Set Association Labels On Records via a Workflow

[NicoleSengers]

I would love to be able to add in the new association labels using a workflow - rather than needing to do this manually.

this would enable businesses who have contact A who makes a booking and Contacts B, C, D etc who attend a course or an event flagged as attendees. so a business knows which are valuable contacts.

It would also be helpful to be able to use a workflow to send different communications to clients based on their association tag.

[NicoleSengers]

Hi folks! 

If you submitted a request to join the Association Actions beta, your request has been approved (as of yesterday)! We've spent the last few months scaling our systems to ensure they can keep up with all the usage and as a result had to pause on beta additions for a bit. We'll continue to add portals who request beta access and move towards rolling this functionality out to all customers (who have at least one Pro+ hub) towards the end of the year.

Best,

Maggie

[NicoleSengers]

Hi Everyone,

I want to provide an update on a few things:

1. Thank you for all of the feature requests. We're reviewing them and will be determining what we can support later this year. I'm seeing trends in the following requests: triggering workflows based on the application of an association label, applying an association label as part of the create & associate flow and copying associations from one record to another. Please keep the feedback coming-it's helpful for us to ensure we're prioritizing the right thing.
2. We have currently paused on adding new customers to the beta. There has been a ton of enthusiasm for these features and we're making updates to our systems to ensure that everything will continue to scale as efficiently as possible. We will resume adding additional customers within the next few weeks. No further action needed if you've already submitted a request.

Have a great weekend!

-Maggie

[NicoleSengers]

@LukasK we've heard this feedback a few times and I unfortunately don't have a great answer for you at this point. It sounds like you want to create a new record, associate it to the enrolled record and then label that new association. That 100% makes sense and we'll continue looking into how to make this work but I unfortunately don't have a great solution right this minute (but everyone else please chime in if you have an inventive idea).

[NicoleSengers]

Hi @ABeney! I would play around with the enrollment criteria. You could create a list of contacts who were incorrectly tagged and then only run the workflow on that list of contacts. That should make it so that the label is only removed from the right contacts. We'll keep listening on if we need to add further refinements for the label actions. Thanks!

[NicoleSengers]

Hi All!

I'm excited to announce that we have entered a public beta for the following actions:

• Update and remove labels
• Apply label
• Create Association

You can opt in by going to your Product Updates section of HubSpot and looking for "New Workflow Actions for Associations." Check out this Knowledge Base article if you want to learn more. As you test out the actions, please keep the feedback coming! We'll likely expand the functionality later in the year.

Best,

Maggie

[NicoleSengers]

Hi @MGrowth2! 

There's currently a beta open where you can remove and update association labels. We are planning to add in the ability to apply new labels within the next few weeks. You can request access directly in HubSpot by clicking on "product updates" and searching for the private beta referenced in the screenshot below. I will review it within a few days.

Best,

Maggie

 

[NicoleSengers]

Hello! 

I'm excited to announce that we've rolled out two new association based actions into a beta. In the first phase you will be able to remove or update existing labels (demo video) . Adding labels is coming next! Please look for the beta below in the product updates section of your HubSpot portal.   

[NicoleSengers]

Hi All!

I've seen a lot of beta requests come through over the last few days. I promise to post here as soon as we're ready at which point you'll be able to request access via the product updates section of HubSpot. As a note, the first, early adopter phase of the beta will specifically include the ability to remove or update association labels (we'll be adding the ability to apply association labels and create new associations in a second phase). More to come soon.

Best,

Maggie

[NicoleSengers]

Hi All!

There was a question about the notification no longer showing up about the new workflow actions. I promise we haven't given up! I just tweaked the name of the release and that may have hidden it from product updates. All of which is to say we're on track for a private beta in May and I promise to alert you once that beta is ready for you to opt into.

Thanks for all the enthusiasm!

-Maggie from HubSpot's product team

[NicoleSengers]

Hi all! 

I know that everyone on this thread is eagerly awaiting a beta. We're actively working on this functionality and if you want more information of what will likely be included in our first release, I'd recommend checking out the "In Development" notification that went out last week. You can find this by navigating to Product Updates in your HubSpot portal and looking for "New Workflow Actions to Automate Association Processes."

We'll provide another update when we get ready to open up a broad beta.

