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Import your Zendesk ticket, user and organization data
Import your Zendesk ticket, user and organization data

Learn how to import users, companies, or tickets from Zendesk to Intercom.

Brionn Coffey avatar
Written by Brionn Coffey
Updated this week

It's easy to move your valuable customer tickets and data from Zendesk to Intercom. This will ensure you keep all your valuable ticket, user and company information and interactions with customers when moving to Intercom from Zendesk.

This feature is available on a per-workspace basis. If you are not seeing it in your workspace, please reach out to our Support team for assistance.

Who is this for?

This tool will suit companies that:

  • Need to import users, companies, or tickets from Zendesk to Intercom.

    • Data attributes and ticket attachments will also be migrated.

  • Don't need to import ticket tags (you can recreate your tags in Intercom).

  • Are migrating less than 150k tickets.

  • Isn’t migrating a specific set of tickets (all tickets must be migrated).

  • Don't have technical resources for integrating with our APIs.

  • Are prepared to configure and perform the import independently.

Some limitations of the tool include:

  • Side conversations cannot be migrated

  • Tags cannot be migrated

  • Call recordings cannot be migrated

If your data migration needs are very large, specific, complex, or don't match the capabilities above, then there are other options available which may be more appropriate. Read this article for more info on alternative methods.


Get started

Conversation history

The Zendesk conversation data import feature can be accessed by navigating to Settings > Data > Imports & exports, then "Import from Zendesk".

Linking your Zendesk Account

Enter the URL of your Zendesk account in the field provided, then click to migrate or import. It's important that the user performing the migration has Admin access in Zendesk. Admins have the necessary permissions needed to view and manage Zendesk data.

Import your organization data

Once you have connected your Zendesk account, you can choose the data you'd like to import. You'll see step by step instructions pop up.

Once chosen, select what fields you want to migrate, and what these should be mapped to. To save you time, we've automatically mapped appropriate ones, and set others to skip so you can just bring over the fields you want to.

Customers can't be migrated without organizations being migrated.

How mapping fields works

  • Fields with a green tick have been mapped successfully.

  • Fields with a skip icon will be skipped.

You can create a new field in Intercom if needed. Use create same field in Intercom and we'll automatically take care of it for you.

Mapping teams and teammates

Tickets need assigned teams and teammates to be imported, so we’ve added the ability to map how you want your tickets to be assigned. Before importing, you’ll need to ensure that your teams and teammates have been created in Intercom so that they can be mapped to. Read this article on creating teammates.

You’ll also need to choose a default team and teammate for when mappings aren't possible. In these scenarios, we'll map the team and teammate to the default selected.

Deleted, inactive and suspended users will not be migrated to Intercom. Comments and tickets from these users will be mapped to a default inactive contact with name "Inactive Intercom Contact". Only agents with a full seat can be set as a default.

How tickets are imported

When you choose to import tickets, you’ll be able to bring over all your existing Zendesk tickets. A Zendesk ticket can either be public or private so a ticket will be migrated to a Customer ticket or Back-office ticket respectively in Intercom.

  • Customer tickets include customer conversations where there is communication between your company and a customer.

  • Back-office tickets are non-customer facing, these could be internal product bugs for example.

You'll need to have a ticket type setup for both Customer and Back-office tickets before you import. Follow these steps to set up a ticket type before importing.

Alongside tickets, you can also import notes, attachments and inline images. Up to 10 attachments and inline images each can be imported.

Ticket states

Ticket states in Zendesk and Intercom are slightly different, we'll automatically map these to the appropriate states for you. Here’s how states are mapped:

Zendesk

Intercom

New

Submitted

Open

In progress

Pending

Waiting on customer

On hold

In progress

Solved

Resolved

Any custom states created in Zendesk will be mapped to their nearest appropriate state above. You can create custom states in Intercom, but mapping custom states to custom states is currently not supported.

Deleted, inactive, and suspended users

Deleted, inactive and suspended users will not be migrated to Intercom. Comments and tickets from these users will be mapped to the default user selected.

Notifications

Email notifications will be suspended automatically during the migration. This ensures your customers won't receive email notifications from tickets they made in the past.

Start your import

Once you’re happy with your setup, click the migrate button to start your migration. If you're not quite ready yet, you can just save your draft at any time, and get back to it later.

When you start an import, Intercom will import your data as it is at that exact time. If any changes are made in Zendesk after that time, they won't be reflected in Intercom. You can start another import if necessary.

Completion

Wait for the migration to complete, and check the history page to view the migration status. Any failed migration attempts will be displayed here alongside an error message. You can correct the error and attempt to migrate again.

Viewing your imported data

Your migrated tickets and conversations can be viewed in the Inbox, while users and organizations can be viewed in Contacts.


FAQs

Can I import more than once?

Yes it's possible to import your Zendesk ticket, user and organization data more than once. Keep in mind that, if something has changed in Zendesk since your previous import, it will be reflected if you reimport. Upon subsequent imports, old imported data will be overwritten, duplicates will not be created.

If I migrate again and something in Zendesk has changed since my previous import, what happens in Intercom?

If a user has been deleted, they, and any tickets associated with them will be removed. In the History page, each object has an ID that can be tracked, so you can see what's happened to each item.

If I need a more custom migration of customer content from Zendesk to Intercom, what should I do?

Chat to us in the Messenger and we'd be happy to help.


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