Handling identifiers during an import

Importing your data

When importing data into an application, it is crucial to prevent data loss or duplication. These types of errors can hinder the development of a clean and well-organised database, which is essential for effective data management and security.

 

Zoho Desk provides robust functionality for importing your data. The system intelligently automates the mapping of modules and fields to reduce the risk of data loss and maintain data integrity. Users have the advantage of verifying the field mappings in advance, thus adding an extra layer of security to the import process.

 

This capability is essential not only for clarity but also in mitigating the challenges associated with user adoption. For instance, clients can be accurately mapped to the Contact name field, while company names can seamlessly align with the Account name field. This approach to data management helps maintain an organised database, thereby enhancing productivity and user trust in the system. 

Related knowledge base article: Importing data into Zoho Desk.

Prerequisites

• Users can upload a .csv file or a .zip file containing multiple .csv files. 
  
• The .zip file must be named, for example, Contacts.zip, Accounts.zip, etc.
  

Working with the Identifier Field

When importing data into Zoho Desk, the Identifier Field is essential because it helps identify existing records and avoid duplicate entries. 

What are the Identifier Fields?  

Identifier fields are fields used to find and match existing records when importing data into the product. They also help link related records, like connecting a contact’s name with their email address.

Each module supports different unique identifier fields for identification, as described in the table below:

Module	Unique Identifier Fields
Accounts	Account ID  Account External ID Account Name
Contacts	Contact ID Contact External ID  Last Name First Name Email Phone Number Mobile
Tickets	Ticket ID Ticket External ID Ticket Number
Products	Product ID Product External ID Product Name
Tasks	TaskId Task External ID
Calls	Call ID Call External ID
Events	Event ID Event External ID
Article Translation	Translation: External ID Translation ID
Custom Modules	Record External ID Custom Module Name

Points to remember:

• While these fields help find matching records.
• So, if multiple records match the value, the first matching record will be selected automatically.
• This can lead to unexpected matches or data being updated in the wrong record if you're not careful.

For your understanding:

Some users expressed a preference for matching Contacts by Last Name instead of Email, highlighting the importance of flexibility in their workflow. Furthermore, some additional users approached matching through the use of a custom field, emphasising the need for tailored solutions to fit their unique requirements. Moreover, users requested that the functionality be enhanced by updating existing records with the relevant entity's Zoho Desk ID, aiming to streamline their processes and improve data accuracy.

Commonly used identifier fields:

• Find By is used to identify an existing record during the import process.
• Map By is utilized to link a child record to a parent record, for instance, by linking a Contact to a Ticket.

 

You can now select specific fields for matching, providing enhanced control and customization during bulk processes or integrations. This functionality enables more precise data handling, ensuring that the information aligns with your specific requirements. By tailoring the matching criteria, you can streamline processes, ultimately leading to enhanced efficiency and better outcomes for your team. This flexibility enables you to harness the full potential of your data.

Import Systems

Let's start by preparing the CSV file.

A sample tickets module CSV file is given below,

External ID	Subject	Contact Email	Contact Name	About
101	Hitman	rohit@bcci.com	Sharma	Rohit Sharma's journey from a gifted schoolboy to an international icon and fierce competitor reflects resilience, elegance, and remarkable leadership.
102	King Kohli	virat@bcci.com	Virat	Virat Kohli is a world-renowned Indian cricketer known for his aggressive batting, unmatched consistency, and passionate leadership across all forms of the game.
103	Lambu Ishanth	ishanth@bcci.com	Sharma	Ishant Sharma is a tall and experienced Indian fast bowler known for his 300 test wickets and key performances in overseas conditions.

Then choose the appropriate Find By identifier field.

The Find By field is selected from a predefined set of fields specific to each module. It is used to determine whether a record already exists in Zoho Desk.

When using the import tool, the system searches the Desk portal for a record (e.g., a ticket) that matches the value mapped to the selected Find By field. This prevents duplicate records by identifying existing entries based on the chosen field.  

​

• Once the file is uploaded, you need to choose a Find By Field — for instance, Ticket External ID.
• Whichever Find By field we choose must correspond to the relevant column in the CSV file. Since we've selected the Ticket External ID, the Case External ID column in your file should be mapped to the Ticket External IDfield.
  

