Merge & Consolidate Two Help Scout Instances with zero downtime

How do you merge two Help Scout instances without losing data?

We connect to both Help Scout instances, map every record between them, deduplicate overlapping entries, and reconcile IDs and any custom fields. Both instances stay live during the migration; we cut over only after validation passes.

What happens to duplicate records when consolidating Help Scout instances?

Duplicates are detected on a match key you choose, for example an email address, an external ID or a custom field, depending on the records involved. We surface a dedup report before cutover so you can confirm merge-vs-keep decisions. No record is silently dropped: every duplicate is either merged, kept as-is, or flagged for manual review.

How are record IDs reconciled across the two Help Scout instances?

IDs almost never line up across instances. We build an ID map during the sample run and rewrite references, such as parent and child records, attachments and other linked records, so relationships survive the merge. The map is exported as a CSV for your records after cutover.

What if our two Help Scout instances are set up differently?

We inventory how both instances are set up before the migration, including any custom fields, workflows and automations. Missing fields you want to keep are created in the instance you are consolidating into, conflicting fields are reconciled per your direction, and workflows are ported or rebuilt so the consolidated instance behaves the way your teams expect.

What does post-merge cleanup involve for Help Scout?

We hand over the ID map and dedup report, and document the new field layout. Any issue found after the merge is covered by our post-migration support, so you can decommission the old instance with confidence.

Do I need professional help for this migration?

Yes. Professional help ensures proper field mapping and preservation of relationships between records. Our engineer-led approach catches edge cases that automated tools miss.

Does ClonePartner provide guidance before committing?

Yes. We provide a free consultation and assessment. We'll review your data structure, discuss your requirements, and provide a detailed migration plan and fixed-price quote before you commit to anything.

Do you use an off-the-shelf tool to consolidate our Help Scout instances, or is this built for our data?

It is built for your data. Each migration is a set of custom scripts written for your data model, not a generic import tool. That is also why we start with a sample migration: you see your own records in the instance you are consolidating into before the full migration is committed.

Can we see a sample merge of our Help Scout data before the full merge runs?

Yes. We run a sample migration on your own data first, so you can review how the merged records look before the full migration goes ahead. We run validation scripts to check the record counts against the instance being merged in; if a field is missing or mapped wrong, or anything else needs adjusting, we fix it in the migration scripts and re-run the sample as many times as you need. The full migration only runs after you've approved the sample. On projects delivered in phases, each phase gets its own sample migration for you to approve.

How many sample migrations do we get, and can we choose which tickets from the other Help Scout account go into them?

You can run the sample as many times as you need, until you are satisfied with how the data looks in the account you are keeping. By default it uses the most recent tickets, and you can name specific tickets to include instead, such as ones with long or complex threads you want to check.

Do we need to keep our other Help Scout account active during the merge?

Usually, yes. Keep it active until we confirm the migration is complete, including the final delta migration, because we read your data directly from that account throughout the project. If its subscription is due to end mid-project, extending it to cover the migration window keeps everything on track, and we tell you when it is safe to close it.

Will the sample tickets be removed from our main Help Scout account before the full migration runs?

Yes, if you want them removed. Before the full run, we delete only the tickets the sample migration created in that account, so the full migration does not duplicate them.

Do we need to move our support email to our main Help Scout account before the merge starts?

No. Your support email doesn't need to be moved for the historical tickets to migrate. It matters for go-live, and so does its timing: once the account you are keeping is receiving that email directly, a sync run after that point can pull in the same tickets a second time, so we line the final delta sync up with your email switchover. Some items, such as rules that depend on your email channel, may need it connected before they can be migrated.

Will the original assignees, message authors and created dates be preserved when the instances are merged?

Yes. Created-time metadata is carried across, and so are assignees and message authors who have a user account in the instance you are keeping. Where one of them cannot be set natively on the migrated record, it is kept as embedded metadata on that record.

Can we choose which inbox in our main Help Scout account the merged-in tickets go to?

Yes, where Help Scout's API lets us set a ticket's inbox. We map each group in the account being merged in to an inbox in the account you are keeping, so for example tickets from a Sales group land in your Sales inbox. If you want some tickets to land somewhere else, tell us during scoping and we build that mapping into the migration. If you want changes after go-live, we can re-run the scripts to move them.

Do you migrate the workflows, triggers and automations from the other Help Scout account, or just the tickets?

