There are many ways to migrate content from one help center to another. This article primarily focuses on using your help center API to programmatically import content, and gives a high-level overview of the process of migrating existing content to your new help center knowledge base and community. You can also migrate content using the following approaches:

• Copying/pasting - If you are only migrating a few articles, then the fastest and easiest way is to simply copy and paste content from your previous help center into a new Guide article.
• Professional services - If you have large or complex migrations, you canhire Zendesk to helpyou with your migration.
• Partner Apps - You can explore the Zendeskapps marketplaceto find partner apps such asHelp Desk Migration.

This article covers the following topics:

• Migrating content to your knowledge base
  • Importing your authors as Zendesk users
  • Creating categories in your knowledge base
  • Creating user segments (optional)
  • Creating sections in your categories
  • Creating articles in your sections
  • Uploading attachments (if necessary)
  • Importing article comments
• Migrating content to your community
  • Creating user segments (optional)
  • Importing topics in your community
  • Importing posts in topics
  • Importing comments in posts

Migrating content to your knowledge base

Migrating content from an external system into your help center is a multi-step process where data from one step is required for subsequent steps.

Planning is critical. You'll need to map the structure of your legacy content to your help center's three-layer structure:

Importing your authors as Zendesk users

First, you must import the authors of all your articles as Zendesk users with the role of "agent", (an agent in Zendesk is not necessarily someone who solves tickets (seeUnderstanding Zendesk Support user roles).

To create Zendesk users with the API (seeCreate user). Ensure you set theroleattribute to "agent" in each POST request.

After you have successfully created a user, Zendesk returns the details of the user in the JSON response, including the user's new ID:

{ "user": { "id": 9873843, "name": "Roger Wilco", ... } }

Record the ID of each user as you'll need the IDs to set theauthor_idattribute of each article you create in your help center.

If you plan on usingorganizationsinuser segmentsto segregated sections, you must create the organizationsbeforeyou create any users. You can then assign the organization ID to the user when you are creating the user (seeCreate organization). If your users will belong to multiple organizations, then useorganization membershipsto add organizations to the user record.

Creating categories in your knowledge base

Categories are collections of sections (seeCreate category). After you have created a category, Zendesk returns a JSON response with the category's new ID:

{ "category": { "id": 37486578, "name": "Super Hero Tricks", "description": "This category contains a collection of Super Hero tricks", "locale": "en-us", "position": 2, ... } }

Record the ID of each category, because when you create sections later, you'll need the IDs to assign sections to specific categories.

Creating user segments (optional)

如果你想限制对某些部分的访问in your help center, you can assignuser segmentsto your sections (seeCreate user segment).

After you have created a user segment, Zendesk returns a JSON response with the user segment's new ID:

{" user_segment ": {" id ": 7284“名称”:“VIP代理商", "user_type": "staff", "group_ids": [12, ...], "organization_ids": [42, ...], "tags": ["vip"], "created_at": "2017-05-21T20:01:12Z", "updated_at": "2017-05-21T20:01:12Z", "built_in": false } }

Record the ID of each user segment because when you are creating sections later, you'll need the segment ID to assign access restrictions to the sections.

Creating sections in your categories

Sections are collections of articles (seeCreate section). Ensure you set thecategory_idanduser_segment_id(if any), in each POST request. Zendesk returns a JSON response with the section's new ID:

{ "section": { "id": 3457836, "name": "Avionics", "description": "This section contains articles on flight instruments", "locale": "en-us", "category_id": 3465, ... } }

Record the ID of each section because when you create articles later, you'll need the section IDs to assign articles to specific sections.

Creating articles in your sections

When you have all the section IDs and user IDs from the previous steps, you can create articles (seeCreate article). In addition to thetitleandbody, make sure you set theauthor_idandsection_idin each POST request.

Zendesk returns a JSON response that looks as follows:

{ "article": { "id": 37486578, "author_id": 3465, "promoted": false, "position": 42, "comments_disabled": true, "section_id": 98838, ... } }

Uploading attachments (if necessary)

If an article has inline images that aren't hosted on a public file server, such as Amazon S3, then upload the images to your help center (seeCreate unassociated attachment). Ensure you set theinlineparameter totrue.

Zendesk returns a JSON response with a URL (content_url) for the attachment:

{ "article_attachment": { "id": 1428, "article_id": null, "file_name": "icon.jpg", "content_url": "https://company.zendesk.com/hc/article_attachments/1428/icon.jpg", "content_type": "application/image", "size": 58298, "inline": true } }

Use thecontent_urlto update the image URL in the HTML of the article (seeAssociate attachments in bulk to article).

Importing article comments

To import comments, you'll need an author ID and the article's ID. Both agents and end users can be authors of comments (seeCreate comment).

Migrating content to your community

Importing community content has many of the same considerations as importing a knowledge base. You'll need toimport usersto assign authors to posts. You'll also need to map the structure of your legacy community content to the two-layer structure of your help center community:

Creating user segments (optional)

If you want to restrict access to certain topics, you'll need user segment IDs (seeCreate a user segment). When creating the topics later, you'll need the user segment IDs to assign access restrictions to topics.

Importing topics in your community

If applicable, ensure you set theuser_segment_idin the POST request (seeCreate topic).

Zendesk returns a JSON response with the topic ID:

{ "topic": { "id": 115000553548, "name": "Help Center-Tricks", ... } }

Record the ID of each topic because when you create topics later, you'll need the topic IDs to assign posts to specific topics.

Importing posts in topics

In addition to thetitleanddetails, make sure you set theauthor_idandtopic_idin each POST request (seeCreate post).

Unlike KB articles, authors of community posts can be agents or end users.

When creating a post, the author is automatically subscribed to all updates to that topic, and will be notified when a new post is created or updated.

All subscribers of the same topic receive an email notification when the post is created. To prevent subscribers from being overwhelmed by notifications when bulk importing posts, include anotify_subscribersparameter with a value offalsein your POST requests.

{ "post": { "id": 35467, "author_id": 89567, "title": "Help!", "details": "My printer is on fire!", "notify_subscribers": false, ... } }

Importing comments in posts

After creating the posts and getting their IDs, you can now add their associated comments (seeCreate comment).

You can only create one comment at a time. When creating a post comment, the author of the comment is automatically subscribed to all updates to that topic and are notified when a new post is created or updated.

All subscribers of the same topic receive an email notification when the comment is created. To prevent subscribers from being overwhelmed by notifications, include anotify_subscribersparameter with a value offalsein your POST requests.