If the chosen operation is to 'create new records while avoiding duplicates', and there is no existing ticket with the External ID 101, the import tool will generate a new ticket using the mapped fields. To associate the ticket to the correct Contact, the import tool utilizes the Map By field feature.

Finally, choose the appropriate Map By field.

The Map By field enables users to link imported records to their corresponding dependent records, such as associating a ticket with a specific contact. This functionality ensures that when you import ticket data, the import tool actively searches for a matching Contact in Zoho Desk based on the value defined in the selected Map By field.

For instance, during the field mapping process, you can specifically choose to map the Ticket to a Contact using criteria such as the Contact's email ID. This approach enhances the accuracy of data integration by ensuring that each ticket is correctly associated with the relevant Contact, thereby improving data integrity and streamlining the support process. This meticulous mapping not only minimizes the chances of errors but also facilitates a more organized and efficient ticket management system, ultimately leading to improved customer experiences and satisfaction.

Map by identifier field functionality

The tool efficiently searches for contacts associated with the provided email address.    

Search: When a user submits a ticket, the system initiates a search for contacts associated with the specified email address.   

Match found: If a single match is identified, the ticket is seamlessly associated with that Contact, ensuring that all relevant customer information is readily accessible for support agents.   

Multiple Matches: If numerous contacts are found with the same email address, the system will prioritize and use the first match. This helps streamline the ticketing process while maintaining clarity in customer support.   

No Match Found: If no matches are found within the system, the ticket will not be created. This prevents unnecessary duplication and ensures that support agents are only working with valid, existing customer records. 

In summary, the strategic use of Custom Unique Fields and External ID fields as identifiers, along with the potential for composite identifiers, positions support teams to operate more effectively and improve overall customer interactions.

Significant improvements in user experience 

Transparent process and status tracking 

We’ve implemented a straightforward, step-by-step process for data imports, complete with real-time status updates for each stage. This transparency enables users to monitor import progress and understand the current state of the process.

Unique identifiers for entity mapping 

New fields have been introduced to help users identify if a parent entity already exists when importing related child entities. For example, users can seamlessly map a contact to an existing account in Zoho Desk, streamlining the import process while minimizing the risk of duplicate entries.

Enhanced error handling and log accessibility

We’ve made significant improvements in error handling by allowing users to download detailed error logs directly from the history page in the event of import failures. This enhancement provides users with greater insight into any issues, facilitating faster troubleshooting and resolution.

Support for custom modules

The import UI has been revamped to support custom modules, providing users with greater flexibility and customization options. This enables a more personalized and efficient data import experience.

Takeaway

For instance, a large corporation merging client data from multiple legacy systems into Zoho Desk modules will benefit significantly from automatic field mapping, ensuring that contact and account names are accurately aligned. This attention to detail not only improves the user experience but also enhances overall data integrity during the merging process.

 

Please stay tuned for more Desk updates.

 

Cheers,

 

Kavya Rao

The Zoho Desk Team

• Topic Participants

• Kavya Rao Addepalli

  

• Sticky Posts

• Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

  Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote

• WhatsApp pricing changes: Pay per message starting July 1, 2025

  Starting July 1, 2025, WhatsApp is shifting from conversation-based pricing to per-message billing. That means every business-initiated message you send will count. Not just the first one in a 24-hour window. Pricing updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform

• Live Webinar - Work smarter with Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace integration

  Hello customers! Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace are coming together for a webinar on 14th May, 2024. Zoho Workplace is a suite of productivity apps for email, chat, docs, calls, and more at one single place. Zoho Desk is closely integrated with a few tools

• Apple iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates for Zoho Desk users

  Hello Zoho Desk users! Apple recently announced the release of iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. These latest OS updates will help you stay productive and efficient, through interactive and seamless user experiences. Zoho Desk has incorporated the updates to help

• Zoho Desk Cheat Sheet For The Year-End

  Check out these Zoho Desk best practices to end this year on a high and have a great one ahead! #1 Set Business (Holiday) Hours - If you have limited working hours, please make sure you restrict your business hours or set them as holidays for the coming days. Let your customers know when you will, and won't, be available. #2 Update the Annual Holiday List - Check the holidays for the new year and update the holiday schedule. Usually, holidays from the current year will be carried over for the next

• Recent Topics

• Analytics : How to share to an external client ?