They can be part of the migration. We recreate the triggers and automations from the account being merged in within the account you are keeping, and agree the exact list of rules with you during scoping, including any that overlap with rules already there.

Are ticket creation and update timestamps preserved when tickets move between Help Scout accounts?

Yes. Each ticket's creation time is preserved exactly, and so is the time of each comment and reply, so the history shows when every update happened. The one possible exception is the ticket-level 'last updated' field: where Help Scout sets it itself when the ticket is written, it may show the migration date; the original update history stays in the comment timestamps.

What happens to tickets in the other Help Scout account assigned to agents who have left or don't have an account in the one we are keeping?

They still come across. Before the migration runs, you decide where they go: to a fallback owner you choose, or left unassigned where Help Scout allows it. Either way, each ticket can get a tag with the original agent's name, for example Assigned_to_Jane, so your team can still see and filter who handled it and reassign them later.

Can we merge several Help Scout accounts into one and still tell which account each ticket came from?

Yes. Tickets from several Help Scout accounts can be consolidated into the one you are keeping, and each ticket is tagged with the account it came from so your team can filter by origin. A shared migration tag can also go on every imported ticket, which keeps historical records separate from the work already in that account.

Do ticket attachments come across when merging Help Scout accounts?

Yes. Attachments are migrated along with the ticket conversations they belong to, not just the text. We can also carry over reference fields such as the original ticket number and a link back to the original ticket, so your team can cross-check any record. You can review attachments and dates in the sample migration before the full run.

Our two Help Scout accounts use different ticket statuses. How do they get mapped?

We map every status in the account being merged in to a status in the account you are keeping, and send you a proposed mapping for the ones that need a decision, such as a custom hold status mapped to On Hold. You confirm or correct it before the full migration, and the sample migration shows exactly how your tickets' statuses land.

Will ticket tags carry over when merging Help Scout accounts, and can migrated tickets be marked so we can tell them apart?

Yes. Tags on the tickets being merged in carry over with them. Each migration is a custom script, so we can also stamp every imported ticket with a tag such as "migrated", or, where Help Scout has custom ticket fields, a field value you choose, so they are easy to filter, and if you ask for a change after reviewing migrated tickets, we re-sync those tickets with the update. The sample migration shows exactly how your tags appear before the full run.

Will consolidating our Help Scout instances send emails or notifications to customers, our team or anyone else?

No. Before the sample or full migration starts, we confirm with you that nothing in the instance you are consolidating into will send messages about the migrated data: we import with notifications switched off wherever Help Scout allows it, and pause any automation that could send them or give it a condition that skips migrated records. We only proceed once you have confirmed it. If you want anyone told about the move, that message is sent separately, once the migrated data has been checked.

Will you migrate the knowledge base articles from the other Help Scout account as well as tickets?

Yes. Knowledge base articles can be part of the same migration as your tickets, and move into the knowledge base of the account you are keeping.

Can we bring over only the contacts from the other Help Scout account who have tickets, not its whole contact list?

Yes. We pull the tickets first, collect the distinct requesters from them, and migrate only those contact records. Contacts with no ticket history are not added to the account you are keeping.

Can you migrate data that Help Scout can't take in through an API?

In many cases, yes. Where something can't be written through an API, we recreate it through Help Scout's user interface where the interface allows it, and where that work is repetitive we script and automate it. We tell you up front which items are handled this way, because recreating them through the interface can add time to the schedule.

If we don't recreate all the custom fields from the other Help Scout account, will that data still be kept on its tickets?

Yes. We can write custom field values onto each migrated ticket as an internal note, laid out as readable field-and-value pairs. Your team can still see that information on every historical ticket, and only the fields you plan to keep using need to exist in the account you are keeping.

Will full ticket conversations come across from the other Help Scout account, or only notes on each ticket?

We migrate the full conversation on each ticket, not a summary saved as notes. Where the API doesn't expose part of the history, our engineers retrieve it from the account being merged in directly and work out a route to load it into the account you are keeping. You check the result in a sample migration before the full run begins.

What if the instance we're consolidating into requires fields our other Help Scout instance doesn't fill?

We check the instance you are consolidating into for required fields the incoming data cannot fill and bring each one to you before those records are migrated. Together we agree how each one is handled, such as a mapping from an existing field, a default value, or, where that instance lets the field be made optional, setting it to not required for the migration so you can make it required again once the migration is complete. The migration then runs with that rule applied, so no records are rejected or left behind.

