Import your Help Scout history into Front

If you previously used Help Scout, we recommend Help Desk Migration (a partner that specializes in migrations) to import your history into Front. Alternatively, you can use the Help Scout importer at no additional cost, but it is currently deprecated.

We will import:

• Inboxes

• Teammates

• Tags (optional)

• Contacts (optional)

• Messages

We will not import:

• Notes

• Comments

Step 1

Click the gear icon on the top right of Front and into the Company settings tab, and select Imports from the left menu.

Step 2

Select Help Scout from the list.

Step 3

Log in to your account via the Help Scout website, then click the Account icon, and click Your profile. Then select My Apps and click Create My App.

Step 4

Fill in App Name with Front and Redirection URL with https://app.frontapp.com

Click Create, and copy the generated App ID from Help Scout.

Step 6

Go back to Front, and paste the App ID that you copied from Help Scout into the OAuth Client ID field in Front.

Step 7

Go back to Help Scout and copy the App Secret.

Step 8

In Front, paste this into the OAuth Client Secret field.

Step 9

Click Next to start importing your data.

Step 10

Choose whether you'd like to import your Help Scout tags to Front, and if you'd like to import your Help Scout customers as Front contacts.

Step 11

Under Help Scout mailboxes, match Help Scout mailboxes to your Front inboxes. You will have a few different options in how to map over the Help Scout mailboxes:

• Skip import: All tickets for that mailbox will be ignored.

• Create inbox and import: A new shared inbox will be created.

• Select an existing Front inbox to import the Help Scout mailbox into.

Step 12

Under Help Scout users, match your Help Scout users to your Front teammates.

If the Help Scout user does not exist in Front, there is an option to invite them to Front and all tickets/conversations authored or assigned by them will be imported under their name.

Step 13

Click Next and the import will begin.  

You will see a status page that tells you the status of the import. The different statuses are:

• Searching: The importer is determining the total number of mailboxes and tickets to be imported.

• Importing Mailboxes as Inboxes: We are importing mailboxes from Help Scout and creating inboxes for them.

• Importing Teammates: We are creating new Front teammates, using the Help Scout user's email and name.

• Importing Tickets as Conversations: We are importing tickets from Help Scout and creating messages for them. The assignee and status will be respected when ported over to Front. Note: We will try to import as much history possible, in accordance with the maximum number of tickets that Help Scout allows to be exported.

• Done: All done importing!

• Do not delete inboxes related to this import in Front while the import is running or else the import will stop.

• In general every 3000 Help Scout tickets equates to about 1 hour of import time to Front.