Key takeaways
- Intercom says a direct move of workspace data from one region to another is not possible.
- Contacts, companies, attributes, tags, ticket types and articles can be recreated through the API.
- Decide what happens to conversation history first: recreate, export or keep read-only.
- Teams and teammates cannot be created through the API; Workflows and other settings are rebuilt by hand.
What the API can recreate, and what it cannot
| Object | Through the API? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts and companies | Yes | Match on external ID or email, and keep company IDs, so nothing is duplicated. |
| Contact and company data attributes | Yes | Create them before any record moves. |
| Tags and ticket types | Yes | Keep the same names and spellings. |
| Help Center collections and articles | Yes | Article URLs change, so plan redirects. |
| Conversations | Recreated as new conversations | See the next section first. |
| Teams and teammates | No | Invite teammates and create teams first. |
| Workflows, inboxes, outbound messages, Fin settings | No | Recreated by hand in the new workspace. |
Conversation history: decide first
Intercom’s regional hosting article says historical conversation data cannot be migrated to the new workspace, and can be exported for record-keeping before the old workspace is decommissioned. Confirm it with Intercom for your account.
The REST API can create conversations with their original creation time, which is how history from other helpdesks arrives in Intercom. Recreated this way, old conversations are new records, and retrieving a conversation returns at most its 500 most recent parts, so very long threads need a check. Many teams recreate recent history and export the rest, or keep the old workspace readable for a period.
Cut-over
- 1.Set up the destination: teammates, teams, attributes, ticket types, tags and Help Center.
- 2.Move contacts and companies, then articles, then any history you decided to recreate, checking a sample first.
- 3.Rebuild Workflows and other settings, and test them before customers reach them.
- 4.Run a final delta for records created or changed since the main run.
- 5.Switch the Messenger, email forwarding and channels, and update every integration that stores Intercom IDs.
- 6.Keep the old workspace readable until the reconciliation is signed off.
With DataGrine the data moves with read-only access to the source workspace, a sample run signed off first and a delta sync at cut-over, self-serve on the platform or fully managed by the migration team, with 24/7 support either way.