What happens if some tickets fail to migrate when merging Help Scout accounts?

Every ticket that errors is logged. We review it, fix the cause and re-sync it, then validate the result before cutover. When the migration is complete you receive a list of every migrated ticket, so you can check it against the account you merged in.

What happens to Help Scout comments written by agents who have since left the company when we merge accounts?

Their comments migrate with the rest of the ticket history. If the original author is not a user in the account you are keeping, we can add a line at the start of the comment naming who wrote it, so it stays attributable.

Do internal notes and system-generated notes migrate when we merge Help Scout accounts, or only customer-facing replies?

Internal notes can come across, and so can system-generated notes where Help Scout's API makes them available. During scoping you choose which notes to include, so the account you are keeping holds the history your team will actually use.

Can you assign tickets merged into our Help Scout account to groups based on the email address they were sent to?

Yes, where Help Scout's API shows which address each ticket was sent to and lets us set each ticket's group. Routing rules like "every ticket sent to this address goes to that group" are written into the migration script, so tickets arrive in the account you are keeping already in the right groups. You confirm the rules with us up front and check the result on the sample migration before the full run.

Can you map our ticket categories or field values to different ones when we merge Help Scout accounts?

Yes. You give us the mapping, including what blank values should become, and we apply it in the migration script so every ticket arrives in the account you are keeping with the new values. You check the mapping on the sample migration before the full run.

Can we keep spam and sales emails out of our main Help Scout account?

Yes. We agree filtering rules with you up front so spam and sales emails in the account you are merging in are excluded rather than imported. Afterwards you receive a list of every ticket we pulled from that account, with excluded tickets marked as skipped.

Will emojis and special characters in our tickets come through correctly when we merge Help Scout accounts?

Yes. Our scripts carry emojis and special characters across intact, and we can clean out stray encoding characters left behind in older tickets before anything is written to the account you are keeping. You can check the result in the sample migration before the full run.

Can you merge hundreds of thousands of tickets and contacts between Help Scout accounts?

Yes. Every migration is a custom script built for your project, so volume is something we plan for, not a limit on what can move. At large volumes, run time is set mainly by how fast Help Scout's API accepts requests, and we plan the full run around that. Before the full run, we test the mapping and throughput with a sample migration.

We use a lot of custom fields in both Help Scout instances. Can you map them across?

Yes. Each migration is a custom script written for your project, so custom fields in the instance being merged in are mapped to the fields in the instance you are consolidating into. Where the same field has a different type in each instance, such as text in one and a number in the other, the script converts it. We agree the mapping with you and prove it on a sample migration before the full run.

Can you combine data from several Help Scout accounts and other support tools into the one we are keeping?

Yes. Each account's and tool's data is extracted separately and written into the account you are keeping. How records from the different sources fit together is settled in the data mapping before the build. The sample migration includes data from every source, so you can check the combined result before the full run.

Can you fix tickets that are linked to the wrong company while we merge Help Scout accounts?

Yes, where Help Scout lets a company be set on each ticket. Each migration runs as custom scripts, so we can set the correct company on each ticket as it is written to the account you are keeping. We agree the assignment rules with you first. The corrected links show up in the sample migration, so you can check them before the full run.

Will our ticket formatting carry over when we merge Help Scout accounts?

Ticket content goes into the account you are keeping in the format Help Scout already uses, and the sample migration lets you compare migrated tickets side by side with the originals before the full run. If anything renders differently, such as HTML appearing as raw text, we adjust the script and re-run the samples until you sign off.

Our other Help Scout account already holds tickets imported from an earlier migration. Will that cause problems when we merge it?

It can make the number of tickets we pull differ from the count that account shows, so tell us about the earlier import during scoping. We compare those two numbers before the full run, so if earlier-imported history makes them differ, we find out why first. When the migration is complete, the reconciliation report accounts for every ticket.

Are deleted Help Scout tickets included in the migration?

Only if you want them. You decide during scoping whether deleted and spam tickets are included, and we apply that choice to every run, including the final delta sync. Some platforms keep deleted tickets as scrubbed records with no remaining content; we flag any we find and migrate them only if you ask.

Do you migrate live chat, SMS and messaging conversations, such as WhatsApp, when we merge Help Scout accounts, and do they keep their original channel?