-Maggie (HubSpot product manager)

[NicoleSengers]

Hello!

I'm Maggie from HubSpot's product team. I'm excited to announce that we're actively working on the ability to manage association labels via workflow. We're hoping to have something in beta for you all to test out within the next few months. 

I also want to share this Knowledge Base article which outlines the ways that you can already use association labels in workflows (for things like enrollment) as it seems like there are a few questions in that space.

Thank you for all of your thoughtful feedback and examples! It helps us make sure that we're building the right thing 😊.

[NicoleSengers]

Hi everyone, I don't have much in the ways of an update on this feature as we are still working through some major blockers. There is a limitation in how we find records to be associated, making it difficult to complete our set of features. We are still working hard on this problem and will have more updates along the way.

@04262 that feature is now live to all so it's no longer in the Beta page.

[NicoleSengers]

@RyGuy the changes we're working through are towards the next set of features I'm referencing, for example, the Set Association Label action. Therefore there wouldn't be much if anything changed to the existing beta functionality. Definitely feel free to message me with details if you'd like.

@jaybaum I just met with our Associations team and discussed that hard limit. No hard decisions were made but we would like to fix that as well and could see traction in the coming months. I would recommend opening an idea on our forum so we can track progress, otherwise we'll hopefully have good news down the line

[NicoleSengers]

@Steiger and others,

As it so happens, today was going to be the day I gave an update as we've made some major breakthroughs recently that we wanted to share with everyone.

The new Data Panel beta feature is currently going through the final weeks of "beta testing" and will soon be available to all customers. We had a rather tricky setback this past month that took our entire team time to sort out but as of this week we've sorted out all the kinks and are back to working on the followup functionality needed for a "Set Association Label" action. While I can't give an estimate (for fear of hitting another setback and dissapointing people), I can say we have a much more clear line of sight to our goal and have many engineers actively working on the solution.

The good news is that this next milestone will include more than just the Association Label action. We are going to have the ability to support more field types and provide finer granularity on the types of records/data that can be pulled into a Workflow.

[NicoleSengers]

@RyGuy Thanks for pointing people in the right direction.

As for lack of functionality, I'm 100% with you, it leaves us wanting more as well. We're working on scaling issues at the moment to bring what we think is the full power of the feature: pull one (or more) values from any object, event, integrator object, without restrictions (within reason in terms of scale). If you have feedback or recommendations, please let us know.

[NicoleSengers]

Sorry about the public beta link not working anymore, everyone. It looks like we had an issue with the way those betas work that prevented us from exposing the new feature in this manner.

For now, please use this form to gain access: https://forms.gle/d44dN9GqW1Zyqer36

[NicoleSengers]

Hi everyone,

Here's a short update from the team. Now that the [Public Beta] Data Panel with associated record data in workflows is open to the public, we've begun working on the "Set Association Labels" action that everyone in this thread has been patiently waiting for. After we complete our exploratory phase for the project, the team will be able to give a rough estimate on when we'd expect to have this ready for our beta testers. Stay tuned for more information.

[NicoleSengers]

@jaybaum sorry, that type of work is not related to the Workflows tool so we're not able to work on that directly. However, I will pass along that piece of feedback to the relevant team and see what can be done about that.

[NicoleSengers]

@NPW Yes, we're planning on adding support for almost every field. The Internal Email Notification is currently being worked on and should be ready in a few weeks.

Sorry to dissapoint about the pace of the setting of association labels, we'll continue to work hard on that and give an update once it's ready.

[NicoleSengers]

Hi everyone,

As we work hard on the Data panel with associated data private beta, I wanted to give another update as there has been some confusion surrounding our current work. While we have not started on the work to automatically apply association labels using the Workflows tool, we are prepping for it. The beta I linked to in my last message refers to a feature that is NOT to apply association labels using our tool. Instead, it allows the use of associated data in fields across the app, much like the "personalization tokens" that can be inserted into many text fields. Read below for more information:

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/workflows/use-associated-record-data-in-workflows

[NicoleSengers]

Great news everyone, please follow along in this other thread to join the private beta of the Data panel feature:

https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Workflow-actions-that-can-update-properties-across-different/idc-p/713251

[NicoleSengers]

Hi everyone,

A quick update based off our last update from January. We had issues come up that delayed us by a few weeks but should now be back on track. To remind everyone, the beta we're working on is a preliminary feature that will allow users to use a lot more HubSpot/external data across many Workflow fields. This is going to be one of our larger project releases in a while and once the (hopefully short) beta period on that is done, we'll then be able to start on the beta for the Associations work everyone in this thread is interested in.

