Get started with objects

HubSpot, at its most basic level, manages relationships. The backbone of this system are the standard objects that HubSpot has: contacts, companies, deals, and tickets.

You and your users create records of these objects in HubSpot, creating a CRM database. Records in this database can then be used to not only store information, but to automate certain actions in your HubSpot account. You can then associate objects to represent their relationships to one another.

For example, you can create a workflow that automatically create tasks for your users once a record meets a certain criteria based on its properties. Hence, creating and maintaining your object records is important to how HubSpot works.

Glossary

Object type: the term for a relationship with your business, such as contacts, companies, deals, and tickets.

Record: an instance of an object (e.g., "Tom Smith" is a contact record). These records can be used in other HubSpot tools, such as workflows.

Object: the term for an object type or a record, depending on the context.

Property: a field created for an object type. Each object type has its own set of properties. All the records of that object type will have that set of properties that can store data.

Property value: the value or data stored in a property in a record.

Standard objects

Contacts

Contact records store information on people that communicate with your organization. You can create, access, and make changes to your contact records:

• Create contacts
• A guide to your contacts home
• Work with your contact records

You can also view other articles relating to contacts.

Companies

Company records store information on organizations or businesses that communicate with your organization. You can create, access, and make changes to your company records:

• Create companies
• A guide to your companies home
• Work with your company records

You can also view other articles relating to companies.

Deals

Deal records store information on opportunities you have with contacts or companies. You can create, access, and make changes to your deal records:

• Create deals
• A guide to your deals home
• Work with your deal records

You can also view other articles relating to deals.

Tickets

Ticket records store information on customer requests for support or help. You can create, access, and make changes to your ticket records:

• Create tickets
• A guide to your tickets home
• Work with your ticket records

You can also view other articles relating to tickets.

Properties

Each object has default properties that HubSpot created, but you can create custom properties that suits your business needs.

Default properties

HubSpot has default properties already in place when you create your account:

• HubSpot's default contact properties
• HubSpot's default company properties
• HubSpot's default deal properties
• HubSpot's default ticket properties

Custom properties

If the default properties don't meet your needs, you can create custom properties.

• Property field types in HubSpot: learn about the different property field types. Understand these field types so that you can set up your properties correctly.
• Manage your properties: learn how to create new custom properties for an object, edit existing properties, and manage these properties with property groups.

Import objects

Importing objects allows you to create and update object records in bulk. Some reasons why you would import are:

• to create records in bulk using data from another CRM software;
• to create a list of contacts records easily to send marketing emails to;
• to update records with new property values in bulk; and
• to associate records in bulk.

These articles will help you with importing CRM data into HubSpot:

• Set up your import files: learn how to set up a CSV file for an import.
• Import data to checkbox properties: learn how to format data for checkbox properties in your CSV import file.
• Import contacts, companies, deals, tickets, products, or notes: learn the different ways of importing data as objects in HubSpot using your prepared CSV file.
• Import Salesforce records: if you're already using Salesforce, learn how to import the Salesforce data into HubSpot, 
• View and analyze previous imports: once you've done an import, learn how to view and analyze the previous imports. If there are errors, you can troubleshoot the import errors and rectify your import file.
• Deduplicate contacts, companies, deals, tickets, and products: learn how HubSpot matches a row in your import file to an object in HubSpot during an import. This allows you to bulk update your objects. If a row doesn't match an object in HubSpot, a new object will be created.