Migrate from eDesk to Intercom

eDesk Tickets map directly to Intercom Conversations. Each ticket's conversation thread (customer messages, agent replies, internal notes) migrates as a chronological message sequence. We preserve ticket status (open, pending, resolved, closed) as Intercom conversation state, and ticket priority as a custom conversation attribute. The eDesk channel source (Amazon, eBay, email, etc.) migrates as a tag on the conversation so teams can filter the Intercom inbox by original channel. Attachments migrate as file links attached to the relevant message in the thread.

eDesk's channel model (Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Shopify, email, social) has no direct Intercom object equivalent. We capture the channel association on each ticket during extraction and apply it as a tag in Intercom (e.g., tag: amazon, tag: ebay, tag: shopify). For teams with marketplace order context in eDesk, we create a custom conversation attribute (e.g., channel_source__c) that Intercom workflows can reference for routing. This is a configuration step rather than a direct migration; the tag taxonomy is designed during scoping to match the team's inbox filter strategy.

eDesk Contact records (customer name, email, marketplace identity, phone, custom fields) map to Intercom Users. Email serves as the primary dedupe key. eDesk's custom contact fields map to Intercom custom user attributes of the corresponding type (text, date, number, dropdown). Phone number validation should be disabled in the Intercom workspace before migration if the eDesk dataset contains international or non-standard format numbers. The contact-to-ticket linking is preserved by resolving the contact ID on each conversation at migration time.

eDesk Agent accounts with their role assignments (Admin, Agent) map to Intercom Teammates. We resolve agents by email match against the destination Intercom workspace. The customer's admin provisions Intercom teammates before migration so that agent assignment is preserved on each conversation rather than falling back to unassigned. Note that eDesk's per-agent pricing context does not carry into Intercom, which prices by seat tier rather than by connected channel count.

eDesk KB articles with their category hierarchy map to Intercom Help Center articles inside collections and sections. We preserve internal/external visibility flags, article body content, and article-to-category assignments. If the eDesk KB spans multiple languages, the customer adds the relevant languages to Intercom's Help Center settings before migration so that translated article versions land in the correct locale section. Article attachment files migrate as linked assets.

eDesk canned response templates migrate as Intercom Saved Replies. Template variables such as {{customer_name}} or {{order_number}} are preserved as plain text strings in the saved reply content. Variable substitution behaviour differs between platforms: eDesk resolves variables at send time via its template engine, while Intercom's Saved Replies support liquid markup for dynamic content. We document the variable mapping for each template during scoping so the customer can update Saved Replies to use Intercom's liquid syntax post-migration.

eDesk ticket tags migrate as Intercom tags. Tag taxonomies are not normalised between platforms, so we migrate tags as-is and flag any tag that appears on more than 10 percent of tickets as a candidate for review after migration. Teams should audit tag cardinality in Intercom before relying on tags for workflow routing, as tag proliferation affects automation legibility.

eDesk Smart Rules are eDesk-proprietary automation logic that has no direct equivalent in Intercom. Smart Rules are available on all eDesk plans, but their conditions, actions, and routing logic cannot be exported as portable automation code. We extract Smart Rule configuration as a structured metadata document listing every active rule: trigger condition, filter criteria, and action. The customer's admin rebuilds these rules in Intercom using Intercom Workflows or Fin AI routing conditions. Message Rules (Professional and Enterprise tier only) follow the same process.

eDesk AI Classifications are a taxonomy used by the AI Agent add-on to categorise incoming tickets. These are not a standalone exportable object but are stored as ticket properties on each record. We capture the AI classification value as a custom conversation attribute in Intercom (e.g., ai_category__c) so that Fin AI Agent has historical context on day one. Fin cannot directly query custom conversation attributes for routing, so the classification data serves as an informational attribute rather than a native routing trigger; Fin learns from Help Center article content rather than eDesk's classification taxonomy.

eDesk SLA configurations (first-response and resolution time thresholds) are migrated as metadata where Intercom supports SLA definitions. Intercom's SLA enforcement is available on Advanced plan and above. We preserve the SLA threshold values (e.g., 4-hour first response, 24-hour resolution) in a configuration document that the customer's Intercom admin uses to configure SLA policies in the Inbox settings. SLA breach history from eDesk does not migrate as Intercom SLA events.

eDesk's Automated Report Extracts API covers Agents, Tickets, Channels, Chats, and AI metrics. Historical report snapshots can be exported as CSV at migration cutover for archival purposes, but live eDesk dashboards do not have a direct Intercom equivalent. We export a snapshot of the most recent 12 months of ticket volume, CSAT, and agent performance data as CSV for import into the customer's BI tool. Intercom's native Reports (Team Performance, Conversations, SLA, CSAT) are configured fresh post-migration based on Intercom's data model.