HubSpot Ideas

DBowers3

Associate one contact to multiple companies

Think business consultant or sales broker - We'd like to be able to have one contact associated with multiple companies in Sales CRM.

 

HubSpot Updates
Delivered
June 09, 2023 06:48 AM

Hi everyone,

I’m Maggie the Product Manager for Associations at HubSpot. I'm very pleased to announce that this feature was delivered to all customers back in April of 2022. Specifically, you can associate a contact, deal or ticket to multiple companies. Apologies for the delay in updating you all here. If you're interested in learning more, this Knowledge Base article about associating records is a great place to start. 

 

Thank you for all of your guidance and submissions about this need.

 

Maggie

In Beta
October 04, 2021 12:08 PM

Hey all, happy to report this functionality is now in public beta. To review the updates and see how to opt your portal in to the updates, please head to this post. This will also be covered from the big stage at INBOUND, so there's even more to come here.

 

This has been a long time coming, I so appreciate all of you sharing your use cases and upvotes. We review them all, and it has a big impact on prioritization. Looking forward to your feedback on this release.

Jeff

In Beta
April 28, 2021 03:52 PM

Hello all, I apologize for the radio silence on our end. Excited to share the new multiple companies on a contact functionality is now available in private beta.

 

If you're interested in what's included (and of course you are!), watch this quick overview video created by HubSpot Academy Professor Kyle Jepsen.

 

While in limited private beta, you will need to ask your HubSpot contact (CSM, Technical Specialist, Onboarding Specialist, etc.) to request access on your behalf. From there, we'll review the request and ungate your portal to the beta. In some cases, we may not be able to ungate you - we'll follow up if that's the case.

 

We plan to go public with this functionality later this year, so if you don't get access in the beta, this will still be coming your way soon.

 

Can't wait to hear your feedback!

jeff

March 15, 2021 11:55 AM

Hi all, really appreciate the enthusiasm around this functionality. We can't wait to deliver it.

 

We are still actively working on supporting multiple companies on a contact - not just within the CRM, but across all parts of the HubSpot platform. Once we are in public beta, I will send out opt-in information.

 

Thanks for your patience - this stuff may seem straightforward, but being good stewards of your data comes first for us. Nothing is worth more than your trust. Updates to come as soon as possible.

In Planning
October 14, 2020 01:27 PM

As mentioned in the previous update, we are now in development of updates to the CRM that will make adding multiple companies to a single contact possible. Not making timeline promises in this forum, but as soon as the beta is available, I'll notify this thread.

 

To those wondering about using Custom Objects for associations - I would recommend against it. Custom Objects are great for the "nouns" of your business (think inventory, shipments, appointments, real estate) but not as good for describing the relationships between things.

 

We're focused on getting this updated functionality to you soon. Stay tuned for updates.

September 08, 2020 12:46 PM

Hi there! I'm Jeff, from the HubSpot CRM team.

 

Thanks so much to everyone who has been a part of the "related companies" beta. You've given a lot of excellent feedback on how this will need to work in order to be rolled out to all.

 

At this time, we're closing the "related companies" beta so we can prep for an improved version of this functionality, built on a new infrastructure, which is coming in the near-term future.

Because this beta and the "related companies" beta are built differently, enrolling more portals in the "related companies" beta now will make it more difficult to migrate eventually. I appreciate you keeping the comments about your use case for functionality like this coming, and we'll be back soon with more updates and timelines.

 

For anyone already on the "related companies" beta: no action needed at this time, and you aren't losing any functionality right now. We'll be in touch with migration plans when they are ready.

January 21, 2020 07:33 AM

Hi all,

 

We're currently looking into why we're displaying 7 contacts or 7 companies! We hope to have this fixed soon.

 

The team has been working on deciding how to move forward with the Related Companies feature. While there are no immediate plans for this implementation, we hope in the future to allow multiple relationships between objects (ie a contact can be associated with 5 companies and these would all display on the contact record via the normal "Companies" card), and we'd also like to support custom roles for all relationship types.

 

Thank you to those who have been making use of this beta and for the feedback you've provided! We will keep you posted as developments occur.

