How to migrate from Zendesk Sell to SparrowCRM

With Zendesk Sell set to retire in 2027, businesses using the platform need to start planning their CRM transition. Moving to a new CRM involves more than exporting contacts and deals; you also need to move your sales data, preserve relationships, and recreate your workflows.

This guide walks you through how to migrate from Zendesk Sell to SparrowCRM, from preparing and exporting your data to importing, mapping, and validating it.

Before you migrate from Zendesk Sell

Before you move your data to SparrowCRM, review what you currently have in Zendesk Sell. This preparation helps you avoid migrating outdated records, missing important information, or repeating the migration later.

Audit your Zendesk Sell data

Start by reviewing the data in your Zendesk Sell account. Check your leads, contacts, deals, notes, tasks, Smart Lists, custom fields, and pipelines so you know what you currently use and what you want to move to SparrowCRM.

Zendesk confirms that these data types can be included in a Sell export. However, some activity history, appointments, emails, call logs, and documents are not included in the standard export.

Decide what you need to migrate

You do not need to move everything in your CRM. Decide which records and historical data your team still needs, such as active contacts, open deals, notes, tasks, and important historical records.

You should also decide whether you want to migrate old or inactive data. Leaving out unnecessary records can make your new SparrowCRM account easier to manage.

Clean up your data

Before you export your data, remove duplicate, outdated, or irrelevant records. Review your contacts, leads, and deals, and make sure important fields are complete and consistent.

Clean data makes it easier to map your fields and import your records into SparrowCRM.

Review your fields and pipelines

Make a list of your custom fields, deal stages, pipelines, and ownership rules in Zendesk Sell. Then decide how each field and stage should map to SparrowCRM before you start the import.

This helps you avoid confusion when you configure your new pipelines and sales process.

Review users and ownership

Check which users are still active and which records belong to each sales representative. Plan how you want to map users and record ownership in SparrowCRM.

Doing this in advance helps ensure that contacts and deals are assigned to the right people after the migration.

Create a backup before migrating

Before you make any changes, export your Zendesk Sell data and save a copy of the exported files. You can use this backup if you need to review your original records or fix an issue during the migration.

Zendesk provides data exports through Settings → Data → Export, and your exported Sell data is delivered as CSV files.

Once you have reviewed and prepared your data, you can export it from Zendesk Sell and get it ready for SparrowCRM.

What data can you migrate from Zendesk Sell to SparrowCRM?

Before starting your migration, identify the types of data you want to move. You can organize the migration around your core CRM records as well as sales activities such as meetings and calls.

How to export your data from Zendesk Sell?

Export data using CSV

Zendesk Sell lets you export key CRM data, including leads, contacts, deals, notes, and tasks.

To export all your records, go to Settings → Data → Export → Account Export. Click Export, and Zendesk Sell will send a download link to your email. You can use that link to download your account data.

If you don't want to export all your records, you can create a Smart List and export only the records you need.

To create a Smart List:

1. Go to Leads, Contacts, or Deals.
2. Use filters such as date, opportunity, status, or other relevant fields to narrow down the records.
3. Once you've created the list you need, click Save as Smart List at the top of the page.
4. Give the Smart List a name and save it.
5. You can then export the Smart List using the same export process.

This is useful when you want to migrate only specific records instead of moving your entire Zendesk Sell database.

Use the Zendesk Sell API

If you have a large amount of data to migrate, you can use the Zendesk Sell API to retrieve your records programmatically. Sell provides a Core API that lets you read, create, update, and delete CRM data through REST API requests.

Here's how the process works:

Step 1: Set up authentication

Before making API requests, you need to authenticate your application using OAuth 2.0. Zendesk requires a valid access token for Sell API requests.

Step 2: Choose the data you want to export

Decide which Sell records you need to move to SparrowCRM, such as contacts, leads, deals, and other supported CRM data.

The Core API provides different resources for these records.

