5 Advanced Record Customization Tricks in HubSpot

Your HubSpot CRM is a goldmine of information, but let's be real—if it's not set up just right, it can feel more like a tangled mess than a streamlined system. Most users just toss their most important properties into the left sidebar and call it a day. And while that's a good start, you've probably created some pretty cluttered record pages and run into people on your team being confused about which information is actually relevant or wondering why something isn't present.

Luckily, HubSpot offers a treasure trove of customization options that go beyond adding properties to the left sidebar. Today, I'm diving into 5 advanced customization tricks for your HubSpot record pages that will help your team navigate, update, and leverage your data with ease. 

Before your team even gets to a record page, let's talk about how those records get created. The Create record form is customizable for each object. But, if you have different "types" of the same object (like Sales Deals vs. Partnership Deals), you know the struggle: you need to input different information depending on the type. 

So, do you just add all those fields and make them all optional? Good luck with that. Instead, you can use conditional logic on your create record forms to ensure your team only sees fields relevant to that specific record. That means you can have certain fields only appear if there is a specific value set in another field. 

Let's stick with our Sales vs. Partnership deal example. When someone goes to create a new deal, they'll first select the "Pipeline" (e.g., "Sales Pipeline" or "Partnership Pipeline"). If they choose "Sales Pipeline," fields related to sales-specific metrics like "Projected Close Date" and "Amount" can pop up. But if they select "Partnership Pipeline," you can instead show fields like "Partnership Type" and "Integration Requirements." No more cluttered forms or irrelevant data entry!

You've streamlined your record creation, but if your team then lands on a record that is filled with irrelevant information they have to sift through to find the right data, what was even the point? 

You can use the same type of conditional logic to customize your record pages as well, ensuring your team only sees what's relevant, when it's relevant. For the left sidebar—which highlights important properties—you can create entire sections of properties that appear or disappear based on other property values. 

and the right sidebar—which shows "cards" displaying valuable information about associations, activity, and more—you can choose which cards show up based on property values as well. 

Imagine your sales team is working a deal in the Sales pipeline. The left sidebar might display sections with properties like "Lead Source" and cards for Line Items and Quotes. However, for a deal in the Partnership pipeline, those sections can automatically hide, and new sections related to referral fees or commission structure can appear. This keeps your record views clean and focused on relevant data.

Speaking of the cards on the right sidebar, you're not stuck with just HubSpot's default cards. You can create your very own custom cards to display exactly the information your team needs at a glance. These can show data from associated objects (like all deals associated with a contact), property lists, activity feeds, and more. And yes, you can combine this with conditional logic for even greater control.

For your marketing team, a custom card on a contact record could display a list of associated campaign interactions. For your customer success team, a custom card on a company record might show a quick summary of open support tickets, including their priority and last activity. This puts crucial, real-time information front and center, saving clicks and time.

The center panel of your record pages has an "Overview" and "Activity" tab by default. But what if you need more dedicated space for specific types of information? Enter custom tabs!

You can add additional tabs to the center panel of your record pages. Each custom tab can be configured to display a specific set of cards, including activities, association data, data highlights, properties, quick actions, and even reports.

Let's say your Customer Success team spends a lot of time managing customer support requests. On a Company record, you could create a dedicated "Tickets" tab. This tab could house cards showing all open tickets for that company, a report on their historical ticket volume, and a data highlights card summarizing key ticket metrics like average resolution time. This gives your CS team a one-stop shop for all their ticket-related needs without having to navigate away from the company record or clutter up the Overview tab.

Many of the customizations mentioned above are dependent on property data that lives in that specific record. But sometimes, what's relevant to one team isn't relevant to another, even when looking at the exact same record. This is where team-specific views come in handy, allowing you to personalize the CRM experience based on user roles.

HubSpot's Team Views allow you to create distinct record page layouts and assign them to specific teams within your HubSpot account. This means different teams can see different properties, sections, and cards on the same record.

Imagine your Sales team and your Client Success team both look at the same Company records. With Team Views, when a sales rep views a company record, they might see properties related to associated Deals and "Next Sales Activity." However, when a client success manager views the exact same company record, they could see a different layout emphasizing "Onboarding Status," "Renewal Date," and "Assigned CSM." This ensures that each team member has the most pertinent information readily available for their specific responsibilities, reducing cognitive load and increasing efficiency.

There you have it! Five advanced customization tricks that can transform your HubSpot CRM from a simple database into a powerful, tailor-made tool for your entire team. Start experimenting with these features, and watch your team's productivity (and happiness!) soar.