Migrate from Help Scout

This guide walks through a full Help Scout migration. Help Scout's data model is close to Ochre's, so most teams finish faster than from Zendesk or Intercom — usually a half day of unattended import after a 30-minute setup.

What gets migrated

• Conversations — every conversation across all mailboxes, including threads, notes, and timestamps.
• Customers — name, email, properties, and company.
• Saved replies — converted to Ochre saved replies.
• Attachments — inline and on conversations.
• Conversation numbers — preserved as aliases. The customer's old #12345 reference still works. See Conversation aliases.
• Tags — kept as-is.
• Custom fields — mapped to Ochre Custom fields.
• Users — matched by email to your invited Ochre users.
• Mailboxes — imported as separate Ochre channels.

What does not migrate

• Workflows. Help Scout's automations are recreated as Ochre Routing rules.
• Beacon. Replace with Ochre's chat widget. See Chat widget.
• Docs (knowledge base) sites. Migrate from your source, or import directly. See Authoring articles.
• Reports and views. Ochre has its own reporting. See Reports overview.
• Integrations. Connect Ochre's native Stripe, HubSpot, Linear, GitHub, and Slack directly.

Before you start

You will need:

• A Help Scout admin account.
• A Help Scout API key. Generate one: Help Scout, Manage, Profile, API Keys.
• An Ochre owner or admin account.
• 30 minutes of attended setup, then a few hours of unattended import.

Step 1: Connect Help Scout

In Ochre, open Settings, then Migration, then Help Scout. Paste the API key. Ochre validates and runs a dry-run scan that returns:

• Conversation count by mailbox.
• Customer count.
• Saved reply count.
• Attachment volume.
• Estimated import time.

Step 2: Pick mailboxes

If you have multiple Help Scout mailboxes (support@, billing@, sales@), pick which to import. Each becomes its own Ochre email channel. See Email channel.

You can rename them on the way in. A common cleanup: split a "general" mailbox into Support and Billing during the migration if the team uses tags to triage.

Step 3: Map users

For each Help Scout user, choose:

• Match to existing Ochre user.
• Invite as new user with a role.
• Skip.

Light agent seats are free. Use that role for stakeholders who do not handle the queue. See Roles explained.

Step 4: Map custom fields

Help Scout custom fields map to Ochre custom fields. Review the suggested mappings:

• Single-line text to text.
• Multi-line text to text (long).
• Dropdown to single-select.
• Number to number.
• Date to date.

Step 5: Choose what to import

Select:

• Date range. Default is all time. Cap at 2 years for a leaner archive.
• Statuses. Open, pending, closed, spam.
• Mailboxes. Already chosen in step 2 — review here.

Click Start import.

Step 6: Wait

Throughput is around 60k conversations per hour. Help Scout's API is fast and predictable, so estimates are usually accurate within 20 percent.

Step 7: Verify

Spot-check:

• Conversation counts per mailbox match Help Scout.
• A handful of conversations end-to-end: threads, notes, attachments, attribution.
• Customer search finds the right people. See Customer search.
• Old Help Scout conversation numbers (#12345) resolve to the right Ochre conversation.
• Saved replies have the right placeholder syntax.

Step 8: Cut over

1. Update MX records. Point each migrated mailbox's email at Ochre. See Custom domain email.
2. Disable inbound in Help Scout. Set Help Scout to read-only or remove the email forwarding.
3. Replace Beacon. If you used Help Scout's Beacon widget, replace it with Ochre's Chat widget.
4. Auto-replies. Recreate any Help Scout auto-replies in Ochre. See Auto-replies.

For 24 to 72 hours after cutover, watch:

• New email lands in Ochre, not Help Scout.
• Old conversation numbers in customer replies still resolve.
• Volume looks normal in Volume metrics.

Step 9: Wind down Help Scout

Keep Help Scout read-only for at least 30 days. Cancel at 60.

Specific to Help Scout

A few things worth knowing:

• Phone conversations. Help Scout phone conversations import as text-only conversations with a "phone" tag. Voice recordings do not migrate; the transcript text does.
• Custom apps. Help Scout custom app data does not migrate. If you used a custom app for context, replace it with the appropriate Ochre native integration or Custom fields.
• Mailbox-level permissions. Help Scout user-mailbox restrictions become Ochre routing rules. Recreate using Routing rules.
• Workflows that auto-tag. Recreate as routing rules with a tag action.

If something goes wrong

• Migration stuck. See Migration stuck.
• Missing customers. Re-run a customer-only sync. Duplicates merge automatically. See Customer merge.
• Wrong mailbox. Move conversations between channels in Ochre after import.

Next steps

• Quick start — finish workspace setup.
• Routing rules — recreate Help Scout workflows.
• Auto-replies — recreate auto-reply messages.