I've Paid the Migration Tax
As a support lead, I once spent three weeks moving ticket history between platforms. Mapping fields in spreadsheets. Writing throwaway scripts. Re-importing the same CSV eleven times because one column kept breaking.
That experience made me angry. The quiet kind. The kind that turns into a product feature.
Your data is yours. Moving it shouldn't need a consultant, a quote or a prayer. So we built the importer we wished we'd had. It lives in Settings > Team Settings > Import.
Coming From Zendesk? Just Connect It
Choose Easy Zendesk Import, enter your Zendesk subdomain, email and an API token, and cStar shows what it found: tickets, customers and organizations, with counts. Tick what you want, including attachments and CSAT ratings, and cStar pulls it in over the API.
This path brings full ticket conversations. No exports needed.
Everyone Else: The Universal Importer
Upload an export and cStar does the heavy lifting.
It recognizes your platform. Built-in mappers for Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, Help Scout, HubSpot, Front, Crisp, LiveAgent and Zoho Desk, plus any generic CSV, JSON, JSONL or XLSX file.
It suggests field mappings. Customer Email lands on email. Ticket Subject lands on title. Adjust anything that looks off.
It imports four kinds of records. Customers, tickets, Library articles and community posts.
It keeps your dates. Original creation dates come along, so your history doesn't all claim to be from moving day.
One honest note: file imports bring each ticket and its details, not the replies, private notes or attachments. For full Zendesk conversations, use the connect option above.
Preview Before Anything Changes
Already have records in cStar? Match them by email, ID, slug, external ID or a custom field. Then pick a strategy per field: always update, update if empty, never update, or append.
The preview shows new records, matched records with the changes, and skipped rows before a single record is written. 1.21 gigawatts of confidence.
The Steps
- Upload: drag and drop, up to 50MB.
- Detect: platform and record type, identified for you.
- Map Fields: suggested, adjustable.
- Match & Merge: handle existing records your way.
- Preview: see creates, updates and skips.
- Import: live progress.
- Summary: results, plus notes on any rows that need a look.
Big Exports
Each import takes up to 10,000 records. Bigger file? The importer offers to split it into numbered chunks and hands you a ZIP.
Save your mapping as a configuration on the first chunk, then reuse it for the rest and skip straight to preview. Saved configurations make the importer a maintenance tool too: refresh customer data from a spreadsheet whenever you need to.
Moving a help center? The importer can also generate a redirect map from your old article URLs, so links and search rankings follow you.
What It Costs
Nothing extra. The importer and the Zendesk connection come with every seat. No migration fee. No professional services. No "contact our migration team."
Your data. Your choice. Allons-y.
Written by Josh Lopez. He has imported the same test CSV so many times that the sample customers feel like old friends.