Is there a process for associating tags to contacts or companies? If not, is there another way in which to associate certain qualities to contacts and/or companies that are not already listed?
@lizzie_p@dtwuensch Thank you for the quick replies here. We do think that, at this stage, "multiple checkbox" custom properties provide much of the same value. Certainly, there are places where they don't entirely fit the bill. And, it's not totally out of the question that we build tags some day. However, as of now, there are more pressing customer issues that our team needs to focus on to deliver the highest quality overall product.
Thank you as always for your continued feedback, it helps us build a great product.
We are constantly evaluating and re-evaluating our priorities and roadmap to deliver as much value to our customers as possible. At this time, adding tags is not something our team is currently planning to build natively into HubSpot. This is certainly subject to change in the future and we will update this idea if that becomes the case.
@lizzie_p@dtwuensch Thank you for the quick replies here. We do think that, at this stage, "multiple checkbox" custom properties provide much of the same value. Certainly, there are places where they don't entirely fit the bill. And, it's not totally out of the question that we build tags some day. However, as of now, there are more pressing customer issues that our team needs to focus on to deliver the highest quality overall product.
Thanks @Dylan and @dtwuensch multiple chexkboxes might work, last I looked there was some limitation but that was a while ago. Creating additional contact fields doesn't work as I need a lot of categories, the list above is just a sample. I'll go look up the check boxes. But Dylan, if that works, then that should be your response here - if you can let everyone know they can achieve the same outcome and they're just using different terminology, you could actually tick this as done.
Dylan, multiple checkboxes absolutely 100% DO NOT work like tags. The reasons are numerous but it is easy to try it yourself to figure it out. I'm a db guy with decades of experience and took the time to try it out over a couple weeks and sure enough they do not accomplish what is needed.
I did the testing months ago and can't remember every limitations but one was that checkboxes get blown out with an import. That is unacceptable and not at all the behavior you'd expect with tags.
Grooooan, thanks for saving me time @mayall ... It may still work for me but it sounds like not. And more importantly - why am I having to invent the answer for someone else's product?!
I've built databases. I've built CRMs. But more importantly, I've used many databases and many CRMs (along with lots of contact managers). I've intimately managed systems with thousands of records and hundreds of thousands of records.
I'm guessing that those doing the design at Hubspot view Tags as impure. Tags don't fit into the tradtional db mindset. They are too free and unstructured. But therein lies their power.
A real world example is my recent experience with Highrise and Hubspot. Someone recommended Highrise to me because I was looking for a simple CRM that would need relatively little management. At first, I was actually put off by Highrise's reliance on tags as a primary way to categorize and track contacts. But I grew to love it.
Tags allowed me stop having to add a new field/column/property every time someone wanted to track something new. They just used a new tag. But it also turns out to be incredibly liberating when doing queries. Having to create new properties tends to have you predicting both the future of what you should store and also how you will use it. Tags are much more flexible.
Hubspot is a beautifully designed and implemented CRM (and more). It does things that Highrise would never do. But the reality is that the day-to-day use of Hubspot and Highrise were, for our needs, essentially the same. But the Hubspot CRM probably has twice the properties/fields as the Highrise CRM to accomplish the same goals. Many of the Hubspot properties end up not being used because they get lost in the pile. When you have tags, you see them all.
I can't say it strongly enough: Hubspot is making a big mistake by not implementing tags.
Thanks Will - exactly and well-said! HubSpot properties do get lost in the pile, you need to be an expert user to design and build it all in a half-decent way and then it just gets too hard. One of my clients uses NationBuilder (yikes!) which uses tags but as long as we have some protocols, they don't get too messy and without tags, my client won't be moving from NB to HS as I'd like as there is no way too apply the categorisation needed in a simple way. Thanks again Will - hopefully HS crew read your post.
I can't just select what I need and apply the tag, I have to edit some properties and don't want to edit, and I don't see a way to do it that my colleges would get it.
And I just spent like 30 minutes trying to organize the companies, it would be much quicker in Excel 😞
Not having tags available is a real issue, this should be added. I regret that this feature is not available. I will have to proceed to create 30 custom fields in the db, with 1s or 0s. This will for sure impact HS performance.
I do not agree on this. I am migrating to hubspot and I will have to , work on the data to identify each particular tag is map to a particular field (column in the excel), then create 30 custom fields which will be populated with 0s and 1s and then import.
This is alot of work!
Also it will put a more pressure on the DB.
I think tags is a must functionality that HUBSPOT need to implement as soon as possible.
This makes customized sorting impossible. I want to sort contacts by product interest or which boards they serve one...simple tag search allows for this IF YOU ACTUALLY ADDED THAT! Why not an advanced search the lets us click search by TAGS?
Not having this feature, it very limiting to our organization. At the same time, it's a strange that it's not implemented given how straightforward and common this feature is for CRMs in general. Hubspot lacking this feature despite being requested by users for years definitely gives SalesForce's CRM platform an edge.
We have this same requirement for "flexible tags". We are transitioning from Copper CRM (was called Prosperworks) for the marketing platform at Hubspot, not for the CRM. The CRM seems deficient compared to Copper, which itself is far from perfect. The main problem so far is the lack of flexible tagging which allows a Custom Field or Property named Tag Name and allowing for automatic assignment of tag names to its list as they are required. In Copper, those tag names can be searched in Company, Contacts (People) and Deals (Opportunities) for something like product interest. This allows the easy creation of lists for marketing campaigns or supplier reports. The list can be edited and tags merged in case multiple tags are used for the same thing, either by error or by an abbreviation. This would be very difficult to do with a multiple checkbox list as it would require diligence during record creation and would be difficult to edit, as a filter could not be used to add or change tags for a group of records. Here is the Copper description: https://support.copper.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000630371-Adding-and-editing-Tags
We created a cutom "tag" property with multi-select options. BUt there is no way to add an option on the fly. IT requires going to settings/crm/data/properties searching for the propery and editing it. WAy to time-consuming, plus unavailable to those without access to editing properties.
Also in another CRM i use, tags can be organized in outlines which is handy. They aer easy to search on too.
Checking in from 2021. Tags is one of my most loved features of Active Campaign - and adding custom properties is definitely not the same, and cannot be used like tags in a smooth and efficient workflow. For two years, your users have been calling for this feature - do you not care? All other CRM systems have tags.