Guide to Switching Help Desks
One does not simply wake up in the middle of the night and decide to switch help desks. It’s a process, and one that takes careful deliberation at that. Preparing to switch help desks happens well before the actual changeover happens, so if you’re just flirting with the idea of a switch, we recommend reviewing our best practice HelpU post for switching help desks: Switching Help Desks Doesn't Have to be a Nightmare
- Evaluate Help Scout with your team
- Make the switch as painlessly as possible
Step 1. Play in the Mailbox with your team
- Add a note
- Assign a conversation to your friend, and check out your default Mailbox folders
- Change the status on a conversation to Pending or Closed, and see how that affects where the conversation goes in your folders
- @mention your friend and check out the notification station
- Change your redirect settings on Send Reply or Add Note to find your ideal flow
- Pop in the same conversation at the same time to check out Collision Detection
- Start a New Conversation
Step 2. Prepare for your data migration
If you've been using Freshdesk, Kayako, Parature, Zoho, or a few other services, there's a third party migration tool that can bring your conversations into Help Scout: Help Desk Migration Service. Use coupon 10-for-HelpScout for 10% off migration services.
If you've been using a help desk or system that isn't supported by us or a third party tool, you can leverage our API to import conversations on your own. If you can get your conversations on a .CSV, you can use a Zapier Zap to Create Conversation for Customers by using a Google Sheet. And, if you're coming from Groove, a customer built an import for you!
- You'll likely use the same support email address as you do in in your help desk.
- There will be some differences in how we organize conversations by status.
Help Scout | Zendesk | Desk | Freshdesk | Groove |
Active | Open | New, Open | Open | Open |
Pending | On-hold | Pending | Pending | Pending |
Closed | Solved, Closed | Resolved, Closed | Resolved, Closed | Closed |
- Help Scout does not have types or custom statuses like some help desks.
- All tags and labels will be imported as Tags in Help Scout.
- Rules, Macros, and Saved Replies will not be transferred.
Step 3. Set up your Mailbox
To delete the demo Mailbox, head into the Mailbox and look toward the bottom of the screen. Just click delete this demo mailbox to poof it away!
Switching over your forwarder
Step 4. Start your migration
Pre-import checklist
- Create a new mailbox using your catch-all support email address.
- Set up your mailbox signature or change mailbox settings.
- Create new User accounts for everyone your team
* If Active conversations in the import belong to Users that haven’t been added, it can cause things to jam
- Disable ticket channels as you see fit. For example, turn off the Chat, Twitter, and Facebook integrations so that new requests are no longer funneled into your help desk.
- Sort through your Macros and Trigger-based emails. Those bits of text will not be imported, so you might want to save them for later to create Workflow emails.
- Make sure you're able to log in to your email provider's control panel. You should know where your mail forwarding options are located, and how to create or change forwarding rules. For provider specific instructions, check out Get Your Email Into Help Scout.
- If you're using third-party integrations with your help desk, such as Olark or SnapEngage, be prepared to change external integration settings after you've made the move to Help Scout. You can always install Help Scout integrations at a later time.
- Make coffee (optional).
Notable Don'ts:
- Don't work in Zendesk or Desk during an import
Easier said than done, but you should not work in Zendesk or Desk while an import is running. It's best to start the import when you're not anticipating high volumes. If anything does trickle in after the fact, best practice is to assign a "clean up agent" to reply to newly updated conversations in Zendesk or Desk after the import is complete.
Once the forwarding rule points to Help Scout, replies made to the "clean up agent" are funneled in to Help Scout.
- Don't delete anything during an import
Knowledge base articles, customers, Users - if you do any deleting in your help desk during the import, it can cause things to jam up. When you start your import, it really is best to set it and forget it.