Making the switch from Enchant to Help Scout is an exciting step toward streamlining your customer support operations.
While the prospect of moving years of data might seem daunting, a well-planned technical strategy makes the transition smooth.
This guide focuses on using the available APIs to ensure your historical context remains intact while you transition to your new workspace.
Define Your Migration Scope
The first step is determining which pieces of data will travel through the API and which require a more personal touch.
Most of your high-volume data, including tickets, messages, customers, and attachments, can be handled programmatically. These objects have clear counterparts in both systems, allowing for a structured data transfer.
However, certain structural elements are better suited for manual configuration. You will need to manually set up your users and inboxes within Help Scout before the migration begins to ensure everything has a proper destination.
For data that is no longer relevant, such as very old spam or long-expired drafts, you might choose to archive it within Enchant rather than moving it.
This keeps your new Help Scout environment clean and focused on active customer relationships.
Prepare Help Scout for Data Import
Before you run a single script, your Help Scout environment must be ready to receive data. This preparation involves rebuilding your organizational structure.
Start by adding your team members as users in Help Scout. Since the API focuses on managing existing users rather than creating new ones, manual setup ensures each person has the correct permissions and profile settings from day one.
Next, you must create your mailboxes. In Enchant, every ticket belongs to a specific inbox. You will need to recreate these as mailboxes in Help Scout so that when you migrate your tickets, you can map the old inbox ID to the new mailbox ID.
Having these containers ready is essential for maintaining the organization of your customer communications.
Migrate Objects
The actual migration follows a strict logical sequence to maintain data integrity. You should begin with your customers and their associated contacts.
In Enchant, a customer is the primary entity, often holding multiple contact methods like email addresses or phone numbers. Help Scout follows a similar model, so you can map these directly to ensure every conversation is linked to the right individual.
Once your customers are waiting in Help Scout, you can begin the two-step process for attachments. In both Enchant and Help Scout, attachments must be uploaded to the server first to generate a unique identifier.
Only after you have these IDs can you attach the files to specific messages.
The core of your migration involves moving tickets, which Help Scout refers to as conversations. When you create a conversation in Help Scout, you will use the customer information and mailbox IDs you established earlier.
Within these conversations, you will nest threads, which are the equivalent of Enchant messages.
Enchant categorizes messages as either replies or notes, and Help Scout handles these as different thread types, allowing you to preserve the distinction between customer-facing talk and internal team collaboration.
Finally, you can apply tags, known as labels in Enchant, to these conversations to keep your reporting and filtering consistent.
Post Migration Configuration
After the data is successfully moved, there are a few final touches to handle manually. Workflows, which automate your processes, must be rebuilt within the Help Scout interface to ensure your team's logic remains active.
Similarly, any saved replies you used in Enchant to speed up response times should be recreated in Help Scout to keep your team efficient. While the API can list these items, the nuanced logic of automation is best configured directly within the new platform's tools.
Insider Secrets
One of the most important things to watch is the difference in how each platform manages its speed limits. Enchant uses a credit-based system where certain actions, like counting or embedding data, cost more credits against your limit of 100 per minute.
Help Scout, on the other hand, allows a specific number of requests every ten minutes based on how many sites you have active.
Monitoring the specific headers returned by each API will tell you exactly how many requests you have left, so you do not get temporarily blocked.
Another nuance involves the format of your messages. Enchant tracks whether a message body is formatted as HTML through a specific boolean field. When moving this data, ensuring that your migration script respects this field will prevent your historical messages from looking like broken code in the Help Scout interface.
Also, remember that an attachment in Enchant can only be associated with one message; if you try to link it to multiple threads, it may lead to errors or missing files.
Summary
Migrating from Enchant to Help Scout is a logical process that relies on a clear understanding of how data connects.
By setting up your users and inboxes manually, you create a sturdy foundation for the automated transfer of customers, conversations, and attachments.
Following the correct sequence ensures that every message finds its home and every customer remains recognized. Once your tags are applied and your workflows are recreated, your team will be ready to provide excellent support in their new home.
If you’d rather focus on your revenue instead of wrestling with mapping sheets and pagination loops, ClonePartner can handle the full migration for you. Every project gets a dedicated engineer who understands the nuances of both APIs and ensures zero downtime.