Does EVERY question on a form need to become a contact property?

[RHughes0]

It would be AWESOME if a form could have items that people fill out that aren't necessarily "contact properties" so that we could gather information for something like an event registration, where certain details don't need to be tied to their profile as a property forever.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @RHughes0,

The big question is: Where else would the captured information be stored then? Properties/fields are deeply embedded into HubSpot's logic. It seems wasteful to create that many properties, however without those properties, you wouldn't be able to filter, build reports and do all of the good stuff. By default, HubSpot allows you to create 1,000 properties so the limit shouldn't be an issue.

To keep things clean in the portal, I'd recommend following a clear naming convention for custom properties: "Event | Information", "Event | Information". These do not need to be the final field labels as you can adjust those within the forms editor. You can then place these custom properties into folders to have everything sorted nicely.

Hope this helps!

[RHughes0]

This is an interesting way to think about it. I am newer to HubSpot, and am not sure if this is still the right move. Let me share some more context with you and get your opinion. 

I would like to create a form that acts as an event registration for our participants, but am also interested in using this form to gather information like which time slot they would want to choose, whether they've participated in one before, if there is someone they want to attend with them and their contact information, etc. 

Essentially it's a lot of unique information pieces speciifc to the event that I don't know would end up being messy on information or logging things that really arent useful. (For example, I don't see myself needing a report on people who participated in a specific time slot over another).

Like I said, I'm newer to the platform and am willing to take any perspective you may have.

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @RHughes0,

I get where you coming from. Properties are still required. You need to make available some kind of container for information on the contact record – otherwise HubSpot wouldn't have any place to store this information. Even if there was a way to bypass this (I'm not aware of one), you wouldn't be able to filter, segment, report based on those form fields. Properties are at the very core of HubSpot.

Don't think of it as cluttering your HubSpot portal. It's common practice.

Best regards!

[VRamsey]

Karsten - I understand the need to have properties to store the information. However, I don't want to store it in the Contact Object, I want to store it in the Deal Object. Is there anyway to build a form that includes Contact and Deal properties together? If not, then do I create a property within Contact Object that basically serves as a temporary holding and gets overwritten the next time the person completes the form? Thanks in advance.

[RHughes0]

Thanks for your insight. I appreciate your input!

[chutchens]

A workaround for this could be creating custom properties for your event or one-time use case, and then delete those properties once you have what you need.

It's not an ideal situation, but you wouldn't tie anything significant to the main contact record or properties if you created custom ones for your one-time use cases -- and then just delete them after use. 

Chris

[RHughes0]

Thanks for the ideas here. Great to consider moving forward!