Yes. Chat conversations and messages from channels such as WhatsApp or Instagram are migrated as tickets alongside your email history, where the account being merged in makes them available through its API or an export. Imported tickets may not keep every original channel: some platforms take most imported tickets in through a general API channel instead. So we keep the original channel wherever Help Scout allows it, and can tag each ticket with its original one, such as chat, SMS or WhatsApp, so your team can still find and filter them. If an export leaves out the message content for some channels, we tell you and agree another way to retrieve it.

Will our migrated tickets end up with duplicate comments?

Not normally, and we check for it. Our verification checks compare each migrated ticket with its original, including the message content, and each delta round is checked against what earlier rounds already migrated. If a ticket is found with duplicated comments, we can delete and reimport it, and it keeps its original creation time and conversation timestamps.

Will tickets in our other Help Scout account that have no customer email address still be migrated?

Yes, if you want them. Some help desks need an email address or telephone number to create the customer a ticket belongs to, so we flag every ticket whose requester has neither, including where privacy settings hide the email from the API, and send you the list. You can then give us the right email for each requester, or have the tickets migrated with placeholder email addresses, and we migrate them that way. Before flagging a ticket, we also look for its contact elsewhere in the ticket's data.

If spam tickets from our other Help Scout account are migrated, will they still be marked as spam?

Yes, they can be. If you choose to include spam tickets, we mark them, for example with a spam tag, alongside a migration tag if you use one, so they stay easy to find and filter in the account you are keeping, and we include some in the sample so you can check them. If you'd rather leave spam behind, we agree a filter during scoping and it isn't imported.

If we collect customer satisfaction (CSAT) ratings in our other Help Scout account, can you migrate them?

Yes, where Help Scout can store them. Where it accepts satisfaction ratings, we migrate them with their tickets, which can need an extra permission on the connection to the account you are keeping. Where it has no native place for historical ratings, we bring the scores across another way, such as a custom field or a tag on each ticket, agreed with you during scoping.

Can the activity history on each ticket, such as status changes and assignments, be kept when we merge Help Scout accounts?

Usually not as a native timeline. Event history such as status changes and assignment timestamps stays with the account being merged in and generally isn't something a help desk accepts on import, so it is left out of the migration. Each ticket still arrives with its full conversation, status and assignee, and with its original timestamps where Help Scout accepts them, and parts of the history that matter to you can be kept another way, such as a tag with the ticket's original status or an internal note.

Can you migrate tickets that belong to private or restricted categories when we merge Help Scout accounts?

Yes, once the migration's connection can reach them. If a category or group is private or restricted in either account, the account we connect with may not be able to read or create tickets in it, so we flag every ticket this affects. You can then lift the restriction or give the connection the access it needs, such as an admin-level account, and we migrate the remaining tickets, or tell us to leave them out.

If we have Facebook and Instagram comments in our other Help Scout account, will they keep the right author and show where they came from?

Yes, as far as the account being merged in records it. Each message is attributed to the author Help Scout's API reports, and messages from your team show under the right agent as long as that agent's account exists in the account you are keeping before the tickets are migrated; otherwise they fall back to the default agent. We also carry over the message source in as much detail as the API provides, for example telling comments on Instagram posts apart from comments on Instagram ads.

Will tickets in our other Help Scout account that have no messages or comments still be migrated?

Yes, if you want them. Some help desks can't create a ticket without at least one message, so we flag every ticket that has none and send you the list rather than skipping them silently. We first check whether the content is stored elsewhere in the account being merged in, such as a ticket description we can use as the first message. Otherwise we can migrate the ticket with a placeholder message, or leave it out if you prefer.

Do you download attachments for every Help Scout ticket, or only for the tickets being migrated?

It depends on the source platform. For some sources, our scripts fetch attachments at the time each ticket is migrated rather than during the initial data pull, so files are downloaded only for the tickets in scope. For others, attachments are pulled along with the initial data. Either way, only the tickets you choose are migrated.

If we use a chatbot in our other Help Scout account, do you migrate it and its conversation flows, or only the conversations it handled?

We migrate the conversations it handled, not the chatbot itself. Every chat conversation the bot took part in comes across with your ticket history, while the chatbot's own setup isn't migrated as data and is set up again in the account you are keeping. Workflows and automation rules are a separate item, and the ones you have today can be recreated in the account you are keeping as agreed during scoping.

Will our customers be able to see conversations we merge in from our other Help Scout account, for example in a customer portal?

