Custom Objects: Model Your Own Data
Overview
Every CRM ships with contacts, deals and companies because every business has those. Almost no business has only those. A property manager has properties, a driving school has vehicles and enrolments, an insurance broker has policies with renewal dates. Custom objects are how you add those to Inflowave as first-class records that can be searched, filtered and linked to the people they relate to, instead of living in a spreadsheet the CRM cannot see. The concept has three parts, and understanding them in order is the difference between this feature being obvious and being impenetrable: the object type is the shape, the fields are what it stores, and the records are the individual entries.
Key Features
- Define your own object types with your own fields
- Records are searchable and filterable like built-in data
- Link records to leads so context appears on the contact
- Usable in workflows and reporting alongside standard data
How to Custom Objects: Model Your Own Data
Write down the thing before you build it
Name the record type in the words your team already uses, and list what you need to know about each one. Building the object first and working out the fields later produces a shape you will have to redo.
Open Custom Objects
Go to Custom Objects in the main navigation, at /custom-objects.
Create the object type
This defines the shape - what the record is called and what it represents. You are not entering data yet.
Add fields
Add only the fields you will actually use in a filter, a workflow or a conversation. Fields nobody fills in make every record look half-finished and train the team to ignore the screen.
Link records to leads
Connect records to the people they relate to. This is the step that makes the feature worth having - without it you have built a second database rather than enriched the first.
Use them in workflows
Once records carry dates or statuses, workflows can act on them - a renewal date approaching, a project stage changing - which is where the setup effort pays back.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are custom objects and when do I need one?
Custom objects let you store types of record the built-in CRM does not have - properties, vehicles, policies, enrolments, projects - and link them to leads. Open Custom Objects from the main navigation (/custom-objects). Use one when you keep trying to force real business data into a note field or a spreadsheet alongside the CRM.
Why Custom Objects: Model Your Own Data matters
Custom Objects: Model Your Own Data sits inside the Channels & Data workflow inside Inflowave, and the way you configure it shapes how the rest of the platform behaves. Every CRM ships with contacts, deals and companies because every business has those. Almost no business has only those. A property manager has properties, a driving school has vehicles and enrolments, an insurance broker has policies with renewal dates. Custom objects are how you add those to Inflowave as first-class records that can be searched, filtered and linked to the people they relate to, instead of living in a spreadsheet the CRM cannot see. The concept has three parts, and understanding them in order is the difference between this feature being obvious and being impenetrable: the object type is the shape, the fields are what it stores, and the records are the individual entries. Inflowave was built so the building blocks - accounts, automations, calendars, campaigns - connect cleanly without you having to glue together a third-party stack.
The fastest way to get value out of this is to treat the steps above as a checklist on your first pass, then come back and tune the details after you've seen real traffic flow through. Most teams using Inflowave at scale (agencies running 10-50 client accounts, creators with multiple profiles, businesses with several brand handles) find that the initial setup takes 15-30 minutes per account and pays back within the first day of saved manual replies.
If you run into anything unexpected, the support team replies inside business hours via the in-app chat and the documentation here covers every channels & data feature in the same level of detail. The Channels & Data section also has companion articles that walk through related workflows - the "Related articles" links at the bottom of this page point at the most-used ones in this category.
Finally, every channels & data feature in Inflowave is included in the Basic plan. There is no upsell gate to access custom objects: model your own data or any of the steps described above. If your account is missing a button you see in this article, it's almost always because a workflow or permission needs to be enabled - not because it's a paid add-on. Reach out and the team will point you to the toggle.