I was initially struggling with how to easily create realistic Hubspot sample data for testing. Something that would hopefully involve less work than juggling data between API calls.
For anyone else in a similar spot, here's a walkthrough for how to generate a large volume of realistic and associated records in the CRM using the Hubspot admin UI and Mockaroo.com (an online tool data generation tool) -
https://youtu.be/9po9MBKjTHY
The video above and steps below detail creating a set of associated Companies, Contacts, and Deals – but a similar approach should work for other object types as well.
High-Level Steps (for example to create an associated set of Companies, Contacts, Deals) –
- Determine data points; for each object type —
- export example record(s) as a CSV with ALL properties included
- trim columns within CSV to include only desired properties
- re-import trimmed CSV into Hubspot to see if any desired properties cannot be set by user
- update trimmed CSV to remove any un-importable properties - save this as reference for modeling steps
- Prepare helper data sets
- create a dataset with list of unique company names (these will serve as seeds and keys for modeling other data; can create this list manually or with Mockaroo).
- create datasets for any other desired properties that will expect a value from a prescribed set of options (e.g. "Deal Stage", "Buying Role", etc). Can lookup available options for these values using the Properties API if needed (https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/api/crm/properties)
- Model data –
- create COMPANY records, one for each name with the company properties determined in Step 1 and desired data shaping/modeling via Mockaroo
- create desired number of DEAL records with the deal properties determined in Step 1 and desired data shaping/modeling via Mockaroo – also associating each to a company name (using company helper data set from Step 2).
- create desired number of CONTACT records with the contact properties determined in Step 1 and desired data shaping/modeling via Mockaroo – associating each to a company name (using company helper data set from Step 2).
- Import data
- import Companies - as 'one object' (Companies)
- This will create a set of company records in Hubspot that next imports will associate with
- import Contacts - as 'multiple objects' (Contacts, Companies)
- This should associate the newly imported Contacts with earlier imported Company records
- import Deals - as 'multiple objects' (Deals, Companies)
- This should associate the newly imported Deals with earlier imported Company records
Example Generated Data
(CSV files that would be imported in step 3 above)
- Companies (200 unique)
- Contacts (400, portion associated with companies)
- Deals (500, various stages, all associated with companies)
Example Input Data Sets
(CSV files that would be used in Mockaroo modeling in step 2 above. Some sets that have many options, like Web Technologies and Industry may make sense to duplicate and trim to a subset of meaningful values to have a greater likelihood of seeing repeat values and patterns across generated dummy data.)