It depends on how Help Scout shows imported tickets. Migrated tickets are attached to each customer's contact record like any other ticket, so where Help Scout has a portal that shows customers their own tickets, the merged-in ones can appear there, while internal notes stay private to your agents. Some portals only show tickets or replies set up in a particular way, so we confirm during scoping how imported tickets show to customers and check it in the sample migration.

Can our agents reply to customers from tickets merged in from our other Help Scout account?

Yes, where Help Scout treats migrated tickets as regular tickets and your support email is connected to the account you are keeping. An agent's reply from a migrated ticket then goes out to the customer, and the customer's next reply continues on that same ticket. Some help desks keep imported tickets read-only, so we confirm this for Help Scout and test it on your account before your team relies on it.

Will the information that integrations show in tickets from our other Help Scout account be migrated?

Not if that information lives in the integration rather than in Help Scout. Widgets and similar panels are often drawn live by the integration, and where Help Scout doesn't store that data or return it through its API, it can't be migrated with the tickets. The tickets and their conversations migrate as normal, and your team connects any integration the account you are keeping still needs after cutover.

How long does consolidating two Help Scout instances take?

Most migrations complete within 1–5 business days, depending on data volume and complexity; very large migrations, such as several hundred thousand records, take longer. We provide a detailed timeline after the initial assessment and can often complete small migrations in under 24 hours.

Will there be downtime while we consolidate our Help Scout instances?

No. Our migration process is designed for zero downtime. Both Help Scout instances stay available to your team throughout: the bulk migration runs in the background and the cutover is fast, so your team keeps working.

Can we choose which tickets move first into the account we're keeping, such as active tickets before the backlog?

Yes, either way round. With a hard go-live date, we can migrate open and active tickets first, so the team moving over can work in the account you are keeping from go-live day; a delta migration on that date brings across every ticket created or updated since the first pass, and the historical backlog then keeps migrating in the background. Or closed tickets can move first while your team keeps working open tickets in the account you are merging in, with open tickets moving in a separate delta run close to switchover, so active conversations are the last data to transfer.

If we start working in our main Help Scout account before the migration finishes, can you bring over tickets that come in to the other account afterwards?

Yes. A follow-up delta migration brings over tickets that reached the other account after your team switched. Because your team is already working in the account you are keeping, we agree with you how the rules there are kept from firing on imported tickets, for example by pausing them for the run, and let you know when the run is complete. Some duplicates are possible because both accounts were live at once, and we tell you about that before the run.

What happens to tickets that are still open in the other Help Scout account on the day we switch?

Tickets that are open at the final cutover come across as open tickets in the group they belong to, so your team picks them up and keeps working without a gap. Closed tickets come across as history, and if you want that history kept apart from live work, they can be kept in a separate archive group where Help Scout's API lets us set a ticket's group.

Our team has already moved into our main Help Scout account. Can we still migrate the history from the other account?

Yes. We take the exact date, time and time zone that team switched over as the cutoff, and migrate the history up to that point, so the work already done in the account you are keeping is left as it is. We confirm that moment with you before anything runs.

Can we leave Help Scout attachments out of the migration to finish it faster?

Yes. Attachments are transferred file by file, so excluding them from historical tickets, or from tickets older than a cutoff date you choose, shortens the run considerably. Before you decide, we give you a revised completion estimate for each option so you can weigh the time saved against what you keep.

What is a delta sync, and when does it run when we merge Help Scout accounts?

Moving tickets through Help Scout's API takes time, so we migrate the bulk of your history, mainly closed tickets, well before your switchover date. A delta sync then brings across everything created or updated in the account being merged in since the previous pass of the migration. The final delta sync runs at your switchover time, so the account you are keeping is current on the day the merged team starts using it; give us about a week's notice of that date. Timing it to the cutover matters, because a sync run after that team is already working in the account you are keeping can create duplicate records.

How long does it take to export a very large ticket history from our other Help Scout account?

Extraction time depends on volume: a history of more than half a million tickets can take several days to pull. The account being merged in needs to stay active until extraction is finished, so we confirm its end date with you at the start and plan the schedule around it.

Can we run more than one delta migration while merging Help Scout accounts, moving only tickets that changed since the last round?

Yes, when your cutover plan needs more than one. Each round picks up only the tickets created or changed in the account you are merging in since the previous round and is checked against what earlier rounds already migrated, so no ticket is created twice. Your agents keep working in that account until you switch over.

How do you avoid duplicate tickets when we move a support address from one Help Scout account to the other?