October 22, 2019 08:22 AM

Thanks @krispag! That's exactly right. From the contact record, you would just need to check the associations of each call to see which office the call is associated with.

October 21, 2019 12:18 PM

Hi @gelflex-cc , I haven't heard much feedback about this (others, feel free to chime in!), but the feature works using a set of seven defined roles (advisor, board member, contractor, manager, owner, partner, reseller). Via the "Related companies" card that displays on the contact record, you can choose to select a company that the contact is related to and select their role in that company out of the seven listed above. The feature still allows you to keep your businesses separate, but just gives you an easy way to tie a contact with a second company based on their role there. 

October 18, 2019 07:32 AM

Hi @aminco  - there isn't any communication sent once you're ungated as I'm just manually going through all of the requests each day. You can expect to be ungated around 4PM EDT on the business day that you submitted the form, so your portal is all set. You'll see the additional "Related Companies" card on all contact records in your portal.

April 26, 2019 07:17 AM

Hi @kevinelite , the limit is 10,000 related companies.

In Beta
April 11, 2019 12:37 PM

Hi all, thank you for your interest in this feature! Please fill out this form if you would like to be ungated for our "Related Companies" beta feature.

 

This feature will add a secondary card to your Contact records called "Related Companies". From this card, you can add a related company and choose the contact's role at that company from a pre-set list: Board Member, Contractor, Manager, Owner, Partner, Reseller. These roles cannot be modified at this time.

 

Please note that this is the extent of the feature at this time - contacts can not be segmented based on their related companies, and the related company and role cannot be imported at this time.

379 Replies
Lucinda
Contributor

I have just signed up to the Beta for this. We often have contacts that are affiliated with various institutions or membership bodies alongside their day jobs, and it would be useful to have a record of this.

rightutility
Participant

Simply, one person can own multiple businesses & be director of more than one company. I am new to hubspot but surprised, how is this crucial feature missing. It should require urgent attention. 

Dedupely
Contributor

Interesting idea, although it's pretty common. Just wonder how this will change the API? I ask because as an integrator that's super important and needs a large dev heads up before this just deployed.

simon7
Member | Platinum Partner

Hi there, yes, this concept is a no brainer and would support our use of HubSpot by matching the technology to how our client portfolios are structured. It is an essential one for the future.

 

Please prioritise this one Product team. 

kikidee125
Member

I would like a role for "Past Company" so I can use this feature to show past company relationships - ex: Joe is now with Company A but was with Company B when he first heard about us. We like seeing this relationship when on the Contact search page. Our current workaround is to keep the old Company B contact in tact but change the title to (Now at Company A) & mark it Unqualified. Then we create a new contact for Joe at Company A.

 

I would also like a role for "Related Company" because we have some large accounts with various email URLs so it gets messy where they fall. Or at least a way to connect contacts based on parent-child company relationships.

 

Custom roles would be awesome as new uses for the feature come up!

laurae
Participant

We really need this feature! We have lots of contacts who need to be associated with more than one company. Causes a lot of problems when we're trying to use filters. 

finn
Top Contributor

+1

Moutono
Member

Thanks we have ungated the beta solution a couple of months ago and we are using it extensively.

But we need to be able to add our own custom related roles when adding multiple companies to a contact.

Please also keep updated on progress with this feature.

Thanks.

ClemOaky
Participant

I've been using this beta since it got released. We need to be able to change the Roles appearing there. They make no sense for the industry we work in.  Custom Roles are needed. Thanks

ksouligne
Participant

Having a Contact be associated to multiple Companies is an absolute need for B2B account based purchasing. In Healthcare specifically a Physician of Executive may be associated to multiple companies. A Physician is often the decision maker in their practice and an influencer in one or multiple Hospitals or Universities.  They may also be associated to medical research labs or medical foundation budgets. 

A contact should be able to be at the very least seen as associated to each cxompany where they have influence. 

For B2B and Account Based the lifecycle stage is more tied to the Company not the Contact. The buying role can vary for the same contact across the companies they are associated to.

