Migrate from Intercom to Zoho Desk

Intercom Contacts (Users and Leads) map 1:1 to Zoho Desk Contacts. We preserve email, name, phone, custom attributes, and any avatar metadata. The contact's original Intercom created_at timestamp is held in a custom field (intercom_created_at__c) because Zoho Desk's created_at date for imported tickets resets to migration time per Zoho's import constraints. The Contact-to-Account link (via Intercom's company association) resolves to a Zoho Desk Account lookup on Contact at migration time.

Intercom Companies map 1:1 to Zoho Desk Accounts. HubSpot-like attributes (plan, monthly_spend, industry) map to the corresponding Zoho Desk Account fields. Account is created before Contact migration so that the AccountId lookup is satisfied at the moment of Contact insert. Company name becomes Account Name, and the company domain maps to the Account Website field as a dedupe reference.

Intercom Conversations map to Zoho Desk Tickets as the primary parent record. The conversation subject (first message body or a subject field if set) becomes Ticket Subject. Conversation state (open, closed, snoozed) maps to Zoho Desk Ticket Status. Intercom's conversation priority maps to Zoho Desk Priority (Low, Medium, High, Urgent). The conversation assignee (admin_id) resolves to a Zoho Desk Agent lookup. The conversation team assignment resolves to the Zoho Desk Department lookup. Custom attributes on the conversation are written to Zoho Desk custom ticket fields, subject to the per-edition field limit (50/150/230).

Intercom Conversation Parts (individual messages, internal notes, assignment changes, status changes) map to Zoho Desk Ticket Threads in chronological order. We preserve the part author (admin or contact), the part type (comment, note, assignment, close), and the message body. Internal notes in Intercom map to internal (private) threads in Zoho Desk if the destination supports private comments; otherwise they migrate as internal agent-visible threads with a flag. Thread ordering is preserved by the Thread posted timestamp.

Intercom Admins map to Zoho Desk Agents. We resolve each admin by email match against the Zoho Desk Agent table. Agent role (admin, agent, subscriber) maps to Zoho Desk role (administrator, agent). Agent away/available state is not migrated as it reflects a live operational status rather than historical record. Team memberships in Intercom map to Department assignments in Zoho Desk.

Intercom Teams map to Zoho Desk Departments. We preserve team-inbox routing assignments so that tickets originally routed to a specific Intercom inbox land in the corresponding Zoho Desk Department. Multi-team membership (an admin belonging to more than one team) maps to the primary department, with secondary team membership noted in a custom field for the customer to resolve in Zoho Desk post-migration.

Intercom Tags applied to Contacts and Conversations migrate to Zoho Desk Tags. Tags on Contacts map to the Contact record's tag field. Tags on Conversations map to the Ticket's tag field. Tag associations are preserved at migration time as a snapshot because dynamic recomputation of tag membership is a destination-platform function in Zoho Desk.

Intercom Segments are dynamic audience definitions based on Contact attributes. We map the membership snapshot at migration time by listing all Contacts that match each segment definition. Zoho Desk does not have a native dynamic segment equivalent, so the snapshot migrates as a static Contact List and the segment rebuild is documented as an admin task using Zoho Desk's Contacts filtering and list features.

Intercom help center Articles migrate to Zoho Desk Knowledge Base Articles. Article title, HTML body, author, publication state, and collection assignment migrate. Intercom's collection hierarchy maps to Zoho Desk's section and category structure. Public visibility settings require manual verification post-migration because article-specific public URLs change in Zoho Desk. Attachments within articles migrate to Zoho Desk's document storage with CDN references updated in article HTML.

Intercom Article Collections map to Zoho Desk Knowledge Base categories and sections. We preserve the collection name, description, and parent-child hierarchy. The section-level ordering in Intercom maps to the article display order in Zoho Desk sections.

Intercom custom attributes on Contacts map to Zoho Desk custom fields on the Contact module. We identify all custom attribute definitions and their types during scoping (string, number, date, boolean, list). Type mapping follows Zoho Desk field types (single-line, multi-line, numeric, date, dropdown). Labels are limited to 50 characters per Zoho Desk custom field constraints; labels exceeding this are truncated. Custom field labels may only contain A-Z, 0-9, and specific special characters; unsupported characters are replaced with underscores per Zoho Desk import rules.

Intercom custom attributes on Conversations map to Zoho Desk custom fields on the Ticket module. We audit the full attribute list during scoping and pre-create destination custom fields before migration. Per-edition field limits apply (50 Standard, 150 Professional, 230 Enterprise). If the Intercom workspace has more custom ticket attributes than the destination edition allows, we flag the overflow and prioritize business-critical fields for migration, with the remainder documented for the customer to resolve post-migration.

Intercom's structured Ticket object (distinct from Conversations) maps to Zoho Desk Ticket records with its own status, priority, custom fields, and assignee. Ticket custom fields migrate following the same mapping rules as conversation custom attributes, subject to the per-edition field limit. The Intercom Ticket's conversation thread and its ticket associations are merged into the Zoho Desk Ticket Thread structure.

Intercom Custom Objects (user-defined data structures with their own schema and relationships) map to Zoho Desk Custom Objects or Zoho Creator applications depending on complexity. We pre-create the destination schema via Zoho Desk's custom object API or Zoho Creator before data import. Relationships between custom objects and standard objects (Contact, Company, Conversation) are preserved as lookup fields at migration time.