  We have a use case where a client wants a portal so that several of his users can view dashboards that we have created for them in Zoho Analytics. They are not part of our company or Zoho One account. The clients want the ability to have user specific,

• Is It Possible to Convert a Custom Module to a Quote?

  I recently created a custom module in our CRM environment for RFQs so that our sales team can submit quote requests directly in Zoho rather than by email/phone. This allows for a cleaner overall process, minimizing potential errors and potentially encouraging

• All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

  The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Latest update

• How can Data Enrichment be automatically triggered when a new Lead is created in Zoho CRM?

  Hi, I have a pipeline where a Lead is created automatically through the Zoho API and I've been trying to look for a way to automatically apply Data Enrichment on this created lead. 1) I did not find any way to do this through the Zoho API; it seems like

• Client Side Scripts for Meetings Module

  Will zoho please add client side scripting support to the meetings module? Our workflow requires most meeting details have a specific format to work with other software we have. So we rely on a custom function to auto fill certain things. We currently

• Proposal: Actionable API Error Messages to Reduce Support Ticket Volume

  I've encountered a long-standing frustration with how Zoho Creator's API communicates errors to developers, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. This issue has persisted for over 9 years based on community discussions, and

• Zoho CRM - Option to create Follow-Up Task

  When completing a Zoho CRM Task, it would be very helpful if there was an option to "Complete and Create Follow-Up Task" in the pop-up which appears. It could clone the task you are closing and then show it on the screen in edit mode, all the user would

• Dynamic Field Folders in OneDrive

  Hi, With the 2 options today we have either a Dynamic Parent Folder and lots of attachments all in that one folder with only the ability to set the file name (Which is also not incremented so if I upload 5 photos to one field they are all named the same

• Drag 'n' Drop Fields to a Sub-Form and "Move Field To" Option

  Hi, I would like to be able to move fields from the Main Page to a Sub-Form or from a Sub-Form to either the Main Page or another Sub-Form. Today if you change the design you have to delete and recreate every field, not just move them. Would be nice to

• File Conversion from PDF to JPG/PNG

  Hi, I have a question did  anyone every tried using custom function to convert a PDF file to JPG/PNG format? Any possibility by using the custom function to achieve this within zoho apps.  I do know there are many third parties API provide this with

• Allocating inventory to specific SO's

  Is there a way that allocate inventory to a specific sales order? For example, let's say we have 90 items in stock. Customer 1 orders 100 items. This allocates all 90 items to their order, and they have a back order for the remaining 10 items which could

• Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

  Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

• Closing the Loop: Why Lookup Asymmetry is Harming Data Integrity in Creator

  TL;DR: Lookup fields allow users to add new related records inline via the "+" icon, but there's no equivalent ability to edit an existing related record without navigating away and losing form context. Adding a native "Edit" icon—with automatic User

• Add the ability to Hide Pages in Page Rules

  Hi, We have Field Rules to show and hide fields and we have page Rules, but we can't hide a page in Page Rules so it isn't completed before the previous page (And then have the Deny Rules to prevent submitting without both pages completed), we can only

• Enable Free External Collaboration on Notecards in Zoho Notebook

  Hi Zoho Notebook Team, I would like to suggest a feature enhancement regarding external collaboration in Zoho Notebook. Currently, we can share notes with external users, and they are able to view the content without any issue. However, when these external

• Zoho Desk API - Send Reply to CUSTOMERPORTAL

  Hello! I'll try to send a reply to Customer Portal, But the response is 500 (INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR in service response). {"Error":"{\"errorCode\":\"INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR\",\"message\":\"An internal server error occurred while performing this operation.\"}"}

• using the Client script on the load of the form if service no is empty means then i want to make issue relate to is Service

  using the Client script on the load of the form if service no is empty means then i want to make issue relate to field is Service if Purchae no is empty means then i want to make issue relate to is Purchase

• Changes to the send mail Deluge task in Zoho CRM

  Hello everyone, At Zoho, we continuously enhance our security measures to ensure a safer experience for all users. As part of our ongoing security enhancements, we're making an important update on using the send mail Deluge task in Zoho CRM. What's changing?

• Work Order wont mark as Completed

  I have a couple of work orders that won't mark as completed even when I've marked the Service Appointments as completed fully.

