Skip to main content
Bringing your Front history into Plain takes a short script built on the Plain API. Your team keeps every past conversation, searchable alongside live ones, from the day you switch. This page covers how Front’s data maps onto Plain’s and the decisions to make before you run it.

​
What gets imported

  • Contacts → Customers
  • Conversations → Threads
    • You choose which conversations land as Done and which stay Todo. Most teams import archived conversations as Done
    • All messages and comments are carried over. Comments appear as internal comments in Plain
  • Tags → Labels
  • Original timestamps: every thread and every message keeps the date it had in Front, so your history stays in order
  • A link back to the original conversation, so anyone reading the thread in Plain can still find it in Front
CSAT ratings and custom fields on conversations are not imported. See Migrating from another tool for the full picture of what you’ll rebuild in Plain. Importing history doesn’t trigger SLAs, auto-responses, or workflows, so nothing goes out to your customers and no SLA clocks start on old tickets.

​
Mapping Front onto Plain

A few decisions to make before you write the script:
  • Comments and replies. Front keeps user comments separate from messages sent to the customer. Import comments as internal comments in Plain so private discussion stays private.
  • Inboxes. Plain routes with labels, Tiers, and workflows rather than a set of shared inboxes. Add the inbox name as a label on each thread if you want to keep it, and set up your live routing separately.
  • Conversation IDs. Use the Front conversation ID as each thread’s external reference. That’s what makes the import safe to re-run.
  • Companies. Plain sets a customer’s Company automatically from their email domain, so most conversations need no mapping by hand.
  • Assignees. Decide which Front users map to the people you’ve already invited to Plain, and what to do with anyone who has left.

​
Running the import

The script itself works the same way for any tool, so the walkthrough lives in one place: Building your own ticket importer covers the steps, what makes the import safe to re-run, and how to start with a small batch before running the rest. Importing threads in the developer docs has the API reference and examples of each call. If you’d like a hand scoping the script or a review before you run it at full volume, email help@plain.com.