We agree one cutoff time with you, lined up with when the address is moved. Everything received in the account you are merging in up to that moment is migrated, and everything after it arrives directly in the account you are keeping. Both Help Scout accounts can stay live side by side, as long as each one is connected to its own support email addresses so incoming mail lands in only one place. Once the support email of the account you are merging in is connected to the account you are keeping, and tickets are arriving there directly, a sync run after that point can pull in the same tickets a second time, so we time the final sync around your email cutover and flag it if a sync you ask for falls after your switchover point. The final list of migrated tickets with their new IDs lets you check the boundary and spot any ticket that came in around the switch.

Can we change fields or settings while the consolidation is running, and is there anything we should switch off?

Mostly yes, and your team can keep working as normal, but leave the fields being migrated as they are, in both instances, until the migration, including the final delta, is complete. The field mappings are set before the run starts, so hold off on renaming or removing those fields, and changing a migrated field's options, archiving it, or marking it as required or conditional can stop records from migrating. Where needed, and as agreed with you, we set the matching fields in the instance you are consolidating into to active, not required and not conditional for the duration of the migration. Other fields can be added or removed in the meantime. Also pause any AI agents, automations or rules in the instance you are consolidating into that could act on migrated records, so they don't fire on historical records as they arrive; if some must keep running for live work, we can instead agree a condition that makes them skip migrated records. Once the migration is complete, you can switch them back on, restore those field settings and rename fields freely.

If a customer replies to an old ticket from our other Help Scout account after the merge, will the reply join the migrated ticket or start a new one?

It depends on who replies first. If the customer replies to an email sent from the account you merged in, many help desks open a new ticket on the same customer rather than adding the reply to the migrated one, for example where replies are threaded by the original email's message ID, which migrated messages don't keep. Where Help Scout supports merging tickets, your team can then merge the two. If an agent replies from the migrated ticket first and Help Scout allows replies from migrated tickets, the customer's next reply continues on that ticket.

Can we whitelist a single IP instead of opening our network to your migration tool?

Yes. All migration traffic runs through a centralized system using one fixed IP, which your IT team can whitelist instead of opening broader network access.

Is migration pricing a flat fee, or does it scale with data volume?

It's a flat fee with no hidden costs. The price we agree with you for your scope is the price you pay, and small variances in the final volume, a bit more or less, are included.

How do I validate that everything migrated correctly?

Every client receives a Migration Validation Report with comprehensive metrics including record-count comparison, attachment integrity verification via checksum, and full audit logs of the migration run, showing every record created, skipped or failed. If any item didn't come across, the report names each one, the specific reason, and how to bring it across if you want it there. We also offer unlimited sample migrations, so you can check your data before the full migration runs.

What support do you provide after the migration goes live?

At ClonePartner, we consider ourselves your partners in this journey. We take full accountability for your migration's success. Once your migration goes live, we provide 30 days of comprehensive post-migration support as standard, and longer support, such as 60 or 90 days, can be agreed for your project. During this period, we help with anything related to your migrated data, so your migration is a complete success.

Will we get a migration report and a mapping sheet linking old record IDs to new ones?

Yes. We provide a comprehensive migration report along with an ID-mapping sheet that links each record's old ID to its ID in the instance you are consolidating into. This ensures full traceability, simplifies post-migration verification, and helps your team validate that records have been migrated accurately.

After migration, do I contact ClonePartner or the platform's own support if something looks wrong?

ClonePartner is the contact for anything about the migrated data itself. Questions about the platform itself, such as how its features and settings work, go to the platform's own support or to whoever administers it for you.

If a merged ticket has to be deleted and reimported to fix an issue, does it lose its original dates or history?

No. A ticket reimported to fix an issue, such as broken inline images, keeps its original creation time and its conversation history with the original timestamps. Tickets your team has changed since they were merged into the account you are keeping are left out of any reimport, because overwriting them would lose those updates.

Can our customers be told that their open tickets have moved to our main Help Scout account?

Yes, if you want them to be. Once the migrated tickets have been checked, we can send each requester of an open ticket a notification through Help Scout's API where it supports this, with wording you approve. If you'd rather not tell customers, no message is sent.

Can we keep an offline archive of our old Help Scout data?

Yes. The archive is delivered to you as a set of local files: folders holding the ticket data and attachments, plus an HTML file that reads from those folders so you can browse tickets in a web browser. Nothing is hosted on our servers and there is no software to install, so you can store it wherever suits you, such as Google Drive or Box.

