Migrate from CRM and Deals for Zendesk to Nutshell

Zendesk Sell Contacts map 1:1 to Nutshell Contacts with standard field transforms for email format, phone number formatting, and custom field type matching. We resolve the Zendesk user_id reference during import and map any Contact-level custom fields to Nutshell custom fields that we pre-create before migration begins. The Organization link in Zendesk resolves to the Nutshell Account after the Account import phase completes.

Zendesk Organizations map to Nutshell Accounts using the Organization name as the Account name and the primary domain as the Website field. Org-level custom fields migrate to Nutshell Account custom fields. Accounts are imported before Contacts so that the Account-Contact relationship is satisfied at insert time.

Zendesk Deals map to Nutshell Deals with explicit field mapping for deal name, value, stage, owner, expected close date, and currency. Pipeline stage names from Zendesk are mapped to Nutshell stage values that we configure before migration. Any Zendesk deal custom fields migrate to Nutshell Deal custom fields. We flag any Deal without a linked Contact or Organization as an orphaned record during scoping and surface it for customer review before import.

Zendesk Activities (calls, emails, meetings, tasks) are stored in a separate endpoint and linked to Contacts or Deals by ID rather than being first-class on the record. We run a de-normalization query joining Activities to Contacts and Deals, collapse the activity type into the correct Nutshell activity subtype, and write to the Contact and Deal timeline. Call dispositions, durations, and meeting locations map to Nutshell's corresponding activity fields. This step is the highest-risk part of the migration because skipped Activities result in blank timelines in Nutshell.

Zendesk Pipelines and their stage definitions are exported and translated into Nutshell stage names, probabilities, and ordering. Nutshell does not expose a multi-pipeline API object the way Zendesk does; we configure stages within a single Nutshell pipeline and use custom fields or stage branching for multi-line-of-business segmentation if needed. Stage probability percentages migrate from Zendesk to Nutshell stage probability values.

Zendesk Users and Agents map to Nutshell Users by email address match. We extract every distinct owner referenced on a Contact, Organization, Deal, or Activity record and resolve to a Nutshell User. Owners without a matching Nutshell User go to a reconciliation queue for the customer's admin to provision before the record import phase continues. Zendesk group memberships do not have a direct Nutshell equivalent and are not migrated.

Zendesk Custom Objects v2 (Enterprise plan, up to 50 types) cannot map directly to a Nutshell Custom Object API because Nutshell does not expose a separate custom object type. We translate each Zendesk Custom Object into a set of custom fields on the nearest Nutshell standard object (Contact, Account, or Deal), preserving lookup relationship data as reference fields where Nutshell supports them. This translation requires schema design during scoping and may alter the reporting structure the customer used in Zendesk.

Zendesk Legacy Custom Objects are deprecated and use an incompatible API that cannot write to the v2 endpoint or any other destination. Before any migration data is written, we require the customer to confirm that Legacy Custom Objects have been migrated to the v2 API or to accept that these records are out of scope. Migrating legacy records adds a mandatory v2 schema step that typically takes three to five days and is handled separately from the data migration itself.

Zendesk tags on Contacts and Deals migrate as flat string tags in Nutshell. We preserve tag values exactly. Tag-based automations in Zendesk do not migrate; these are listed in the automation inventory document that we deliver to the customer for manual rebuild.