Migrate from Kayako to HubSpot Service Hub

Kayako Conversations migrate to HubSpot Tickets as the primary ticket object. We map status (open/pending/resolved/closed) to HubSpot Ticket status, priority (low/normal/high/urgent) to HubSpot Ticket priority, and channel (email/chat/voice) to a custom HubSpot property for source channel preservation. Agent assignment migrates by resolving Kayako user email to HubSpot User. Customer association links to the HubSpot Contact resolved from Kayako User email.

Kayako Users with customer role map to HubSpot Contacts. We resolve by email as the dedupe key. Active and inactive status is preserved. Users with agent role map to HubSpot Users (agents) for ticket assignment rather than Contact records. If a customer email matches an existing HubSpot Contact, we merge rather than duplicate.

Kayako agent and admin Users map to HubSpot User records by email match. We reconcile owner assignment in Kayako Conversations against the User table. Any Kayako agent without a matching HubSpot User is held in a reconciliation queue for the customer's admin to provision before Conversation import begins.

Kayako Organizations map to HubSpot Companies. The Organization name becomes the Company name, and domain fields map to Company domain. We preserve the Organization-to-User linkage so that the migrated HubSpot Contact is associated with the correct Company via the Company association.

Kayako custom fields on Conversations require discovery of their system-generated API field keys during scoping. These keys are distinct from display names and must be used in API reads. We map each discovered key to a HubSpot Ticket custom property of equivalent type (text, number, date, dropdown). If a custom field was created after initial setup, we re-verify its key before migration.

Kayako custom fields on Users (customer properties beyond name and email) map to HubSpot Contact custom properties. We discover all User-level custom field keys during scoping and match them to HubSpot property types. Phone number formatting, country codes, and other locale-specific fields are standardized to HubSpot's expected format before import.

Kayako Organization custom fields map to HubSpot Company custom properties. If the same custom field concept appears on both Organization and User in Kayako, we configure it separately on Company and Contact in HubSpot. The customer chooses whether to link them via HubSpot Company association or keep them independent.

Kayako KB articles migrate to HubSpot Knowledge Base using HubSpot's Knowledge Base import API. We preserve article content, category assignments, and publish status. Article attachments migrate as linked files; inline images require separate URL handling depending on whether they are hosted in Kayako or external URLs. View counts migrate as a custom HubSpot property for historical reference.

Kayako KB categories migrate to HubSpot Knowledge Base categories with hierarchical structure preserved. If HubSpot already has categories with conflicting names, we apply a naming convention prefix to avoid collisions. Article-to-category assignments migrate as part of the article migration step.

Kayako Tags on Conversations migrate as HubSpot Ticket tags. We map them as label strings that agents can filter by in HubSpot. If the customer also uses HubSpot for marketing and wants tag-based segmentation, we map them to HubSpot Topics with TopicAssignment records. The customer chooses the tag strategy during scoping.

Kayako conversation attachments require separate API calls per conversation for export. We handle file export by conversation ID, map to HubSpot File records linked to the corresponding Ticket via ContentDocumentLink. Size restrictions on Kayako API file retrieval are scoped during discovery; files exceeding limits are flagged for manual handling or alternative transfer.

Kayako SLA definitions (response time, resolution time, business hours, violation actions) are configuration objects we capture during discovery and deliver as a written SLA configuration map. HubSpot SLA policies are configured separately in Service Hub settings; the map documents the translation from Kayako SLA tier names and thresholds to HubSpot SLA policy values so the customer's admin can configure them post-migration.