Migrate from HelpNinja to Intercom

HelpNinja Customers map directly to Intercom Contacts. Each Contact record requires an email address; if a HelpNinja Customer record lacks an email, we attempt phone or name as a fallback identifier and flag records for customer review. Custom fields on the HelpNinja Customer record migrate as Intercom custom attributes, which must be created in Intercom before the Contact import begins because Intercom requires attribute definitions to exist before data can populate them.

If HelpNinja Customers include an organization or company name field, we create a corresponding Intercom Company record and link the Contact to it via the Contact's company_id. Company records provide Intercom's account-level reporting and team assignment by company. If no organization data exists in HelpNinja, we skip Company creation and Contacts land unlinked.

HelpNinja Tickets map to Intercom Conversations. The ticket subject becomes the Conversation title, the ticket status (open, pending, resolved, closed) maps to Intercom's Conversation state, and the ticket description becomes the initial customer message in the Conversation thread. We preserve the ticket's created_at and updated_at timestamps as Intercom's conversation_created_at and conversation_updated_at. Note: Intercom enforces contact-first import order — we cannot create Conversations until all referenced Contacts exist in Intercom, so we run Contact migration in a dedicated phase before Conversation migration begins.

HelpNinja Ticket comments (from agents and customers) map to Intercom Conversation Parts in chronological order. We determine the Part type (comment from customer, note from agent, activity event) from the HelpNinja comment author type. Internal notes from HelpNinja migrate as internal Conversation Parts that are visible only to teammates. The created_at timestamp on each Part preserves the original conversation timeline.

HelpNinja Agents map to Intercom Teammates. Resolution is by email match: we extract agent email from HelpNinja and match against the Intercom workspace's admin list. Any HelpNinja Agent without a matching Intercom Teammate goes to a reconciliation queue for the customer's admin to provision before the Conversation phase. Agent permissions (admin vs regular agent) map to Intercom's Teammate roles.

HelpNinja Teams map to Intercom Teams. We create Intercom Teams during workspace setup using names from HelpNinja, then resolve the assignment on each migrated Conversation so that the Conversation is routed to the correct Intercom Team. If HelpNinja has no Team concept, we assign all Conversations to a default Inbox.

HelpNinja Tags migrate to Intercom Tags. Tags on Tickets carry over as tag associations on the corresponding Intercom Conversation. Tag names are normalized (lowercased, spaces replaced with hyphens) to match Intercom's tag naming convention. Tags used for content classification rather than ticket status are preserved identically.

HelpNinja ticket attachments (images, files, documents) migrate as Intercom Attachments linked to their Conversation. We preserve the original filename, MIME type, and file size. Inline images embedded in ticket comments migrate as attachments on the corresponding Conversation Part. Large attachment files (>25MB) may require chunked upload handling if HelpNinja's export produces files larger than Intercom's upload limit.

HelpNinja knowledge base articles migrate to Intercom Help Center Articles. Article titles, body content, and author information transfer directly. Article sections and categories map to Intercom Sections and Collections respectively. If HelpNinja articles have translations, we migrate each language version and add the corresponding locale in Intercom's Help Center settings before import, as Intercom requires locales to be configured before multilingual content can display.

HelpNinja automations (ticket routing rules, auto-assignment, status-change triggers) do not migrate as functional code because they are logic-based and cannot be copied via API. We audit every active HelpNinja automation during discovery and deliver a written inventory documenting the trigger, conditions, and actions for your admin to rebuild in Intercom's Workflow builder. This handoff document includes recommended Intercom equivalent actions (Assign to Team, Add Tag, Set Status) for each rule.