_to_many... and it seems that it may not be possible... Somehow we're stuck in limbo because we were early adopters of custom objects 😞

[chris_p_lukes]

@dennisedson I've been starting to implement some custom objects with cardinality, mostly with ONE_TO_MANY in one direction, but ONE_TO_ONE in the other (cardinality vs. inverseCardinality), rather than strict ONE_TO_ONE bidirectionally.

What exactly is "broken" with the UI?  From my testing so far, it seems to have some odd UX behaviors (e.g., in some cases adding a second association of a type where only one should be allowed appears like you are adding both, but may just replace the previous association; unclear error messaging in some cases where a save fails; etc.), but generally the cardinality "rules" seem to be enforced as expected...

Wondering if there is any reason I should avoid using custom object associations with modified cardinality (i.e., not ONE_TO_MANY in both directions as is the default) at this point, or if HubSpot is just trying to keep this functionality out of the docs until more refined.

[rc1]

Hi Chris, 
Could you share how you were able to create the cardinality correctly via API so that it's only one-to-many in one direction, and not both?

[JeffBantz]

Seems that this is pretty critical functionality for those of us wanting to implement Custom Objects.

Without the UI support to limit a selection to a one-to-one it's going to limit our ability to go where we want to go.

Any word on someone escalating this as a critical need?

[Benatt]

Any update on this ?

[dennisedson]

@Benatt not yet 😥

[dennisedson · Accepted solution]

@JeffBantz ,

Thanks for adding the post.  This was actually removed from the documentation as the cardinality for custom objects will work using the API, but it breaks the UI.  Unsure on the timing of that fix, but when it is fixed, it will be brought back to the docs.

[RCasey90]

any update on this? It seems the cardinality is broken. 
Adding a one-to-many from x to y currently also creates a one-to-many from y to x. That's broken and sadly unusable. the consequence is that our sales people are slowly making hubspot data worse and worse over the years. 

does anyone have a workable alternative?