Creating Hidden Custom Fields

[#1]

I know that HubSpot allows a user to not see empty fields on the Contact or Deal objects but is it possible to create a custome field on an object that will hold data that is not necessary to be show on the Object?  Time in Deal Stage is calculated but it would be useful to put the data into a custom field but then not show it on the Deal Object to keep the object clean for the users.  It would be used for reporting and other analysis.  I assume you can create a custom field with the API and not have it revealed on an object.  Is that the case?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

UPDATED

>>"Hidden Custom Fields"

Need to create via the API -- (see @IsaacTakushi thread below). No such thing via the UI.

All UI-created HubSpot custom properties may (optionally) be visible in the interface. - see Select properties to show under the About section in a record

HubSpot has functionality for users to create 'hidden' properties via the API -- i.e., that cannot be optionally viewed in the interface.

[#3]

I kind of thought that was the case.  I can create custom fields in Pipedrive., Salesforce and other CRM to enable calculated fields, etc. that do not have to be exposed to the end user but was not sure HubSpot did that.  I thought via the API you can create customer fields on the backend and not have them visible on the Object in the UI.  No?

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Hi, @cedaly.

I just confirmed that it is possible to create custom hidden object properties with the APIs.

In my test, I created a custom contact property with the field "hidden": true:

{
  "name": "hidden_example_property",
  "label": "Hidden Example Property",
  "description": "A hidden example property",
  "groupName": "contactinformation",
  "type": "string",
  "fieldType": "text",
  "formField": false,
  "displayOrder": 6,
  "hidden": true,
  "options": []
}

I then gave a contact a value for this property through this endpoint and verified that it was visible with this endpoint. The propery isn't visible anywhere in the UI, however.

Hope this helps!

[#5]

Since the hidden object may only be accessed via the APIs, this infers that the hidden object MIGHT be accessible via integrations that use the APIs -- e.g., Zapier!?

This could be HUGE because it means we may be able to use tools like Zapier to both interrogate and update objects that are completely invisible via the UI.

Can't think of a specific use case just now. But ever have the feeling that something is 'important' ... just can't quite put ur finger on why? That's me right now.

Thanks @IsaacTakushi. Have an excellent weekend.

cc: @roisinkirby, @jennysowyrda, @bradmin, @Stephanie-OG, @tjoyce, @Josh, @Phil_Vallender, @Jsum, @ConnorSlivensky   -- if you didn't know, now you know!

[#6]

HubSpot is an app built on AWS and there is a structure to those apps that allows redundancy and stability.  There are web servers, application servers and database servers.  Data can and does exist in the database layer that is not available in the UI or webservices layer.  The HubSpot API points to the database layer for loading and managing data on the backend of the application.  The three layers operate independently with rendundancy so that applications are less likely to fail.

It makes total sense that there are database columns you can add because you can add custome fields to tables and that means the user has write access.  The API enables you to have write access to the database and insert custom field and then populate them with caluclated data (say date calculations that are not readily available in the UI) and then those triggers can go in and send notifications of subscription expirations, or dated communications.  

What I am wondering is why HubSpot does not have a way to class Users so that every column available can be seen or not seen based on the User class.  For example, we have Sales users who are not sales professional but they can see sales just not all of professional.  By allowing columns to be hidden from users but exposed to admins more work can be done through the front end for people not able to code to the API without a developer.  It makes the HubSpot application that much more powerful.

Good to know...

[#7]

I agree with both of you!

@cedaly, I can't speak to why we haven't implemented user-level field permissions in the past, but I'm pretty sure it's the direction we're headed.