Importing articles from Zendesk

Import your Zendesk Help Center articles into HelpShelf, where they arrive as curated content — the highest trust tier.

What you need

• Your subdomain — if you log in at acme.zendesk.com, your subdomain is acme.
• The email address of your Zendesk account.
• An API token.

Creating an API token

1. In Zendesk, go to Admin Center → Apps and integrations → APIs → Zendesk API.
2. Make sure Token access is enabled.
3. Click Add API token, give it a description like "HelpShelf import", and copy the token.

Copy it immediately — Zendesk won't show it again. If you lose it, delete the token and create a new one.

Run the import

1. In HelpShelf, go to Content and click Import.
2. Choose Zendesk.
3. Enter your subdomain, email, and API token, then connect.
4. HelpShelf fetches your categories, sections, and articles.
5. Select what you want and start the import.

What gets imported

• Zendesk sections become HelpShelf collections.
• Zendesk articles become HelpShelf articles, tagged as curated.
• Only published articles are imported. Drafts are skipped.

Zendesk wraps article bodies in its own markup; that's unwrapped and cleaned during import, preserving code blocks, tables, and images.

Embeddings are generated automatically.

Re-importing

Re-running the import updates previously imported articles rather than duplicating them, matched on the Zendesk article ID. Edits you've made inside HelpShelf to an imported article will be overwritten by a re-import.

Multiple brands

The import reads the Help Center for the subdomain you connect. If you run multiple Zendesk brands, connect and import each one separately.

Zendesk chat is separate

This imports content. Letting visitors open the Zendesk Web Widget from HelpShelf is a separate OAuth connection — see Connecting Intercom and Zendesk chat.