One of the first tasks you'll inevitably have to complete when adopting HubSpot is importing your data. In case you previously stored your data in Excel, or relied on a legacy CRM, HubSpot's import tools make it simple for you to move your data quickly, while ensuring that your team can take action based on the data.
You do business with more than just contacts. Engaging with companies, closing deals, and resolving tickets are also part of your job. You might even have a custom object or two. Regardless of how you track your data, import allows you to quickly reflect your business processes in HubSpot. Ensure your team has a full understanding of who you're doing business with by integrating data across objects.
The only thing worse than cleaning a spreadsheet of data, is realizing you skipped cleaning a column of data…after you finished your import. That's why HubSpot's import tool auto-maps your data to existing HubSpot properties and surfaces errors in your spreadsheet before you import. As a result, you can rest assured that your data will be clean and actionable from the very beginning.
It's easy to import data into HubSpot - but understanding the different data points that you're able to import will help you match your existing business processes to HubSpot's data model. Here are the specific elements of HubSpot's data model you can import.
In the CRM, objects represent the information that you're tracking. You may have created custom objects to suit your business' specific needs, such as contacts, companies, and deals. The rows in your spreadsheet represent the records associated with each object. In your spreadsheet, you will store information about these records in properties.
In order to create new records or find and update existing records within import, each object must have specific properties. These properties will be highlighted on the import mapping guide within the import tool.
Associations
Relationships between records can be shown using associations. By creating associations between records in the CRM, your team will be able to see information across all associated records quickly and easily to do their jobs more efficiently.
Suppose you are importing a spreadsheet of contacts and want to associate them with the companies they work for. Simply include the company information on the same row as their associated contacts if you're importing one file. Creating an association between two files of data requires a common column of data between them. The label can also describe the relationship between the two records.
HubSpot activities refer to the interactions your team has with CRM records. A salesperson might leave notes on an open deal, meet with a company, or call a potential client. Using the import tool, you can create and associate activities just as you can records.
By importing these activities into the CRM, you can report on your team's productivity and see who is performing best.
You don't want to lose any of your organization's vital historical data when you move to a new CRM - there are many moving parts. When you import into HubSpot, you can create records and activities and update your database, regardless of whether this is your first CRM or you are moving from another system.
The video below is an overview of on how to set up you files in HubSpot👇🏻
CRM Object: a type of a relationship or process that your business has, such as contacts, companies, deals, and tickets. When importing, an object is the type of dataset you're importing into HubSpot.
Record: an individual instance of an object (e.g., “Tom Smith” is a contact record). In a single object import file, each row of your file represents one object record. If you're importing multiple objects in one file, each row will represent records that are associated with each other.
Activity: an engagement that can be associated with records, such as an email sent to a contact, or a note logged on a ticket record. Activities include calls, emails, meetings, notes, and tasks. You can create new activities and can update existing calls via import, but you cannot update existing emails, meetings, notes, or tasks. Calls and tasks can be imported on their own, but emails, meetings, and notes must be imported and associated with a CRM object.
Property: a field created to store information about your records and activities. In an import, properties will match up with your file’s column headers.
In this example, the object being imported is contacts. Each row represents a contact record, and each column of information represents a contact property (First Name, Last Name, Email Address).
Unique identifier: a property value that HubSpot uses to recognize each record as one of a kind. In an import, you need a unique identifier to avoid creating duplicate records (e.g., two records for “Tom Smith”) and to associate different records (e.g., import “Tom Smith” and associate him with his company “Smith Inc.”). The unique identifiers available for use when importing are:
Email: the email address of a contact. This is required when importing contacts to avoid duplicates or to associate contacts with another object. If you don’t have contact email addresses, use the Record ID to update and associate existing contact records.
Company domain name: the website domain of a company (e.g., example.com). This is required when importing companies to avoid duplicates or to associate companies with another object. If you don’t have company domain names, use the Record ID to update and associate existing company records.
Record ID: a unique property value given to each record by HubSpot. If you export existing records from HubSpot, each record will have a Record ID. This is a required column when importing and associating existing deals, tickets, or custom objects with another object, but can also be used as the unique identifier for contacts and companies if you don't have emails or company domain names.
