Migrate from Helpwise to Zendesk

Helpwise Conversations map directly to Zendesk Tickets. The conversation thread (all message bodies, timestamps, and internal notes) migrates as Ticket Comments with author, timestamp, and body preserved. Public messages become public comments; internal notes become private comments with the is_public flag set to false. We resolve the Helpwise Shared Inbox assignment to a Zendesk group and the conversation assignee to a Zendesk agent. Helpwise channel type (email, chat, WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook, Instagram) maps to Zendesk Ticket channel field value.

Helpwise Contacts migrate to Zendesk Users with role = end-user. Email address, name, phone, and custom contact properties transfer directly. If the source Helpwise account has multi-brand contacts with distinct company associations, we map these to Zendesk Organizations and link each User to its Organization. The Helpwise contact tag list migrates as Zendesk tags on the User record.

Helpwise Shared Inboxes map to Zendesk Groups for assignment routing. Each channel type (email inbox, Facebook page, Instagram account, WhatsApp Business account, SMS number) within a Shared Inbox maps to a corresponding Zendesk Channel or we configure a single email inbox Group and use the channel field on Tickets for multi-channel routing. Multi-brand Helpwise setups (MSPs managing hundreds of client brands) map to Zendesk's multi-brand feature at the Enterprise tier or use separate Zendesk accounts per brand for Professional and below.

Helpwise Tags applied to Conversations and Contacts migrate to Zendesk Tags. Tag naming is preserved exactly as-is, including any color assignments. Tags used for conversation categorization map to Zendesk Ticket tags; tags applied at the contact level map to User tags. We do not rename or deduplicate tags unless explicitly requested during scoping.

Helpwise Internal Notes attached to conversations migrate as Zendesk Ticket Comments with is_public = false, preserving the note author, timestamp, and body text. Internal notes are visible only to agents and admins in Zendesk. Note that if the original Helpwise notes contain @mentions to team members, these are stored as plain text references and do not create Zendesk notifications.

Helpwise Team Members map to Zendesk Agents by email address. We create the Zendesk User record and assign them to the Groups corresponding to the Helpwise Shared Inboxes they had access to. If an agent email does not exist in the destination Zendesk account, we flag it in the reconciliation queue for the customer's admin to provision before record import resumes.

Helpwise Saved Replies migrate to Zendesk Macros. The shortcut code, title, and full body content transfer. Macro availability scope (account-wide, inbox-specific) maps to Zendesk macro availability: account-wide macros are created without group restrictions; inbox-scoped macros are restricted to the corresponding Zendesk Group. Helpwise Standard plan's 15 Saved Reply cap is noted during scoping; if the source exceeds 15, the customer must upgrade to Premium or Advanced in Zendesk before macro import.

Helpwise Help Center articles, categories, and published status migrate to Zendesk Guide. Article URLs are rebuilt in Zendesk Guide with new internal links updated to point to the new article URLs. Zendesk Guide hierarchy maps: Helpwise categories become Zendesk Sections; articles migrate with their full HTML body, author, and positioning preserved. Guide must be activated and configured in the destination Zendesk account before Knowledge Base migration begins, per Zendesk's documentation.

Helpwise custom ticket fields migrate with field names and values preserved. Value picklists map directly to Zendesk ticket field dropdown or multiselect options. We flag any Helpwise custom fields that have no corresponding Zendesk field type and present a recommendation (create a custom field, store in a comment, or drop). Zendesk stores custom field data in a custom_fields array keyed by field ID; we rely on field IDs rather than display names during import per Zendesk migration best practices.

Helpwise SLA Rules (Advanced tier only) migrate as Zendesk SLA Policies. We document the original Helpwise SLA conditions (first response time, next response time, resolution time by priority and business hours) and reproduce them as Zendesk SLA Policy definitions. Note that Zendesk SLA Policies require Support Professional tier or above ($55/agent/month); if the destination Zendesk plan is Suite Team ($19/agent/month), SLA enforcement will not activate post-migration and we flag this gap during scoping.

Helpwise Automation Rules (assignment, tagging, forwarding, routing) migrate as Zendesk Trigger configurations documented in a written inventory. We do not implement Triggers as code because Helpwise and Zendesk automation models differ structurally. The inventory includes trigger name, conditions, actions, and recommended Zendesk Trigger equivalent for the customer's admin to rebuild in Zendesk Admin Center.