Importing custom objects records and linking to Companies

[BPR]

Hi all

I'm experimenting with how importing works at the moment for a potential CRM migration. I've imported a number of companies into the CRM. I've also created a custom object called Facilities. I have a spreadsheet with all the facilities that are related to all the companies. This is a one-to-many relationship. Each company can have multiple facilities. This limit is set already in Association Limits.

Currently, I can manually go to a company and associate facilities with a company.

What I would like to do is import all these new facilities and have them linked to the respective companies automatically as part of the import. I have the company domain name in the import spreadsheet.

Any guidance as to how to import JUST facilities but have them linked against existing companies would be fantastic.

Thanks

[Ian_Matt · Accepted solution]

Hi @BPR ,

There are two options for this.

One is with a single spreadsheet with all company domains listed and beside each in another column is the Factility.

Second is 2 seperate spreadsheets (not just sheets in the same spreadsheet, need to be 2 different files). In this option you have all the companies in spreadsheet 1 and all the industries in spreadsheet 2 with a common column in both that HubSpot can reference to know which should be associated. 

-To start navigate to 'companies' and select 'import'

-Choose the objects to be included in your import (Companies and facilities)

-Choose whether you are using 1 or multiple files

-Since you already have the companies in HubSpot choose the option 'Update existing [records/activities] only' for 'How to import companies' and if the facilites are not currently in HubSpot choose 'Create new [records/activities] only for 'How to create facilities'

-If you are using association labels note that you can have a column in your spreadsheet for that label also.

I recommend doing a test import first with a small data set to make sure you've formatted everything correctly. Hope this helps!

[Ian_Matt · Accepted solution]

Hi @BPR ,

There are two options for this.

One is with a single spreadsheet with all company domains listed and beside each in another column is the Factility.

Second is 2 seperate spreadsheets (not just sheets in the same spreadsheet, need to be 2 different files). In this option you have all the companies in spreadsheet 1 and all the industries in spreadsheet 2 with a common column in both that HubSpot can reference to know which should be associated. 

-To start navigate to 'companies' and select 'import'

-Choose the objects to be included in your import (Companies and facilities)

-Choose whether you are using 1 or multiple files

-Since you already have the companies in HubSpot choose the option 'Update existing [records/activities] only' for 'How to import companies' and if the facilites are not currently in HubSpot choose 'Create new [records/activities] only for 'How to create facilities'

-If you are using association labels note that you can have a column in your spreadsheet for that label also.

I recommend doing a test import first with a small data set to make sure you've formatted everything correctly. Hope this helps!

[BPR]

Hi Ian

Thanks for the reply. The second method you mentioned I had already tried but I got a stack of errors that "This import is set to Create-Only, but this row references an object that already exists on the portal. There's already an object with (domain:abc.net)" and "Alternate ID 'abc.net' was already used in this import on line 2". Basically, one facility per company was created, but the rest of the facilities for a company were not.

I'll give it another go tomorrow, but do you have any brainwaves from the above two errors about what I may have done wrong? I had set the "domain name" field in the Facilities import to import into the Company object, assuming this would be how it forms the relationship between the facilities I'm importing, and the companies that already existed.

Thanks

[BPR · Accepted solution]

I've tried this import again and it worked this time. Even though I was ONLY importing a file with Facilities in it, this time I left "Choose how to import Companies" as "Create and update Companies". Last time, I had it configured as "Create new Companies only". It makes sense now I think about it that Companies need to be able to be updated for the associations to occur.