Custom property that requires unique values (contacts, companies, deals, tickets, and custom objects only): if you've created a property that requires unique values, you can use the property as a unique identifier in your import files.
For example, you want to import and associate contacts and companies in one file. The objects being imported and associated are contacts and companies. Each row represents a contact record and its associated company record. Each column header represents properties that will be mapped during import. The file shown below includes contact properties (First name, Last name, Email address, Phone number, Favorite food) and company properties(Name, Company domain name). There is also a unique identifier for each object that will link the two unique records in HubSpot (Email address for contacts and Company domain name for companies). During the import process, you'll map columns to HubSpot properties (First Name column to the First Name HubSpot property).
All files being imported into HubSpot must:
There are additional technical limits for the import tool depending on your HubSpot subscription. These limits include the size and row limits of an import file, as well as how many files and rows you can import per day.
Depending on the property field type or the data your cells contain, there are other specific formatting requirements:
Please note: if you're importing a default HubSpot date property (e.g., Close date), your values must be formatted as a UNIX timestamp in milliseconds. The date-time property cells must be in Number format if importing an Excel file. Learn more about how to format timestamp values and how to convert a date into UNIX format.
Enumeration properties: the values in your import file must match either the label or the internal value of the property's defined options. For HubSpot default enumeration properties (e.g., Lifecycle stage, Industry), the values must match the internal value or the label in English.
Owner properties: to assign an owner to a record or activity during the import:
For objects, include a [Object] owner header. For activities, include an Activity assigned to header.
Add the name or email address of the user to each row in that column. Users who are assigned a record through import will not receive a notification that they were assigned a new record or activity.
Percentages: when importing a number property formatted as a percentage, you can format your values with a % percent sign or as a decimal. For example, to import 25%, your cell should contain either 25% or .25.
Phone number: the contact properties Phone number and Mobile phone number, to import and automatically format the phone number based on country code, format as +[country code][number]. If there is an extension, add ext[number]. For example, a phone number with a United States country code would look like +11234567890 ext123.
Price: for properties containing a price, you must use one of HubSpot's accepted currencies. The list of accepted currencies and their currency codes can be found in the Currency tab of your account default settings.
Product properties:
If importing a Term property value, you can format the value in the Term column as a number in months (e.g., 10 for 10 months), as PXM where X is the number of months (e.g., P6M, for a term of 6 months) or PXY where X is the number of years (e.g., P1Y, for a term of 1 year).
If importing a Billing frequency property value, use monthly, annually, or quarterly if the product has a recurring price type. Leave the cell blank if the product has a one-time price.
Owner properties: to assign an owner to a record or activity during the import:
For objects, include a [Object] owner header. For activities, include an Activity assigned to header.
Add the name or email address of the user to each row in that column. Users who are assigned a record through import will not receive a notification that they were assigned a new record or activity.
Depending on which objects or activities you're importing, the following properties are required, and must be included as columns headers in your files:
Contacts: at least one of First name, Last name, Email, or for existing contacts, Record ID.
Companies: at least one of Name, Company Domain Name, or for existing companies, Record ID.
Deals: if you're creating new deals, Deal name, Pipeline, and Deal stage. For existing deals, Record ID.
Tickets: if you're creating new tickets, Ticket name, Pipeline, and Ticket status. For existing tickets, Record ID.
Products: Unit price and Name, or for existing products,Record ID.
Line items: Name, Quantity, Price, and the associated deals' Record ID or Deal name. Include the product's Product ID if you're also associating the line item with a product, which will be mapped as a line item property during the import.
Please note: when importing line items with deals, the import will not update the deal amount. To update update the associated deal amount, you can manually edit the line items or associate the line items with a deal in HubSpot.
Calls: Call notes. When importing new calls, it's also recommended to include Activity date.
Emails: Email body and Email direction.
Meetings: Meeting description, Meeting start time, and Meeting end time. When importing new meetings, it's also recommended to include Activity date. The start time, end time, and activity date values should be formatted as date-time properties.
