Migrate from Help Sumo to Intercom

Help Sumo tickets migrate as Intercom Conversations. We map ticket status (open, pending, resolved, closed) to Intercom conversation state (open, resolved, closed), ticket priority to a custom conversation priority attribute, assignee to an Intercom teammate assignment, and tags to conversation tags. The original Help Sumo ticket ID is preserved as a custom conversation attribute (e.g., hs_ticket_id__c) for cross-reference. Help Sumo message entries thread directly into Intercom messages with author attribution and timestamp preserved.

Help Sumo customer profiles map to Intercom Contacts (for users who have initiated conversations) or Leads (for contacts who have not yet messaged). We map email, name, company name, phone, and any custom contact attributes. Customers with no email address in Help Sumo are flagged for admin review before import because Intercom requires an email or user_id for contact creation. Custom attributes must be pre-defined in Intercom as contact attributes before import.

Help Sumo agent accounts map to Intercom Teammates. We match by email address. Help Sumo role and permission levels map to Intercom permission groups (admin, agent). Help Sumo group assignments map to Intercom Teams, which are required for inbox routing rules. Any Help Sumo agent without a corresponding Intercom workspace invitation is held in a reconciliation queue until the admin provisions the account.

Help Sumo tags migrate as both contact attributes (for segmentation) and conversation tags (for ticket classification). Tag names transfer directly. We flag any naming conflicts where the same tag label exists in both contexts and resolve with a naming convention during ETL. Intercom's tag model does not support tag hierarchy, so any hierarchical tag structure in Help Sumo flattens to a flat label list.

Each Help Sumo ticket contains a chronological conversation thread with message entries, timestamps, author attribution, and internal notes. We map these to Intercom Messages within the corresponding Conversation, setting the message author type (user or admin) and preserving timestamps. Internal notes from Help Sumo migrate as Intercom notes (admin-visible only) by detecting the internal-note flag in the source data. The channel type (email, chat) is inferred from Help Sumo's inbox source.

Files attached to Help Sumo tickets or knowledge base articles migrate as Intercom attachments linked to the parent message or article. We flag any attachments exceeding Intercom's file size limit (20 MB per file) and any file types not supported by Intercom's attachment API (executable files are rejected). Attachments are re-uploaded to Intercom's CDN during migration; original download URLs from Help Sumo are not preserved.

Help Sumo knowledge base articles migrate as Intercom Articles grouped by their source category or section. Article body content, author, publication status, and creation or update timestamps transfer directly. Article URL slugs are regenerated in Intercom based on article title, so any publicly linked KB URLs from Help Sumo will break after migration. We deliver a link audit inventory listing every Help Sumo article URL that the customer's admin must update post-cutover.

Help Sumo ticket custom fields require manual schema pre-creation in Intercom as contact or conversation attributes before migration begins. Supported type mappings: text fields map to Intercom text attributes, numeric fields to number attributes, dates to date attributes, single-select lists to dropdown attributes, and multi-select lists to list attributes. Any Help Sumo field type with no direct Intercom equivalent (e.g., rich-text formatted fields) is flagged for admin decision on how to handle the content.

Help Sumo agent groups or teams map to Intercom Teams, which form the routing unit for inbox assignment. We create the team structure in Intercom before agent migration so that each teammate can be assigned to the correct team during import. Help Sumo group names transfer directly as Intercom team names. Inbox routing rules in Intercom are configured post-migration by the admin based on the migrated team structure.

Help Sumo's email and chat inboxes map to Intercom Inboxes, which serve as the routing destination for conversations. We document the source inbox mapping during scoping so that the admin can configure Intercom inbox routing rules after migration. Help Sumo does not support multiple independent inboxes with separate routing, so teams upgrading from a single Help Sumo inbox will need to plan their Intercom inbox hierarchy during migration scoping.