Step 3: Use the correct API endpoint

Step 4: Retrieve the records

Send a GET request to retrieve the records. For example:

The API returns the records in JSON format.

Step 5: Handle pagination

If you have more records than can be returned in a single request, you need to retrieve them page by page. Sell supports the page and per_page parameters, with a maximum of 100 records per page.

Continue requesting the next pages until you have retrieved all the records you need.

Import your Zendesk Sell data into SparrowCRM

CSV import

Before importing your Zendesk Sell data, check whether all the required fields already exist in SparrowCRM. If your Zendesk Sell export contains custom fields, create the corresponding fields in SparrowCRM first.

To create a field:

1. Go to Account Settings → Objects.
2. Select the object where you want to create the field, such as Contacts, Companies, or Deals.
3. Open the Fields section.
4. Click Add Field.
5. Enter the field name and select the appropriate field type.
6. Configure the field options and save it.

Once your fields are ready, you can import your Zendesk Sell data.

In SparrowCRM, you can import contacts, leads, and deals using CSV files. From the Contacts or Deals tab, click the Import/Export icon in the top-right corner and select Import.

You can upload a CSV file of up to 100 MB. During the import, map the columns from your Zendesk Sell export to the corresponding fields you created in SparrowCRM, review the mapping, and complete the import.

REST API migration

If your Zendesk Sell account contains a large amount of data, you can use the SparrowCRM REST API to transfer records instead of preparing and uploading CSV files manually.

The migration process can be handled in these steps:

1. Get the data from Zendesk Sell
   Use the Zendesk Sell API to retrieve the records you want to migrate, such as contacts, leads, deals, and their related data.
2. Map the Zendesk Sell fields
   Match each Zendesk Sell field with its corresponding SparrowCRM field. For example, map First Name → First Name, Deal Value → Deal Value, and Expected Close Date → Expected Close Date. For custom fields, create the corresponding field in SparrowCRM before sending the data.
3. Create the records in SparrowCRM
   Use SparrowCRM's API to send the prepared records to the appropriate object. You can use the API to migrate your CRM data programmatically rather than importing each file manually.
4. Maintain record relationships
   When migrating related data, make sure you retain the IDs or references needed to connect records correctly. For example, a deal should remain associated with the correct contact or company after migration.
5. Migrate historical activities
   If you need to bring over historical sales activities, map them to the appropriate records so that the activity history remains connected to the relevant contact, company, or deal.
6. Test before migrating everything
   Start by transferring a small number of records. Check that the fields, relationships, deals, and activities appear correctly in SparrowCRM before running the migration for your complete dataset.

When should you use the API?
Use the API when you're working with a large dataset, need to preserve complex relationships, or want to automate the migration. If you're moving a smaller amount of data, SparrowCRM's CSV import is usually the simpler option.

Native migration

SparrowCRM also supports native direct data sync migration, so you can connect your existing CRM and migrate your data directly. It supports migration from several CRMs, including Zendesk Sell.

To start, go to Settings → Data → Migration and select the CRM you're currently using. In this case, select Zendesk Sell and click Connect with existing CRM.

Click Connect to choose the data you want to migrate. You can connect contacts, companies, deals, owners, users, files, and custom objects. SparrowCRM also brings over the data attached to these records, including tasks, meetings, and calls. You can select or deselect the data types you want to migrate and then click Continue.

1. Map your objects

Next, you can map your Zendesk Sell objects to the corresponding objects in SparrowCRM.

If an object you want to migrate doesn't already exist in SparrowCRM, you can create it directly from the migration page without leaving the migration process. When you create an object, SparrowCRM automatically picks up the dropdown options from the source data, so you don't have to manually create each option.

You can then continue mapping the fields and records across your contacts, companies, deals, and other objects.

2. Migrate your pipelines

You can also migrate your sales pipelines directly during the migration. Select the pipelines you want to move, and SparrowCRM will migrate the stages associated with those pipelines as well.