Notes: Note body.
Tasks: Task title and Due date. The due date should be formatted as a date-time property.
Please note: while not required, it's recommended to include Activity date when importing new activities to specify the date and time an activity occurred. If you don't include this property, the Activity date values are automatically set to the date and time of the import.
Additional properties are not required, but can also be imported into HubSpot to add or update data in bulk. You can import the following additional properties:
HubSpot default contact, company, deal, and ticket properties, excluding certain automatically set properties that cannot be edited. Learn more about default contact, company, deal, and ticket properties.
Any custom properties you've created for contacts, companies, deals, tickets, or custom objects.
HubSpot default call, email, meeting, note, and task properties. Learn more about default activity properties.
The following are required to successfully avoid duplicates and associate records when importing. If you're importing same object associations, refer to the section below for additional requirements.
To import and associate multiple objects in one file, include information about associated records and/or activities in the same row. In two files, use a common column to connect the records in each file. You can refer to the example files for more help importing and associating records.
To update existing records, associate records, and avoid duplicate records, your files must include a unique identifier property for each object. For all objects, you can export existing records and use the Record ID as a unique identifier, or use a custom property that requires unique values. For contacts, you can also use Email. For companies, you can also use Company domain name.
If you're importing multiple objects and are including Record IDs, it is recommended to differentiate the file column headers to match the ID with the correct object (e.g., one column called Record ID - Contacts and another called Record ID - Companies).
If you're using a custom unique value property to deduplicate contacts, the Email property will still require unique values.
If you're using a custom unique value property to deduplicate companies, the Company domain name property will not require unique values. This means you can import duplicate company domains. If you don’t want multiple companies with same domain, you should remove duplicate domains from your file before importing, or use Company domain name as your unique identifier instead.
You can use a secondary email as the unique identifier for existing contacts who have a secondary email address listed in HubSpot. If you use a secondary email, and do not include the Record ID column in your file, the secondary email will not replace the primary email. However, if you include both the secondary email and Record ID as columns in your file, the secondary email will replace the primary email.
To associate one record with multiple activities or records of another object, include the record's unique identifier in multiple rows for each record you want to associate. For example, Luke Danes is a manager at Luke's Diner, but a contractor at The Dragonfly Inn. To associate him with both companies, you'd need to include two rows for Luke Danes with the columns Email (or Record ID), and Company domain name (or Record ID) for each company.
Please note: if you don't include unique identifiers (e.g., Email, Company domain name, Record ID), the import will create duplicate records instead of associating each to the same record.
To import association labels (Professional and Enterprise only), include an Association label column. You must create the association labels in HubSpot prior to importing.
To set a company association as primary, include the value Primary in the Association label column for that row.
To set multiple labels to describe the relationship between two records, you can include multiple association label values in one cell, separated by a semicolon (e.g., Manager; Billing contact).
If you're importing association labels in a multiple file import, you need to include the Association label column and a unique identifier for the object you're associating in the same file.
If you're importing paired labels for cross-object associations, only include one of the labels in the Association label column. The labels will be assigned to the correct object during the import process.
To create child-parent company associations via import, include a Parent company column in your import file with the parent companies' Record ID values. Learn more about importing child companies.
You can import one file to associate records of the same object in bulk. When setting up your file, the following requirements are specific to same object imports:
At least one record in a record pair must already exist in HubSpot before importing. For example, you can import a new contact and associate it with an existing contact, but you cannot import to create and associate two new contacts.
If you're associating multiple records with one record, separate the records' unique identifier values by a semi-colon in the same cell (e.g., luke@lukesdiner.com; rory@yale.edu; sookie@dragonfly.com).
If you're labelling associations (Professional and Enterprise only):
The association labels must already exist in your association settings before importing.
If all records have the same label, you can add this label during the import process.
If the records have different labels, include a label column in your file, with the corresponding label for each association.
If you use paired labels (e.g., manager and employee), the record in the Associated [unique identifier] column will receive the label added in the import process or included in the file's label column. The other record in the row will receive the other label in the pair.
