Trying to identify Contacts with a Property Value but not associated to related Custom Object

[VPathania]

Hi All,

I'm trying to identify contacts where a specific property (e.g. an ID) has a known value, but the contact is not associated with the related custom object.

The standard list and workflow filters don’t seem to support checking for the absence of an association—especially when the property still contains a value.

Has anyone run into a similar situation? Any creative workarounds would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

@VPathania I was not referring to the "Associated records" dropdown. List 1 would be created as follows:

1. Create contact list
2. Click 'Add filter'
3. Change 'Filtering on' dropdown from Contact to whatever your custom object ist
4. Pick any property that is available on any record, e.g. "Create date is known"
5. Save list

Best regards

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @VPathania,

The workaround is creating two lists, instead of one:

1. Create a list of all contacts which are associated to a custom object
2. Create a second list of contacts who have a known ID AND who are not a member of the first list

Best regards!

[VPathania]

@karstenkoehler Thanks for your response! Unfortunately, this solution won’t work in this case, as the Associated Record filter doesn’t offer Known/Unknown option. Please refer to the screenshot:

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

@VPathania I was not referring to the "Associated records" dropdown. List 1 would be created as follows:

1. Create contact list
2. Click 'Add filter'
3. Change 'Filtering on' dropdown from Contact to whatever your custom object ist
4. Pick any property that is available on any record, e.g. "Create date is known"
5. Save list

Best regards

[VPathania]

@karstenkoehler We tried this, but it didn't work. However, the issue is that there isn’t any reliable property available on the custom object that can give us the correct list of associated contacts. We’re not using the Create date property for our custom object. We even reached out to HubSpot Support, but they couldn’t find a solution either.

[karstenkoehler]

@VPathania can you please specify what exactly doesn't work? How is the result different from what you're expecting? The above is the standard way to filter for what you're describing.

[VPathania · Accepted solution]

@karstenkoehler Yes, I understand this is the standard way to create a list based on a custom object association. However, in our case, the issue is that none of the properties available on our custom object provide a reliable way to filter the contacts.
As a workaround, we had to export the contact view with both the "Store ID" contact property and the associated "Store ID" custom object, then manually sort the data to identify which contacts had the "Store ID" property filled but were not associated with the custom object.

[karstenkoehler]

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@VPathania wrote:

However, in our case, the issue is that none of the properties available on our custom object provide a reliable way to filter the contacts.

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The Record ID is available on every record of any type of object, why would that not work?

In any case, it sounds like you have now met your requirements and that is all that counts.

Have a great day!

[VPathania]

@karstenkoehler Thank you for the clarification. I'll check this.