Migrate from Zoho Desk to Intercom

Zoho Desk Tickets map directly to Intercom Conversations. We extract Ticket ID, Subject, Status, Priority, Channel, Created Time, Modified Time, Requester (Contact), Assigned Agent, and Account. Thread history from Zoho Desk comments migrates as Conversation Parts in chronological order. Status mapping: Open/On Hold/Pending/Closed-Pending maps to Intercom's open/closed/snoozed states; custom Zoho statuses require Intercom custom conversation states configuration before migration.

Zoho Desk thread history (internal notes, public comments, email body) migrates as Intercom Conversation Parts ordered by timestamp. We extract author type (agent vs contact), body HTML, attachment references, and the original timestamp. Attachment URLs from Zoho are re-hosted to Intercom's file hosting during migration. Internal notes in Zoho map to Intercom internal Parts visible only to team members.

Zoho Desk Contacts map to Intercom Users (contacts). We extract name, email, phone, job title, custom properties, and any contact photo URL. Email serves as the dedupe key during import. If a Contact in Zoho Desk has no email (a rare edge case), we generate a placeholder and flag the record for customer review. Custom fields on Zoho Contacts map to Intercom custom attributes on User.

Zoho Desk Accounts (organizations linked to Contacts) map to Intercom Companies. We extract company name, industry, website, size, and custom fields. Account-Contact linking in Zoho (where a Contact belongs to an Account) translates to adding the Contact to the Intercom Company via the contacts endpoint's companies relationship. Accounts without any linked Contacts are created as standalone Intercom Companies.

Zoho Desk Products (SKU, name, description, custom fields) migrate as Intercom Products. Products in Zoho are linked to Tickets for warranty and entitlement tracking; we preserve this linkage by adding a custom attribute product_name__c on the migrated Conversation. Products without linked Tickets are migrated as reference data with no conversation linkage.

Zoho Desk Tasks (action items linked to Tickets) migrate as Intercom Conversation Parts of type task or as a linked task object if the destination workspace uses a task integration. We extract subject, due date, assignee, and status. Tasks without a parent Ticket are flagged during scoping for manual placement decision by the customer.

Knowledge Base Articles from Zoho Desk migrate to Intercom Articles within Collections (equivalent to Zoho Help Center categories) and Sections. We export title, body HTML, author, category, tags, and publication status. Intercom requires recreating the collection structure first (POST to /collections), capturing parent_id values, then uploading images to Intercom's CDN before replacing image URLs in article HTML, then POSTing each article with title, body, author_id, parent_id, and parent_type. Multi-language articles require separate collection trees per locale.

Zoho Desk Departments (organizational containers that route tickets and assign agents) map to Intercom Teams. We extract department name, email, and agent membership. Multi-department accounts with hierarchical structures flatten into a single Intercom Team per Zoho Department, with the hierarchy documented for manual reconstruction in Intercom's Team settings.

Zoho Desk Agents (name, email, role, department assignment) map to Intercom Admins or Agents. Agent email is the primary key for matching. We verify agent activation and email correspondence in Intercom before migration and flag any mismatches so the customer can clean up agent records beforehand. Comment authorship after migration is determined by email match; inactive or mismatched agents result in a generic fallback attribution.

Zoho Desk Teams (agent groupings for ticket assignment) map to Intercom Teams with preserved membership. We extract team name, description, and agent-to-team assignments. Teams without members are skipped to avoid orphaned routing rules. Intercom's inbox assignment and routing rules reference Teams, so team membership must be resolved before routing configuration.

Zoho Desk Tags (flat labels on Tickets and Contacts) migrate to Intercom Tags. We export tag names and apply them to corresponding Conversation and User records. Tag-based automations in Zoho Desk (routing rules triggered by tag assignment) do not transfer and must be rebuilt as Intercom Rules after migration.

Ticket and article attachments are extracted from Zoho Desk (file URLs or WorkDrive references), downloaded to temporary storage, and re-uploaded to Intercom. We audit total attachment volume during scoping; files exceeding 10GB total require a chunked transfer strategy or selective exclusion. Inline images in KB article HTML are re-hosted to Intercom CDN; standalone file attachments are uploaded via Intercom's attachments endpoint and linked to the parent Conversation Part.