Can we bring over more saved replies or canned responses from the other Help Scout account after go-live?

Yes. You choose which saved replies to migrate during scoping, and if you later want any that you left out, tell us and we migrate them into the account you are keeping. Keeping the scope adjustable after go-live means you don't have to get every choice right on the first pass.

Can you keep our CRM updated with support activity after we merge our Help Scout accounts?

Yes, where Help Scout's API makes that activity available. We build an ongoing sync on Help Scout's and your CRM's APIs that writes support activity to the right contacts and companies, and you decide what gets logged. It is a separate piece of work from the migration, scoped and priced on its own.

What if we later want Help Scout tickets we chose to leave out of the migration?

Tell us which tickets you want added, for example by status, and we migrate them in a follow-up run. We can also share a list of every excluded ticket so you can review exactly what was left out. After the follow-up, you get a list matching each original ticket to its new ticket ID and URL, so your team can find it straight away.

If we use an AI agent in our main Help Scout account, can the tickets we merge in be used to train it?

It depends on how the AI agent learns. Some AI agents draw on your knowledge base and guidance content rather than on historical tickets, so check with Help Scout how its AI uses past conversations before deciding how much history to merge in for that reason. Merged-in tickets arrive as regular tickets, and we can tag them, for example so the AI agent doesn't respond to them, or so you can include or exclude them.

If we use an AI agent, will it work straight away after we merge Help Scout accounts, and can its knowledge and guidance come across?

Partly. Knowledge base articles that the AI agent draws on can be migrated, so it has the same content to work from on day one. Some AI-specific settings, such as guidance written for the AI agent, can't be transferred between accounts and have to be set up again in the account you are keeping, and some AI agents also learn from your team's feedback in a way that stays with the old account, so they refine again in the account you keep. We confirm during scoping which of your AI agent's content can move, so nothing is assumed. Keep the AI agent paused while historical tickets load, or give it a condition that skips migrated tickets so it keeps serving live customers, and switch it back on once the migration is complete.

Why don't our ticket counts or open ticket numbers match between our two Help Scout accounts after the merge?

Usually because the two numbers aren't counting the same tickets. A count in the account you are keeping includes the tickets it already held as well as merged-in ones, and rules there can close migrated tickets automatically. Open tickets also keep changing until the final delta sync, which brings their latest status across. We check the counts against the migrated tickets and the list of every ticket we migrated, and if a gap remains, we investigate specific examples with you.

Will migrated historical tickets skew our help desk reports, such as resolution time?

Yes, they can, so it's worth planning for. Some timing data, such as when a ticket was assigned, closed or changed status, stays with your old account because the platform's API doesn't provide it, so reports that measure resolution or closed tickets can count old tickets as resolved on the day they were migrated. How fully each platform's reports and analytics count imported historical tickets also varies, so confirm it with Help Scout before you rely on those reports for past periods. If you want, every migrated ticket can carry a migration tag, so you can keep it apart from new work in views and, where your reports can filter by tag, in reports. We also recommend exporting your historical reports from the old platform before you close it.

Will all the historical tickets we merge in from our other Help Scout account stay searchable?

Yes. Historical tickets are migrated as regular tickets with their messages, customers and statuses, so your team can search them in the account you are keeping like any other ticket. If you want, each one can also carry a migration tag, so history can be filtered apart from new work, and the original ticket ID is kept in a field and in the ID-mapping file, so any old ticket number can be looked up.

Can you tag the tickets from our other Help Scout account that changed after the first migration run, so our team can review them?

Yes. When a follow-up sync adds new comments to tickets that were already migrated, we can put a tag of your choice on those tickets, for example only the ones that are still open, so your team can filter for them and review them. Because each sync runs as a custom script, we can also leave each ticket's current status, assignee and other details unchanged while the new comments are added. We confirm the rule with you first, such as whether "open" means the status in the account being merged in or in the one you are keeping.

Can a ticket merged in from our other Help Scout account be reopened later if a customer or agent needs it?

It depends on Help Scout and on the status the ticket arrives with. You choose the status migrated tickets come in with, such as closed for old history, and if you later want tickets set differently we can update them in bulk. Whether an agent can reopen a ticket that arrived closed, or move it from an archive area back into a live one, depends on how Help Scout handles closed tickets, so we check that with you during scoping and can test it on a sample ticket before go-live.