Migrate from Intercom to Userorbit

Moving from Intercom to Userorbit is an operating-model change, not a transcript copy. Preserve the source archive, decide what must remain actionable, and rebuild the support paths that customers use today before you cut over.
This guide is for SaaS product, customer-success, support, and founder teams evaluating or implementing an Intercom migration. It focuses on identity, channels, routing, knowledge, automation, and the path from support conversation to product work.

Before you begin

Choose one migration owner and write down what Userorbit is expected to replace:
  • the Intercom Inbox
  • Messenger or in-app support
  • support email
  • Help Center articles
  • Fin, bots, workflows, and suggested replies
  • outbound messages and campaigns
  • reports and operational dashboards
  • the feedback and roadmap handoff after a support conversation

Set a cutover date and choose one system as the source of truth. Do not run Intercom and Userorbit as two equal intake systems for an open-ended period.
Keep an untouched, access-controlled copy of every Intercom export. Create a separate working copy for cleanup, mapping, and pilot imports.

  1. Inventory the Intercom operating model

Exporting data is not enough to reproduce a support operation. Inventory:
  • workspaces, inboxes, teams, assignees, roles, and permissions
  • Messenger installation, launcher rules, audience targeting, and Help Center links
  • support email addresses, forwarding rules, domains, signatures, and auto-replies
  • conversation and ticket types, tags, priorities, SLAs, statuses, and saved views
  • contacts, leads, companies, custom attributes, and identity rules
  • bots, Fin procedures, workflows, macros, routing, and human handoff
  • Help Center collections, articles, URLs, images, translations, and linked content
  • outbound messages, campaigns, segments, automation schedules, reports, and integrations
  • links in your product, documentation, email templates, sales materials, and support playbooks

Mark each item as rebuild, migrate, archive, replace, or retire. A familiar label is not proof that the destination has the same meaning.

  1. Export Intercom data in separate passes

Intercom exposes different exports for different kinds of data.

Contacts, leads, and companies

Export users, leads, and company data from Contacts. Preserve the Intercom user ID, company ID, email, name, role, and every attribute used for routing, segmentation, or account context.
Keep a mapping file with the source identifier, stable email or external identifier, destination contact or company identifier, duplicate decision, missing fields, and owner or segment that needs review. Intercom's user, lead, and company export guidance explains the current CSV path and available fields. Treat the emailed export link as temporary and store the downloaded file in the approved archive.

Conversations and tickets

Do not use a browser CSV as your transcript archive. Intercom's conversation export documentation distinguishes between individual text or PDF exports, saved-view CSV files containing metadata rather than full message content, dataset exports with historical limits, and full conversation exports through the Conversations API or cloud-storage path.
Export the fields your support team will need to search or defend later: conversation and ticket IDs, contact and company identifiers, timestamps, participants, assignee, team, state, tags, priority, channel, attachments, links, and message history. Record which fields are absent from each export. Use separate exports or API pulls for contacts, companies, custom attributes, articles, outbound messages, and reporting data. Keep the extraction date and API version with every file.

Help Center articles

Intercom documents that articles are not available through the normal UI data export. Use the Help Center REST API guidance or an approved extraction script to capture article ID, URL, title, collection, locale, body, formatting, images, files, embeds, linked articles, visibility, audience rules, status, redirects, and external links.
Do not assume an article export preserves the same URL, collection structure, media, or search behavior in Userorbit.

  1. Decide what should move

Use four buckets:
  1. Operational now — active contacts, open conversations, current help content, and rules needed on day one.
  2. Useful history — records that support account context, renewals, escalations, or compliance.
  3. Reference archive — closed conversations and reports that should remain searchable but do not belong in the new inbox.
  4. Retire — stale campaigns, duplicate articles, abandoned workflows, and data with no current customer use.

Do not import years of low-signal history just to make the new workspace look complete. A smaller, reviewed operating dataset is safer than an unverified transcript dump.

  1. Map Intercom concepts to Userorbit

Use this as a decision table, not an automatic import promise.
| Intercom concept | Userorbit destination or replacement | Decision to make | | --- | --- | --- | | Contact, lead, or company | Userorbit contact or company context | Preserve a stable identifier and deduplicate before import | | Messenger or in-app support | Userorbit in-app support channel | Reinstall and test the live entry point; confirm historical-thread coverage | | Support email | Userorbit email support channel | Verify sender, subject, threading, and reply behavior | | Slack-connected support | Userorbit Slack support channel | Confirm which messages become threads and where replies return | | Inbox, team, or assignee | Userorbit inbox views, owner, and routing rules | Rebuild operating ownership instead of copying names blindly | | Tags and priorities | Userorbit labels, priority, views, or tiers | Separate customer-facing labels from internal routing | | Conversation or ticket | Userorbit support thread for new work; archive or approved path for history | Confirm object-level historical coverage before promising an import | | Custom attributes | Userorbit contact or company properties and integration context | Keep a field map and validate identity collisions | | Fin, bot, or workflow | Userorbit automatic replies, suggested articles, and workflows where fit | Re-test confidence, escalation, and human handoff | | Help Center article | Userorbit Help Center article | Rewrite and validate links, media, visibility, and search | | Campaign or outbound message | Userorbit announcement, targeted guidance, or another approved channel | Rebuild only current messages | | Report or saved view | Userorbit Analytics or a documented archive | Reconcile definitions before comparing numbers |
Userorbit's Support Suite overview describes the shipped shared inbox model across in-app, email, and Slack, including threads, views, labels, tiers, tasks, internal discussions, and channel-aware replies. The Support Suite plan-access guide is the current place to verify entitlement.
Userorbit does not currently advertise a public one-click Intercom importer. Do not promise that contacts, transcripts, internal notes, attachments, bot events, custom objects, timestamps, or historical metrics will transfer one-to-one. Confirm source objects, destination objects, assistance, limits, and rollback with the Userorbit team before signing off.

