Migrate from Zendesk to HubSpot Service Hub

Zendesk Tickets map to HubSpot Tickets with direct field translation: status maps to Ticket status, priority maps to Ticket priority, requester maps to the primary Contact lookup, assignee maps to the HubSpot Owner (User), and group maps to a HubSpot Team. Comment threads migrate as conversation entries preserving public/private visibility distinction. Custom fields on Zendesk tickets map to custom properties on the HubSpot Ticket object. We use HubSpot's Tickets API (REST) with batched imports and parent-record resolution for Contact and Owner lookups.

Zendesk end-users (requesters) map directly to HubSpot Contacts. We pull the full user profile including name, email, phone, locale, organization membership, and custom fields, and import as HubSpot Contact properties. Multiple email addresses on a Zendesk user become secondary Contact properties or are consolidated to the primary email as the dedupe key.

Zendesk Organizations map to HubSpot Companies. The organization's domain name becomes the Company domain property, and all members of the Zendesk organization are linked to the HubSpot Company via the Company association on each Contact. Cross-references between Zendesk organizations (parent-child relationships) migrate as HubSpot Company parent-company associations.

Zendesk Agents map to HubSpot Users by email address. We extract agent role assignments (Admin, Agent, Light Agent) and group memberships during scoping and preserve them in a custom property on the HubSpot User for later use in permission configuration. Agents without a matching HubSpot User go to a reconciliation queue; the customer's admin provisions missing users before record import.

Zendesk tags applied to Tickets, Users, and Organizations do not have a native HubSpot equivalent — HubSpot tags are mini-filters in the CRM, not a data object. We convert Zendesk tags to HubSpot multi-select properties on the Contact, Company, and Ticket objects, one property per Zendesk tag taxonomy. The customer chooses the target property names during scoping.

Zendesk Ticket comments (public replies and internal notes) migrate to HubSpot Ticket conversation entries preserving the author (Contact or Agent/User), timestamp, and visibility (public vs internal). Internal notes from Zendesk Side Conversations migrate as HubSpot internal ticket properties or as notes on the related Deal if the Side Conversation referenced a deal context.

File attachments on Zendesk Tickets and Help Center articles are downloaded via Zendesk's attachment API endpoints, preserving filename and MIME type, then uploaded to HubSpot via the HubSpot Files API and linked back to the Ticket or Knowledge Base article. Inline images in ticket comments are resolved as HubSpot file URLs in the conversation thread.

Zendesk Brands (up to 5 on Growth/Professional, up to 300 on Enterprise) have independent email routing, Help Centers, and agent routing rules. HubSpot has no multi-brand abstraction — we map multiple Zendesk Brands to separate HubSpot Inboxes and Teams, with brand domain routing handled by inbox email routing rules configured post-migration. Brands with overlapping user bases require customer input on inbox assignment during scoping.

Zendesk Help Center articles, sections, and categories are extracted via the Help Center API, including HTML content, attachments, section hierarchy, and translations for Dynamic Content items. We create HubSpot Knowledge Base articles via the HubSpot CMS API, preserving article body as HTML, author attribution, section categorization, and locale fields. The article URL slug pattern is documented for redirect planning.

Zendesk Macros with variable placeholders are exported as structured content and documented for recreation as HubSpot Snippets (canned text blocks) or as part of HubSpot Workflow actions. Macro conditions and recipient restrictions do not map directly to HubSpot Snippets — we deliver a written macro inventory with recommended Snippet organization by inbox and ticket pipeline.

Zendesk Views are saved ticket filter definitions with column layouts and sort order. We export view definitions (conditions, columns, sorting) and document them for recreation as HubSpot Saved Views on the Tickets object. View logic that uses Zendesk-specific operators requires translation to HubSpot filter syntax.

Zendesk SLA Policies define first-response and next-annotation targets per plan or ticket type. HubSpot does not have a native SLA Policy object — we export SLA definitions as structured records and deliver a written document mapping each SLA Policy to HubSpot Workflow triggers (time-based delays) and notification actions, with SLA breach notification workflows documented for the customer's admin to configure.

Zendesk Triggers (event-driven) and Automations (hourly batch) are exported with their full definitions including conditions, field references, and actions. HubSpot Workflows are property-triggered and schedule-based but do not have a direct Trigger equivalent — complex multi-condition event triggers require redesign. We deliver a written inventory of every active Trigger and Automation with recommended HubSpot Workflow equivalents and trigger points.

Zendesk Custom Objects (Enterprise-only v2 API) have user-defined schemas with custom fields and lookup relationships to Tickets, Users, or Organizations. We map these to HubSpot Custom Objects (Enterprise tier only) using matching schema definitions. If the destination HubSpot account is not on Enterprise, Custom Objects are flattened into Ticket custom fields or a supplementary CSV with a lookup reference documented.

Zendesk Dynamic Content items (multilingual placeholder-based text for macros and auto-replies, available on Growth+) are extracted with their locale variants and mapped to HubSpot Knowledge Base article locale fields or as HubSpot property translations on Snippets. We pull each locale variant and assign it to the corresponding HubSpot language setting.