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DJohnson4
Contributor

Managing Custom Associations without Custom Objects

SOLVE

Hi everyone,

 

I’m in the process of setting up our new portal, and I’ve hit a bit of a roadblock.

 

We’re a commercial vehicle insurance company, so a single policy (Deal) can have multiple vehicles and drivers associated with it. Initially, I planned to use custom objects for vehicles and drivers, but I’ve just realised our current subscription doesn’t support them.

 

The challenge:
I need a way for sales agents to easily view all the vehicles and drivers tied to a specific insurance policy (Deal) without access to custom objects. It’s worth noting there is no direct association between drivers and vehicles; both only relate back to the policy itself.

 

Data structure:

  • Policy (Deal): Central object.
  • Master Customer (Contact): Main contact associated with the policy.
  • Vehicles: Multiple vehicles tied to the policy.
  • Drivers: Multiple drivers tied to the policy.

Potential ideas:

  1. Use properties: Create multi-line text or dropdown properties in the Deal to manually list vehicle and driver details. However, this feels clunky and there’s a risk of properties being overwritten with multiple entries.
  2. Notes or custom activities: Log vehicle and driver details as notes or activities on the Deal timeline. It’s manual but keeps the information visible.
  3. Associated contacts for drivers: Use the standard Contact object for drivers and associate them with the Deal, adding a custom property on the Contact to flag them as drivers. This doesn’t solve vehicles, though.
  4. Associated tickets for vehicles/drivers: Use tickets as a pseudo-object, with each ticket representing a vehicle or driver associated with the Deal. Not sure how clean or scalable this will be.

Has anyone faced a similar issue or found a creative workaround?

 

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance,
David

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1 Accepted solution
Markestac
Solution
Contributor | Gold Partner
Contributor | Gold Partner

Managing Custom Associations without Custom Objects

SOLVE

Hi @DJohnson4,

You can try this approach,
Policy (Deal):
  • The Deal object is used to represent the insurance policy as the central hub.
Association Labels for Contacts:
  • Create two custom association labels within the Contact object:
    1. Master Customer: To identify the primary customer associated with the policy.
    2. Driver: To identify individuals insured as drivers under the policy.
Contacts for Master Customer and Drivers:
  • Add the Master Customer as a Contact and associate them with the Policy (Deal) using the Master Customer label.
  • Add each driver as a Contact and associate them with the Policy (Deal) using the Driver label.
Vehicles as Tickets:
  • Represent each vehicle as a Ticket.
  • Use a dedicated pipeline (e.g., Vehicles Pipeline) to manage vehicle details.
  • Associate all vehicle Tickets with the relevant Policy (Deal).
Interconnection of Objects:
  • Connect Deals, Contacts (with labels for Master Customer and Drivers), and Tickets (for Vehicles) to ensure all related data is accessible and organized.
Let me know what do you think.

Did my post help answer your query? Help the community by marking it as a solution.

 

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Marketing Automation Agency | RevOps & CRM Consultant

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View solution in original post

2 Replies 2
Markestac
Solution
Contributor | Gold Partner
Contributor | Gold Partner

Managing Custom Associations without Custom Objects

SOLVE

Hi @DJohnson4,

You can try this approach,
Policy (Deal):
  • The Deal object is used to represent the insurance policy as the central hub.
Association Labels for Contacts:
  • Create two custom association labels within the Contact object:
    1. Master Customer: To identify the primary customer associated with the policy.
    2. Driver: To identify individuals insured as drivers under the policy.
Contacts for Master Customer and Drivers:
  • Add the Master Customer as a Contact and associate them with the Policy (Deal) using the Master Customer label.
  • Add each driver as a Contact and associate them with the Policy (Deal) using the Driver label.
Vehicles as Tickets:
  • Represent each vehicle as a Ticket.
  • Use a dedicated pipeline (e.g., Vehicles Pipeline) to manage vehicle details.
  • Associate all vehicle Tickets with the relevant Policy (Deal).
Interconnection of Objects:
  • Connect Deals, Contacts (with labels for Master Customer and Drivers), and Tickets (for Vehicles) to ensure all related data is accessible and organized.
Let me know what do you think.

Did my post help answer your query? Help the community by marking it as a solution.

 

Talk to Our HubSpot Expert

Marketing Automation Agency | RevOps & CRM Consultant

Did my post help answer your query? Help the community by marking it as a solution.

kennedyp
Community Manager
Community Manager

Managing Custom Associations without Custom Objects

SOLVE

Hi @DJohnson4! Welcome to the Community-- happy to have you here 😊 This is a great place to seek this type of advice. That said, you may also benefit from a Solutions Partner that can better help custom tailor and implement these types of solutions for you. 

 

You pose some good potential workarounds. I thought to maybe organize the Primary Contact as a Company, the Drivers as associated Contacts, Deals for the Policy, and then maybe your suggestion of tickets for vehicles. Have you looked into the Product object? You can associate a product to a deal, which might be another alternative for vehicles. 

 

Still, I want to invite some subject matter experts to see if they have any suggestions.

Hey @franksteiner79, @AdamLPW, @SNigam do y'all have any thoughts on how we might make this work without Custom Objects?

 

Best, 
Kennedy


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