Import from Help Scout

If you or one of your teams has already been using Help Scout Docs as a knowledge base solution, you may have a lot of content there you'd like to move over to KnowledgeOwl. You can import that content from Help Scout directly into your KnowledgeOwl knowledge base with a few clicks.

Before you begin

Before you can import content into KnowledgeOwl, get your API Key from Help Scout. Each user in Help Scout has a Docs API key. 

To generate, view, or regenerate your Help Scout Docs API key:

1. Select your avatar in the top right of your account.
2. Select Your Profile.
3. Select Security and Access in the menu on the left. Your API key is listed under the Docs API section.
4. Copy the API Key to use within KnowledgeOwl.

Refer to Help Scout's Docs API Overview documentation for more detailed instructions and screenshots.

Import your content from Help Scout

Follow these steps to import from Help Scout:

1. In KnowledgeOwl, go to Tools > Imports. The Import content page opens.
   
2. Under Third-party imports, select Help Scout. The Import Help Scout content page opens:
   The Import Help Scout content page
3. Paste your Help Scout API token into the Help Scouts Doc API key field.
4. Once you enter your key, select Find sites for this API key. The page updates to display available Docs sites to import.
   
5. If you have more than one Help Scout Docs site available, select the project version you wish to import.
6. If you don't make any changes, your Help Scout content will be imported using these settings:
   1. Content hierarchy begins at the top-level.
      1. To import your Help Scout content into a specific category, use the Existing category setting, and start entering the name of a category. The field will autosuggest. Select the category you want to import all content into.
   2. All images imported and hosted in KnowledgeOwl.
      1. If you don't want us to import your images into KnowledgeOwl, change the Images settings to Keep existing URLs.

         Import images
         Only use Keep existing URLs if you have a deeply compelling reason (such as just running a quick test now and you intend to delete the content and do a more formal import later). Keep existing URLs will keep all of your images in your original source system. If that system is deleted or cancelled, all of the images in your documentation would disappear. 😱

   3. You will start fresh with a new KnowledgeOwl theme.
      1. If you want to import theme elements from your existing Help Scout Docs site, check the Import theme elements from Help Scout box. This will bring in colors and homepage header text from your Help Scout Docs site. 
   4. If you'd like to add a tag to identify all the articles created from this import, enter that tag name in Tag all imported articles with this tag name (optional).
      1. We strongly recommend this approach if you're importing content alongside manually-created content, so you can easily filter to these articles in Manage!
7. Select Import content to begin the import.
8. A progress bar displays while we handle the import. Help Scout rate limits their API, so large knowledge bases can take a while to import. You're welcome to navigate away and let the import run in the background. The import works through these statuses:
   1. import queue
   2. importing document tree
   3. All done!

Once the "All done!" message displays, your import is complete. All articles imported this way come in with a Needs Review publishing status, so they'll be visible to your readers. Refer to Publishing status for more information on what this status means.

If you're testing the import in a new knowledge base and want to make changes and try to re-import, delete this knowledge base and create a new knowledge base to re-test the import. Refer to Testing imports for more details.

How the Help Scout Docs import works

Help Scout and KnowledgeOwl have some formatting and architecture in common, but they aren't an exact match. The two tools handle architecture differently. For example, Help Scout limits how many subcategories deep your architecture can go, whereas KnowledgeOwl does not.

Imported content

Here's the content we import and how we import it:

• Collections: Your Help Scout Collections are imported as top-level categories in KnowledgeOwl. 
• Categories: Your Help Scout Categories are imported as subcategories within the top-level categories.
• Articles: Your individual articles in Help Scout will be brought in as articles within KnowledgeOwl.