If you don't want to migrate a particular pipeline, you can simply leave it unselected and continue.

3. Migrate and reassign users

SparrowCRM also lets you bring over the users from your existing CRM. You can choose whether each user should be active or inactive using the dropdown during the migration.

If you have records owned by users who are no longer active, you can also reassign those records to another user during the migration itself. This means you don't have to manually update ownership after the migration is complete.

4. Review and start the migration

Once you've mapped your objects, selected your pipelines, configured users, and chosen the data you want to migrate, you'll get a final review of your migration settings.

Review everything to make sure the data, mappings, pipelines, and user assignments are correct. Once you're satisfied, click Start Migration to begin moving your Zendesk Sell data to SparrowCRM.

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Set up your sales workflows in SparrowCRM

Your Zendesk Sell workflows may not map directly to SparrowCRM, so review the automations you currently use and recreate the important ones after your data has been migrated.

SparrowCRM lets you build workflows using a visual Canvas, where you connect triggers, conditions, and actions to automate repetitive sales processes.

1. Choose when the workflow should run

Start by choosing a trigger. SparrowCRM supports triggers for events such as:

• A record being created or updated
• A record being added to a list
• A list entry being updated
• A field being created or updated
• A task or note being created
• A workflow being triggered manually
• A recurring schedule
• A webhook being received from another application

For example, you could trigger a workflow when a new deal is created or when a deal stage changes.

2. Add conditions to control the workflow

Use conditions when the next action should depend on specific criteria. SparrowCRM provides Filter, If/Else, and Branch blocks for creating different paths in a workflow.

For example, you could create different actions based on deal stage, lead type, or another field value.

3. Add the actions you want to automate

Once you've defined the trigger and conditions, choose what SparrowCRM should do. You can use actions to:

• Create or update records
• Find records
• Add or remove records from lists
• Create or complete tasks
• Enroll or remove contacts from sequences
• Classify records or text using AI
• Generate AI summaries
• Send HTTP requests to external applications

You can also add delays when an action needs to happen later. SparrowCRM supports fixed delays as well as delays until a specific date and time.

4. Recreate your important Zendesk Sell automations

You don't necessarily need to rebuild every workflow you had in Zendesk Sell. Start with the automations your sales team relies on most, such as lead follow-ups, task creation, record updates, routing, and outreach.

For more complex processes, SparrowCRM also supports loops, which let you repeat actions across multiple records returned by an earlier step.

Before going live, test each workflow with a small set of records to make sure the triggers, conditions, and actions behave as expected.

What happens to your Zendesk Sell data after migration?

Once the migration is complete, don't immediately switch off your Zendesk Sell account. First, verify that your data has been transferred correctly.

Start by checking:

• Contacts, companies, leads, and deals
• Custom fields and field values
• Deal pipelines and stages
• Record ownership and user assignments
• Notes and tasks
• Meetings and calls, when included through the migration method you used
• Files and custom objects, when selected for migration
• Relationships between your records

Open a few records in SparrowCRM and compare them with the corresponding records in Zendesk Sell. Check important fields such as owner, deal stage, value, contact details, dates, and custom fields.

Also test your sales workflows, sequences, reports, and other processes that depend on migrated data. If something is missing or mapped incorrectly, fix it before your team starts working entirely from SparrowCRM.

Once you've confirmed that the migration is complete and your team can work normally in SparrowCRM, you can move away from Zendesk Sell.

Bottom line

Migrating from Zendesk Sell doesn't have to mean starting your CRM setup from scratch. The key is to plan your data, clean it before migration, map your fields and pipelines, and verify everything after the move.

With SparrowCRM, you can choose between CSV import, API-based migration, or native migration depending on the size and complexity of your data. After the records are moved, recreate the workflows your team depends on and test them before making SparrowCRM your primary CRM.

Since Zendesk Sell is scheduled to retire on August 31, 2027, starting the migration early gives your team time to clean up old data, test the new setup, and make the transition without rushing.