Migrate from Help Scout to Zoho Desk

Help Scout Conversations map directly to Zoho Desk Tickets. The conversation subject becomes the ticket Subject, the full thread history (public replies and internal notes) migrates as ticket threads, and the Help Scout conversation status (active, pending, resolved, closed) maps to Zoho Desk ticket status values. We preserve thread direction (customer-initiated vs agent-initiated) as a custom field in Zoho Desk because native import tools can misclassify reply direction on bulk load.

Help Scout Customer records map to Zoho Desk Contact. Standard fields (email, name, phone, address) migrate directly. Customer Properties (custom fields at the customer record level) map to Zoho Desk Contact custom fields scoped per department. Help Scout Customer notes migrate as Contact Description or private notes.

Help Scout Mailboxes map to Zoho Desk Departments, which is the top-level organizational container in Zoho Desk. Each Zoho Desk Department has its own ticket queue, agent pool, SLAs, and custom fields. We confirm mailbox-to-department routing during scoping based on the customer's current inbox structure and any tag-based routing rules that would need to translate to department assignment logic.

Help Scout Custom Fields (Dropdown, Single line, Multi line, Number, Date) are only available on Plus and Pro plans and are scoped per inbox. We detect the Help Scout plan tier during scoping. If the account is Standard or Free, custom fields do not exist in the source schema. If Plus or Pro, we map each custom field to the equivalent Zoho Desk custom field type, noting that Zoho Desk scopes custom fields per department rather than per inbox, which may require department-specific field pre-creation before migration.

Help Scout Docs articles organized within Collections map to Zoho Desk Knowledge Base articles within Categories. We export article content, author attribution, and publication status via the Help Scout Docs API. The knowledge base navigation hierarchy (top-level Collections as Zoho Desk Categories) migrates to preserve the structure. We note that Zoho Desk's native Zwitch tool excludes Knowledge Base article attachments; we handle attachment migration separately via API.

Help Scout Tags applied across Conversations, Customers, and Docs migrate to Zoho Desk Tags. Tags serve as a flexible classification system in Help Scout and map directly to Zoho Desk's tag model. During scoping we identify which objects carry tags and confirm the tag taxonomy to avoid duplicate tag creation in Zoho Desk.

Help Scout Users map to Zoho Desk Agents. We resolve by email match against the Zoho Desk agent list. Help Scout role assignments (Admin, Agent, Member) map to Zoho Desk permission profiles. Unlimited-user Help Scout accounts may have many agents not yet in Zoho Desk; we provision a reconciliation queue for any unmatched agents before migration.

Help Scout Teams and Departments (Plus-plan feature) map to Zoho Desk Teams. We preserve team membership and map the organizational grouping to Zoho Desk's team structure, which controls ticket assignment pools and visibility rules.

Attachments embedded in Help Scout conversation threads migrate as binary blobs and re-attach to the corresponding Zoho Desk ticket. Large attachment batches (over 5 GB of binary data) require extended migration windows and chunked API handling. Inline images embedded in thread replies are preserved as attachments with a reference back to the thread message.

Help Scout internal notes are a separate thread type within a conversation, visible only to agents. Zoho Desk represents this as a private comment visibility flag on a standard comment. We apply the private visibility flag during thread migration so that internal discussion does not appear in the customer-facing ticket view. Thread direction on internal notes is set to internal by default.

Help Scout Automatic Workflows automate actions based on triggers such as conversation status, mailbox, or customer properties. We map workflow logic to a written inventory document that describes each active workflow's trigger, conditions, and actions with recommended Zoho Desk Blueprint or Workflow Rule equivalents. Workflows are not migrated as executable code because the trigger models differ. The customer's admin rebuilds them post-migration.

Help Scout reporting data including CSAT scores, response times, happiness ratings, and channel reports is not available via the Help Scout API. Customers must export Reports data manually from the Help Scout UI as CSV before migration. We do not migrate reporting metrics programmatically. We document the available report types and CSAT data fields so the customer can reconstruct dashboards in Zoho Desk's report builder.