Migrating to HubSpot Service Hub is an exciting step toward delivering more seamless and powerful customer service. Whether you are moving from a legacy helpdesk solution or just setting up a new instance, this checklist will ensure that your migration is smooth, accurate, and fully optimized. As someone who has successfully migrated thousands of accounts to HubSpot Service Hub, I can tell you that the key to success lies in a well-planned, structured approach.
Scope the Migration
Before diving into the technical aspects of migration, take the time to clearly define the scope. This will save you from complications later on and ensure that your team’s needs are fully met.
- Determine the Timeframe: Decide how many years of data you want to bring over. While HubSpot Service Hub can handle large amounts of data, migrating old conversations that no longer add value may unnecessarily complicate the process.
- List the Teams and Users: Identify which agents and users should be part of the migration, especially if you plan to preserve legacy agents for historical ticket ownership.
- Select the Data to Migrate: Conversations, contacts, deals, tickets, custom properties, tags, workflows, attachments, and notes are all elements you might want to migrate. Ensure you only move what’s necessary to avoid unnecessary clutter.
- What to Skip: Drop spam, test tickets, outdated tags, duplicate contacts, or irrelevant data that won’t serve your business after the migration.
- Legacy Data Mapping: HubSpot’s data structure differs from others, so it’s critical to map your old helpdesk’s ticket statuses, priority levels, agent assignments, and tags to HubSpot’s new model.
What Can Be Migrated via HubSpot’s API
HubSpot Service Hub offers a rich API that can handle most of your migration tasks. Let’s go over what you can automate through the API.
- Contacts and Companies: Import customer contact details like email, phone, custom properties, and social handles. If you have customer data tied to specific accounts, you can also map contacts to companies in HubSpot.
- Conversations & Tickets: HubSpot API supports importing tickets as conversations. Each conversation will be threaded, preserving the original message flow, timestamps, internal notes, and attachments.
- Custom Properties: If you had custom fields in your old system, you can create these custom properties in HubSpot and migrate data into them through the API.
- Attachments: Documents, images, and other file types attached to tickets can also be moved over, maintaining their file names and formats.
- Workflows: HubSpot’s API doesn’t handle workflows directly, but you can import tickets, contacts, and conversations and then manually recreate workflows after the data has landed in the system.
What Needs to Be Set Up in the HubSpot UI
Though the API is robust, there are several aspects of HubSpot Service Hub that need manual configuration in the UI. Be sure to plan for these before beginning the migration.
- Create Mailboxes & Email Channels: HubSpot Service Hub requires you to connect your support inboxes, sales email channels, live chat, and social media accounts through the UI. API cannot automate these steps.
- Users, Teams & Permissions: While you can import users via the API, roles, permissions, and team structures need to be configured in the UI. It’s important to map the legacy user IDs to HubSpot user accounts to maintain accurate ownership of tickets.
- Service Pipelines and Ticket Stages: HubSpot Service Hub uses service pipelines for tracking customer issues and ticket statuses. You’ll need to configure these pipelines and ticket stages in the UI before starting the migration.
- Saved Replies & Templates: Any templates, canned responses, or knowledge base articles must be manually recreated in HubSpot. API can’t migrate these directly.
- Automation Rules & Workflows: Workflow automations (e.g., auto-assign, escalation rules, SLA triggers) must be configured manually in the UI after data migration.
- Integrations: Third-party integrations, such as CRM integrations or chatbots, need to be configured in the HubSpot UI.
Pre-Migration Setup in HubSpot
A smooth migration begins with a strong setup. Let’s walk through the essential steps to ensure your environment is ready.
- Create HubSpot Account & Configure Basic Settings: Set up your HubSpot Service Hub account, choose the appropriate plan, and configure basic settings such as company details, user permissions, and notification preferences.
- Set Up Service Pipelines & Ticket Stages: Customize your service pipelines and stages in HubSpot, ensuring they reflect your team's workflow and ticketing system.
- Map Old Data to New Structure: Thoroughly map out how your old system’s statuses, tags, and ticket fields align with HubSpot’s data model.
- Test a Small Batch Import: Before migrating everything, run a small pilot import to ensure data is mapped correctly. This will also allow you to fix any issues with the import process.
Migration Execution
The migration process itself is critical. Ensure that you follow these steps to move the data into HubSpot Service Hub:
- Import Contacts & Companies First: Start by bringing over contacts and companies. This ensures all conversations and tickets can be linked to the correct customer profiles.
- Import Conversations & Tickets: Next, import your historical conversations and tickets. Be sure that each ticket has the correct metadata, tags, attachments, and participants.
- Run a Delta Import: After the main migration, perform a delta import to catch any new tickets or conversations created between your initial export and the migration cutover.
- Configure Workflows & Automations: After the data migration, configure your workflows and automation rules to ensure the system works as expected once it’s live.
Post-Migration Validation
After the data is in HubSpot, it's time to verify that everything is working as expected.
- Double-check that all contacts, tickets, attachments, tags, and other data have migrated correctly. Ensure there are no discrepancies in ticket status, conversation threading, or agent assignments.
- Test your email, live chat, and social media channels to make sure tickets are properly routed and agents can respond appropriately. Re-enable workflows and ensure they trigger as expected.
- Provide training for your agents to ensure they are familiar with HubSpot’s interface and ticketing workflows. Encourage them to customize their profiles, signatures, and notification preferences.
- Once everything is validated, switch to HubSpot Service Hub and make your old system read-only or decommission it. Schedule a review after one week and again after one month to resolve any issues that arise.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Skipping the pre-migration setup phase can lead to a chaotic go-live. Be sure to configure everything properly before importing your data.
Always ensure legacy user IDs and ticket IDs are mapped correctly to avoid orphaned records or misplaced ownership.
Always test with a small batch of data first to ensure everything works as expected before moving all your data into HubSpot.
HubSpot has a unique interface and workflows that may be different from your previous system. Training your agents early can help smooth the transition.