During the import process, you'll need to select a checkbox to include same object associations.
In the example file below, Rory and Jackson are new contacts being associated with unique labels to existing contacts, using their Email values as the unique identifier. Sookie is an existing contact being associated to two existing contacts with the same label. In the first row, the association label is part of a label pair, which means once the import is completed, the associated record will have the label Parent and Rory will have the paired label, Child.
The following files include the required column headers for each object or activity, as well as possible additional headers. You can add your own column headers to update or create any additional properties that are important to maintain your organization’s HubSpot database.
Once your file is ready, learn how to import one object or activity into HubSpot.
Please note: products can only be imported in a single object import. You can associate an existing product to a line item, or manually associate a product to a deal or quote.
The following example files include the required fields to create new records and associate them with existing records of the same object.
You can import and associate multiple objects, or objects and activities, together in one file or in two separate files, where each file represents one object/activity.
To import and associate multiple objects/activities in one file, include the records/activities you want to associate within the same row of your file. These sample files represent common use cases, but you can mix and match objects or activities by replacing the column headers.
Contacts and companies with association labels sample spreadsheet: XLXS or CSV
Deals and new line items sample spreadsheet (with associated products) : XLSX or CSV. When importing in one file, you can only import one line item per deal.
Calls and contacts sample spreadsheet: CSV
Notes and tickets sample spreadsheet: CSV
Tasks and existing deals sample spreadsheet: CSV
Emails and existing contacts sample spreadsheet: CSV
Once your file is ready, learn how to import and associate multiple objects or activities into HubSpot.
When importing and associating in two files, each file represents one object or activity. You can only import two objects or one object and one activity in a two file import. To import more than two objects/activities, you can import in one file.
To identify which records should be associated across the files, include a common column in both. One of your files should have a unique value for each row in this column. In the other file, use those values to indicate which record each row should be associated with. For example, a common use case is to import and associate contacts and companies. In the following sample files, Company Name is the common column:
In the company file, there is a unique value for each row in the Company name column. In each row of the contacts file, the values in the Company name column match the company that the contact will be associated with. You can use these files when importing contacts and companies, or mix and match other objects, as long as you include a common column.
Additional examples include:
Deals and companies with association labels in two files: in these sample files, Company name is the unique key for the Company object.
Deals and new line items in two files: in these sample files, Deal name is the unique key for the Deal object. When importing in two files, you can import multiple line items per deal.
Calls and contacts in two files: in these files, Email is the common column and unique key for contacts.
Once your files are ready, learn how to import and associate multiple objects or activities into HubSpot.
To add or update data in bulk, you can import files into HubSpot. You can import records, such as contacts and companies, or activities, such as an email sent to a contact or a meeting for an ongoing deal.
The following are the types of imports you can complete, and the objects and activities supported:
Single object or activity import: import to create and/or update one object or activity. In a single object import: You can create and/or update contacts, companies, deals, tickets, calls, products, and custom object records.
You can create, but not update, tasks.
Multiple object and activity import: import to create, update, and/or associate multiple objects and activities. You can import multiple objects and activities in one file, or two objects/an object and an activity in two separate files. In a multiple object import:
Before you start an import:
To watch an overview on how to import into your HubSpot account, check out the video below:
How To Import Contacts To HubSpot CRM From A Spreadsheet (Google Or Excel)
Once you've set up your files, to import into HubSpot:
Please note: emails, meetings, notes, and tasks cannot be updated via import, regardless of how you choose to import the data.
Once imported, you can view new and updated records each object's home page, new tasks on the tasks index page, or new activities on records. If your import contained errors, learn how to resolve import errors. You can also view, analyze, and complete actions with your previous imports, including creating a list, viewing, or deleting imported records.
Your data is now ready to be uploaded to HubSpot. Automate the process of filling in company information or contact information that is missing using artificial intelligence. You can fix small formatting errors with HubSpot's data quality tools. Save time by setting up filtered views for specific reps or automating data management. When your CRM accurately reflects your data, you can spend less time managing data and more time growing your business.