So to reiterate, the beta that's going to go live soon is not directly for Associations work, but is indirectly related and required for us to start that work.

Making promises on when it'll be ready can only end poorly so instead we can give an update on the work and what our current blockers are:

- The initial beta to allow users to use data from many different sources went through the first round of testing and while we found a few major bugs, we've since patched most of them. Once we do a second round of testing, we'll start the private beta (and will invite anyone in this thread to join)

- The work needed for what everyone in this thread is looking for, a way to automate association/association labels, requires the previous feature to go live. Once that's live and stable, the new data sources availability would make it possible for our teams to build out a feature that could use this data for the purposes of manipulating associations

Once the first bullet point is done (and only then) we'll be able to move on the Association work.

As always, we'll try to update this thread and any related threads as we make progress!

[NicoleSengers]

January update:

Hi everyone,

The team has been hard at work for the past few weeks as we finish up work on the beta for our Data access feature (needed for us to start work on the Associations action within Workflows). Know that we're monitoring this thread on a weekly basis (or even daily) so as soon as that beta is ready to open, I'll post a link for those that want to join. We've had positive feedback from our preliminary alpha testing so we expect the beta to go by quickly, meaning even if you don't join this beta you'll have access to the new Data feature shortly after. 

Depending on the amount of feedback we get during this phase we'll start to form (finally) a timeline for the Association feature everyone in this thread has been asking for.

Thanks for all the support and stay tuned.

[NicoleSengers]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to give an end of year update as we've been getting lots of requests for this feature. As we stand, our original estimate is still on track. The related features we needed to finish before starting on this associations request are due to be completed mid January. Once that goes into Beta, we'll work in parallel to both incorporate public feedback, as well build out functionality related to associations within Workflows. 

We'll likely post a link to the January Beta in this thread so unless we have delays, expect great news early 2023

[NicoleSengers]

Hi @emmaboyd we're still actively working on the tangential projects that will make this one possible. We don't have a good timeline but expect to have those other projects done by the end of the year, after which we would be entirely ready to tackle this project.

[NicoleSengers]

We (the team that builds the Workflows editor tool) have a need for this feature as well so we are building all the necessary "building block" foundational features we need to make the association action a reality. We will update this thread once we get a timeline as we still have discovery work to do before we can commit to building it. The exciting news is that the CRM's association capabilities are also growing, making this action even more valuable to build.

[zeke]

Hi everyone, I don't have much in the ways of an update on this feature as we are still working through some major blockers. There is a limitation in how we find records to be associated, making it difficult to complete our set of features. We are still working hard on this problem and will have more updates along the way.

@04262 that feature is now live to all so it's no longer in the Beta page.

[BBartholi]

Hi! My Hubspot CS recommended a free plugin called Associ8 that enables to create association labels automatically using workflows, and you can associate any 2 objects! Worked for me and it solved my problem

[ASavoi]

Hi there, I do not understand if there is a public beta available or not?

[RyGuy]

@ASavoi the beta @04262 referenced was a feature that was launched (no longer in beta) allowing you to reference properties from assocated Objects and is live. I cant find the documentation for it, but it allows using properties in assocated objects, not for this feature request which is about using workflows to  assign association labels (which are labels added to assocated objects explaining their relationship).

[ASavoi]

Ok, thanks for the reply, got it. And when the association labels actions in workflows will be available? It was an incredibly useful feature!

[VVashista]

Would love to be able to do this through workflows. Currently, I'm using Zapier to set association labels, Account Admin and Staff User which makes me think it's totally doable directly in HubSpot 🤞 but I'm sure it's a lot more complex then it looks. 

Here's an overview of the Zap l created to set "Account Admin" label: 

Step 1: Trigger: Contact Property "Platform Role" is changed to "Admin"
Step 2: Find Company
Step 3: Create Association: Contact to Company, association type: Account Admin. 