  1. Configure Userorbit before the pilot

Start with the destination workflow, not the import.
  1. Review how to set up customer support in Userorbit.
  2. Configure inbound support email and test it from a customer-like mailbox.
  3. Configure Slack support channels if Slack is part of intake.
  4. Create support labels and saved inbox views.
  5. Set up support tiers and SLA targets.
  6. Rebuild only workflows with a clear trigger, safe action, and human escalation path. Use support workflow guidance.
  7. Recreate the Help Center structure and link the articles customers need at the point of support.
  8. Decide how a support thread becomes feedback, a roadmap item, an announcement, or product guidance.

Userorbit provides contact import and export. Its public API overview and MCP server cover supported programmatic and agent workflows, but neither should be treated as a bulk Intercom transcript importer without written confirmation.

  1. Run a representative pilot

Choose a sample that exercises the real operating model:
  • one in-app conversation with a known contact
  • one support email with a reply and follow-up
  • one Slack-originated support thread if applicable
  • one escalation needing an internal discussion or task
  • one account with company context and custom attributes
  • one question answered by a Help Center article
  • one issue that should become feedback or roadmap context
  • one automated reply that must escalate to a person

Verify identity and company matching; channel, threading, attachments, and timestamps; owner, labels, priority, tier, status, and SLA behavior; internal notes and customer-visible replies; automation confidence and human handoff; Help Center links and search; feedback and roadmap context; reporting definitions; permissions; and rollback. Have someone who did not configure the migration follow a case from intake to resolution.

  1. Cut over in controlled phases

  1. Freeze structural changes in Intercom.
  2. Export a final delta and record the timestamp.
  3. Finish the pilot and resolve mapping exceptions.
  4. Configure Userorbit channels, links, notifications, and ownership.
  5. Route new in-app and email traffic to Userorbit.
  6. Keep Intercom read-only for a defined reference period.
  7. Update product links, Help Center links, email signatures, campaigns, and internal playbooks.
  8. Monitor missed messages, duplicate contacts, unassigned threads, SLA misses, and failed automations.
  9. Keep the untouched archive and rollback decision available until the new workflow is stable.

Do not delete the Intercom workspace immediately. A read-only archive with a retirement date is safer than a destructive cutover.

Migration completion checklist

  • Untouched Intercom exports are stored with access controls.
  • Contacts, companies, and identity rules have a documented mapping.
  • Conversation, ticket, article, campaign, and report decisions are recorded.
  • Userorbit channels and support ownership are configured and tested.
  • Labels, views, tiers, SLAs, workflows, and handoffs passed the pilot.
  • Help Center articles, images, links, redirects, and visibility were reviewed.
  • Feedback, roadmap, and announcement handoffs have an owner.
  • New traffic has one source of truth.
  • Intercom is read-only with a retirement date.
  • Customers and internal teams know where support now belongs.

Common questions

Can I export all Intercom conversations?

Intercom supports several export paths. Browser CSV exports are metadata-oriented; full conversation content requires the appropriate API or cloud-storage export, and individual conversations can be exported as text or PDF. Confirm retention, attachment, internal-note, and rate-limit requirements before choosing a path.

Can I migrate Intercom contacts to Userorbit?

Contacts can be prepared for Userorbit's contact import flow, but deduplication and identity mapping are your responsibility. Preserve a stable source identifier and test company and custom-property mapping before the full import.

Can I import Intercom history into Userorbit?

Do not assume a public one-click transcript importer. Confirm supported historical objects, attachments, notes, timestamps, volume, service assistance, and rollback with Userorbit. Keep the source export authoritative until the destination is verified.

Should Fin and Intercom workflows be copied one for one?

No. Rebuild only the decisions that remain useful: who receives a message, what evidence is required, when automation can answer, and when a human takes over. Test each rule against real support examples.

What happens to Intercom Help Center articles?

Extract the body, structure, media, locale, audience, and links separately. Rebuild or import them into the Userorbit Help Center, then test every public URL and in-product suggestion. Do not assume the old collection or URL structure survives.

When is the migration complete?

It is complete when customers have one clear intake path, your team can route and resolve work in Userorbit, product context reaches the right owners, and the Intercom archive has a documented retention or retirement decision.
For current capability and access, start with the Support Suite overview and plan-access guide. For a commercial comparison, see Userorbit vs Intercom.

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