Updating the Default 'Country/Region' Property Field Type from Single-Line Text to Dropdown Select

[jleow]

Please note: this only applies to contact properties, the company 'Country/region' property cannot be edited. 

HubSpot’s default Country/Region property is generally set to a single-line text field type. This is useful when you haven’t quite decided how you want to use this property.

However, if you do want to use it primarily as a ‘Country’ field, I would recommend converting it to a set list of countries in a dropdown select property type. This kind of standardization makes for easier filtering and reporting - here are the steps to do so: 

Part 1 - Check Property for Dependents

First, check the Country/Region property for any dependents. Properties with dependents cannot be edited and will need to be removed first:

1. Navigate to the property settings - here’s how you can do so.
2. Search for the Country/Region property. This can be done by typing the property name in the ‘Search properties’ bar on the right side of the page. 
3. Click on the Country/Region property name. 
4. In the ‘Edit property’ sidebar, click into the ‘field type’ tab. 
• If the property is available to change, that means that it is not currently used anywhere and can be directly edited from that page. Skip straight ahead to section C of this guide. 
• If the ‘Field type’ option is greyed out, this means that the property is used as a dependent in another tool or is populated on certain contacts. All dependents will need to be removed before it can be edited. 
  
  field type greyed out due to dependents
  
5. Click into the ‘Used in’ Tab, this will show you a count of all contacts with a value for this property and any tools that are currently using this property. 
   
   property dependents
   
6. Click into each of the tools (this will open the page in a new tab)
•  confirm that they are not currently in use and are alright to be temporarily removed. 
7. Remove the Country/Region property as a dependent in the tool. For example, deleting it as a filter in a list or an enrollment criteria in a workflow. 

Part 2 - Exporting then Clearing Existing Values 

Most users will likely want to keep existing values for their contacts. To do so, we can create and export a list which we can later clean up and re-import to re-populate these values:

1. Create a list with the filter ‘Country/Region is known’ - this will pull in all contacts with a property value for Country/Region.
2. Customize the columns to display Country/Region as an option in the list table.
3. Click on ‘Actions > Export’ in the top right corner of the list editor to export your list.
   
   export list
   
   
4. During the export process, ensure that the Country/Region column is included in the ‘Selected Columns’ for export, you may also consider removing additional columns for a neater file when cleaning up the excel after. 

After the list has been successfully exported, we will need to clear all values from existing contacts. This can be done in a bulk edit:  

1. Click on the top checkbox in the list table. 
2. If the banner option appears on the list table, click on ‘Select all [number of contacts] contacts. This will select all contacts in the list. 
3. Click on the ‘Edit’ text link at the top of the table. 
   
   bulk edit option in lists
   
   
4. In the Bulk Edit lightbox, select ‘Country/Region’ in the ‘Property to update’ field and leave the ‘Country/Region’ field blank. 
   
   bulk edit formatting to clear values
   
   
5. Click on the update button - these contacts will be bulk edited so that the property has a blank value. 

Part 3 - Updating the Property Type 

Once there are no dependents left (property values in contacts or usage in tools), the field type option should no longer be greyed out:

1. Navigate to the ‘edit property’ sidebar in the property settings again and click on the ‘Field type’.
2. Click on the ‘Field type’ dropdown and select the ‘Dropdown select’ option
   
   dropdown select option in property field types
   
   
3. Scroll down to access the ‘Load options’ text link.
4. In the pop-up, click on ‘Choose options’ and select ‘Country’. 
   
   load country options to property
   
   
5. Once ‘Country’ has been selected,click on ‘Load Options’ - this will load the default country field as options into the property. 
6. Finally, click on ‘Save’ to lock in your property changes. 

Part 4 - Reimporting the Properties

Finally, you will want to review and make edits to your exported list excel sheet to standardize the existing values in the ‘Country/Region’ column:

1. Use the ‘Find and Replace’ function to search for common versions of country names and replace them with the standardized version from the loaded options.
1.  For example, I would find and replace the options ‘US’,‘USA’ and ‘America’ with ’United States’.
2. Once the excel has been cleaned such that all values match the dropdown options in the updated property, remove all additional columns from the excel, leaving the ‘Contact ID’, ‘Email’ and ‘Country/Region’ columns.
3. Import your updated file using the steps here. During the import process, select the ‘Update Object using ‘Object ID’ exported from HubSpot’option to de-duplicate the Object, ensure that existing Objects are updated and no duplicates are created. 
   
   Update existing contacts using Contact ID exported from HubSpot checkbox
   
   
4. Do note that if the property values do not match exactly, this may result in an import error. 

The import will update and repopulate existing contacts with property values for the country/region property. After which, you may want to restore and prior dependents that were edited during Part 1 of this process.

Hope this helps! 

[RBozeman · Accepted solution]

Hi @jleow,

This is an excellent guide, thank you for sharing. 

I also wanted to share (and full disclosure I work for them as a product marketer) that Insycle can help with this problem. 

With Insycle, you could use the Cleanse Data module to view all of the variations that you have in your "State/Region" field.  Then, you can select a variation group and update the entire group to whatever you would like. For example, you could select all contacts with a state of "California" and update them in bulk to be "CA" if you prefer to the abbreviation. I've included a screenshot of what this looks like. 

Also, you can do this for any field in HubSpot CRM. It makes for a simple but powerful way to standardize data.

Hope that helps anyone that has this problem.

Best,

Ryan

[DianaGomez]

Hi @RBozeman, hope you are doing well!

¡Thanks for sharing!

Best,

Diana

[janiszewskaj]

Hi Community Team! 

Is it possible to have the list of countries translated into different languages automatically when creating a translated copy? Would it need to be a default field "Country/Region", or can this be a custom property e.g. Your country? I need my form to be translated into few languages and would like to have appropritale languages on the list of countres (France, Frankreich, Francja etc).

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[mwee]

Wow, this is so helpful! Will definitely be sharing this post 😄