Are we doing Custom Objects wrong?

I love defining and creating custom objects in HubSpot.

But the thing is, they might be adding unnecessary complexity. Don't use them if you don't need to and you'll have a happier, healthier database (and probably a happier, healthier you, too).

Creating custom objects used to be a pretty manual task involving making calls to the HubSpot API and (for me anyway) lots of trial and error in trying to set your primary and secondary display properties, only to have realised you messed it up the first time. Delete and start again.

It's wasn't quick or easy for the average user to create custom objects.

Now you can create a custom object in less than 1 minute and 5 clicks (I created a custom object just now to confirm).

Just because it's easy doesn't mean it's necessary.

HubSpot provides some guided questions to help you the adventurous user determine whether you really need to go down the treacherous path of custom objects or if the well-paved up-kept standard object road will suffice.

The questions are:

1. Can you use an existing CRM object and its properties to organize your data instead of a custom object?
   
   For example, do you want to track subscriptions in HubSpot? Do those subscriptions cost money and do you want to report on that revenue? Can those subscriptions be a Deal with custom properties to store information about the subscription?
   
2. Could there be any overlapping or inconsistent data between your custom object and an existing object?
   
   Don't cause duplication across objects, keep a source of truth for the different types of data you store.
   
   
3. Are there any features unique to existing objects that you want to use? For example, bulk marketing emails can only be sent to contacts, not other objects.
   
   Keep in mind you can send automated emails through workflows to the associated Contact of your custom object, but this can get confusing fast. What if I have multiple Contacts associated to my custom object, and I don't want to email all of them? You could use association labels, but I don't think this is a viable strategy until you can also set association labels through workflows.
   
4. Are there any pre-built reports connected to existing objects that you want to use? For example, deal attribution reports and sales forecasts are connected directly to deals, not other objects.
   
   Don't expect to be able to utilise some of the rich features the standard objects have access to with your custom object. If there's a feature you and your custom object can't live without, consider if you should actually be creating an object of a predefined type that has access to that feature.

Some reasons I can think of to wholeheartedly create a custom object:

• nothing yet
• come back later as I discover them.