Bugfix: New Validation for Hyphen Usage for Custom Object Names

[hseligson]

We recently discovered that custom objects created in the HubSpot CRM with a hyphen (-), a punctuation mark used to join words within the custom object name, caused issues rendering within a marketing email.

This issue applies to all Enterprise subscription tier users who utilize custom objects that contain a hyphen in the name inside a marketing email. To remedy this, we'll be requiring that net-new custom object names do not contain a hyphen. The expected date this validation will be enforced is September 15th, 2023.

What’s Changing?

New validation is being implemented to prevent the following chain of events from happening:

• Creation of a custom object with a hyphen within the name.
• Email parser fails to interpolate the property accurately, causing the printed value to be blank.
• User draft emails intending to reference properties of a said custom object with a hyphen within the name. Those properties do not properly render when the email is sent.

When developers using the Custom Objects API attempt to create a custom object with a name using a hyphen, they will receive a 400 error response. The following error returned will be:

// Response error example
{
  "status": "error",
  "message": "Unable to create the object '{{ name }}' because name contains one or more of the following disallowed characters: '{{ disallowed }}'",
  "correlationId": "84048eda-9743-4731-a0c9-bed28f1cc9a3",
  "category": "VALIDATION_ERROR"
}

Existing users will not be affected, and existing custom objects with hyphens will remain as such. However, any new custom objects created after September 15th, 2023, cannot have a hyphen within the definition name.

Please let us know if you have any questions by replying below.