Ideally for us Lifecycle Stage would be tied to the Company not the contact.

Buying role would be tied to the contact but could be different at different assoicated companies.

AnjelMarie
Member

Thank you for allowing me to be apart of the beta group for this feature!

I feel we need to take this a step further and allow a contact to show up as associated with multiple businesses. 

To Explain:

The contact 'Alice' owns two businesses 'Mad Hatter Tea House - Downtown' and 'Mad Hatter Tea House - Uptown'

Currently, when I view Alice's contact, I am able to see that both 'Mad Hatter Tea House - Downtown' and 'Mad Hatter Tea House - Uptown' are associated with her contact.

 

When I look at 'Mad Hatter Tea House - Downtown' she is an associated contact. 

However, when I view 'Mad Hatter Tea House - Uptown', there isn't an associated contact.

--> When I attempt to connect her contact with the Uptown location, it then removes her from the downtown location.

 

Ultimately, this creates an additional step for a rep to connect all the dots

 

MattD
Participant

@jsg121  Any fresh updates you can share on a contact having multiple company associations? The issue is causing far too much thinking to be done and more meetings that one would like 🙂 Thanks.

laurae
Participant

We have access to this beta, parts of it are good, but where it's falling short:

We need multiple "company to company" linking. I want to be able to link a cntact's company to the multiple partner companies they work with. Maybe we need a parent company option? Insightly CRM does this very well. 
 
willandrew
Member

We would love to be able to trigger automated emails/actions via workflows to related contacts. Currently, workflows will only send to associated contacts and not related contacts.

hannahflat
Contributor

Hi, 

 

I can see the 'related company' feature, but am I right in thinking this doesn't add any of the contact logs from the contact to the related company, only to the associated company still? If so, this feature doesn't do what I think most people need it to. We work with estate agents and have a lot of contacts who work across multiple branches and we need these contact logs to show on every company they work across, not just one. 

jeffvincent
HubSpot Product Team

Hi there! I'm Jeff, from the HubSpot CRM team.

 

Thanks so much to everyone who has been a part of the "related companies" beta. You've given a lot of excellent feedback on how this will need to work in order to be rolled out to all.

 

At this time, we're closing the "related companies" beta so we can prep for an improved version of this functionality, built on a new infrastructure, which is coming in the near-term future.

Because this beta and the "related companies" beta are built differently, enrolling more portals in the "related companies" beta now will make it more difficult to migrate eventually. I appreciate you keeping the comments about your use case for functionality like this coming, and we'll be back soon with more updates and timelines.

 

For anyone already on the "related companies" beta: no action needed at this time, and you aren't losing any functionality right now. We'll be in touch with migration plans when they are ready.

jpeluso
Participant

I would LOVE to be added to this beta! 🙏🙏🙏

danroot
Member

It looks like Jan 20 was the most recent update on this.  Can we get another update?  We are evaluating HubSpot, and this really may prevent adoption in our case.  We have a service specifically for business owners, some of which have multiple businesses.   The businesses do not necessarily have a parent/child relationship.  Our sales staff need the ability to know that a contact is associated with multiple businesses.  This seems like a scenario that many people would have.  

From a developer perspective, we are using the API to sync companies and contacts from our service into hubspot.  The API seems to allow for this 1:many scenario, but then only shows the most recent associated company.   For example, I can POST multiple  /crm/v3/objects/contacts/{user.CRMId}/associations/companies/{experience.CRMId}/contact_to_company?hapikey={options.HubSpotApiKey}, but only the most recent one is shown in HubSpot.

dhebert
Participant

We tried the "related companies" beta - it doesn't truly address the issue of business consultants, accountants, advisors etc. who should be listed as a contact on each company for which they "work."

 

Also, associating a contact with a related company doesn't have any concrete functionality ... cannot run lists, they don't appear as contacts when viewing the company record ... not a good feature.

 

There are many other examples where this is a significant problem ... founders, franchisees, board members ... needs to be addressed quickly as it's causing issues for our database!

openspaceranger
Participant

This is really strange that this feature has been requested for several years now and it's yet to be implemented. It's a very basic feature request.