I've created the same Zap for "Staff Users". This is working well, however, due to the amount of records we have, it uses a lot of our tasks. @zeke I'm happy to do some user testing or share more details if you're interested. 

[jebank]

@VVashista cool Zap, thanks for sharing. If you're running into task limits, I work at Relay.app (an alternative to Zapier) and it may be more economical there.

@NicoleSengers regarding your point about sending different communications based on these association labels, would that be an individual email or sequence. would you want it to happen immediately or later?

[TDochana]

@VVashista 

Thank you so much for sharing this! Do you know if the Zapier integration allows multiple labels to a contact? Here's an example

Workflow 1

Associates a contact to a deal and labels them as the primary contact. 

Workflow 2

If criteria matches, associates the same contact as a billing contact on the same deal.

Currently the second workflow is deleting the first label (primary contact) and changing it to the second label (Billing). Would Zapier have the ability to keep both labels?

Thank you in advance

[CMcDonald29]

It would be great to have the Set Association Label as an option in workflows, but we were at least able to automate this a little with the API. I put together this tutorial if anyone would like to take a look and try to implement it in their workflows! Feel free to reach out for any help or to give other ideas!

https://craftedplugins.com/hubspot-services-and-tutorials/cp-association-labels/ 

[VVashista]

@TDochana I haven't run a test for this just yet, but you could try to create 2 association labels under the same zap. See screenshots. I've set association 1 as "Contact" to "Company" (Staff User) and association 2 as "Contact" to "Company" (Account Admin). You could replace these with your labels, primary contact and billing. 

[SMeyer0]

I need this right now 🙂  In our market, contacts change frequently.  There are no other data points for us to use as a trigger than the label when one type of contact is replaced by a new contact.

This would help us IMMENSELY! 🙂 

[Schwarz]

@zeke I have a contact person associated to a deal and now when the deal is closed & won a workflow will clone a renewal deal in our renewal pipeline and all contacts will be also cloned to the deal. Will this feature also clone the association labels so the contact person will also have the same association for the renewal deal?

[JPDesmond]

Hi I am adding to the chorus of people needing improvements with Associations.  It is an important feature but the requirement that Associations be set manually, every time against a record is creating a lot of downstream challenges for our continued use and expansion of Hubspot.  

Any database system I've ever used let's you set an attribute to a record (this Client is 'A', or this Company is 'B') and thereafter, whether to report or otherwise interact with that subset of records (Client=A, Company=B), doing so is simple.  With Hubspot, I am mystified that every time I create a Deal and must Associate two Companies to it (we sell software, so one is the end user, the other the distributor), the Association must be done again manually.  With more users, the data integrity grows weaker.  Really frustrating and hard to understand why this is the case.

[VIyengar]

Does anyone know if there's a feature request to have association labels available for reports too? Also, why is it not possible to sort the association label field in the overall deals or companies view? 

[MPenfold]

@vylengar you can access association labels in reports by selecting the
"Edit data sources" in the top left (I assume this is true for all report
types, but I only use the Custom reports) and then "Customize
associations". See screenshots for reference:

[VIyengar]

@MPenfold I don't see any screenshots. COuld you please reshare?

[MPenfold]

@VIyengar Sorry, not sure why they didn't show but have now updated so they're there.

[nnovosel22]

I am very excited about this update. 

I currently was wanting to use this feature in my industry - the insurance and investment industry. 

When an agent submits a deal, I would love to be able to customize the "Create Deal" form to have an add contact record based on the association label. For example, we have an association label for "insured", "beneficiary", "contract owner", and "payor". I am hoping that there will be a way to have the association label on the "create deal" form and then my agents can add a contact record next to it. 

Currently, you can add a contact, but then you have to manually go back in to the deal to add the association label. 

Thanks for taking the time to add in this feature hubspot team. Yall are awesome. 

[Kevin84]

Yes this is exactly what I need to be able to ensure that I update the correct deal. Do not want to have to do this manually!!!

[HReeves]

I am in B2B, we have different contacts for different subject material i.e. billing contact. I am really wanting to use Job title on the contact as my driver in a workflow to set the association label. This would make running our email workflows so much easier. Right now I am pulling that contact information out and running a bulk association label update via import.