• Item name special charaters <>

  Im trying to input speical characters such as < and > into item name and item description but comes up with following error: Invalid value passed for Item Name and Invalid value passed for Item Description How do i allow speical characters?

• Zoho Analytics Dashboard - How to hide the user filter

  I am using the same dashboard template across different external clients and applying a user filter to the data by site URL. How can I hide the user filter in View Mode so the external client won't see the list of other clients in the drop-down menu?

• Customer Parent Account or Sub-Customer Account

  Some of clients as they have 50 to 300 branches, they required separate account statement with outlet name and number; which means we have to open new account for each branch individually. However, the main issue is that, when they make a payment, they

• Cannot get code to work with v2.mergeAndStore!

  Please can someone help me pass subform items into a repeating mail merge table row using v2.mergeAndStore? I have a mail merge template created in Writer and stored in Workdrive. This template is referenced by a custom CRM function which merges all of

• Kaizen #229: Email-Deal Associations in Zoho CRM

  Hi All, Welcome back to another week of Kaizen! Emails are a core channel for customer communication in any CRM system. In Zoho CRM, emails can be associated with records across multiple modules. In this post, we will focus on email associations with

• Deprecation of the Zoho OAuth connector

  Hello everyone, At Zoho, we continuously evaluate our integrations to ensure they meet the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of these ongoing efforts, we've made the decision to deprecate the Zoho OAuth default connector

• Action Required: Update Microsoft SQL Server Security Settings Before February 2026

  Dear Users, We recently deployed security updates in Zoho Analytics that inadvertently caused connection failures for a few customers using Microsoft (MS) SQL Server hosted on older Windows versions (Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, and 2014). To restore

• Contacts limit in basic vs standard - what counts? Are customers contacts?

  I’ve been using books for a number years for my small business. I only ever work with 20 clients at any given time. I do purchase services from a number of vendors to run my business, so there are some comtacts there too. I used to use the basic package,

• Saving issue

  First problem I opened a MS word file in writer. after the work is done, it does not save instantly, I waited for like 10min and it still did not save. second problem When I save a file, then file gets saved as another copy. I just did save, not save

• Automating Employee Birthday Notifications in Zoho Cliq

  Have you ever missed a birthday and felt like the office Grinch? Fear not, the Cliq Developer Platform has got your back! With Zoho Cliq's Schedulers, you can be the office party-cipant who never forgets a single cake, balloon, or awkward rendition of

• Create Tasklist with Tasklist Template using API v3

  In the old API, we could mention the parameter 'task_template_id' when creating a tasklist via API to apply a tasklist template: https://www.zoho.com/projects/help/rest-api/tasklists-api.html#create-tasklist In API v3 there does not seem to be a way to

• How to mix different types of inputs (such as dropdown list and textbox)

  Hi, I'm creating a form called "Room Reservations" for a company. I created a "table" using "Matrix Choice". I created "Room 1", "Room 2" and "Room 3" with the "Questions". I would then like to create two columns with the "Answers", one called "Department"

• Ability to Set a Unified Tab Order/View for All Users in Zoho Projects

  Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit a feature request regarding tab/menu organization in Zoho Projects. Current Behavior: The tab (module) order in Zoho Projects is user-specific. Each user (internal or external)

• Layout Rules Don't Apply To Blueprints

  Hi Zoho the conditional layout rules for fields and making fields required don't work well with with Blueprints if those same fields are called DURING a Blueprint. Example. I have field A that is used in layout rule. If value of field A is "1" it is supposed to show and make required field B. If the value to field A is "2" it is supposed to show and make required field C. Now I have a Blueprint that says when last stage moves to "Closed," during the transition, the agent must fill out field A. Now

• Task Order

  Hello! I've recently switched to Zoho Projects and a long time user of MS Project, Asana and LiquidPlanner (which has recently been purchased) and I'm running into a frustration I'm hoping someone can assist with. It has to do with how tasks are ordered

• Automating CRM backup storage?

  Hi there, We've recently set up automatic backups for our Zoho CRM account. We were hoping that the backup functionality would not require any manual work on our end, but it seems that we are always required to download the backups ourselves, store them,

• Zoho Books | Product updates | January 2026

  Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From e-filing Form 1099 directly with the IRS to corporation tax support, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience. E-File Form 1099 Directly With the

• 2026 Product Roadmap and Upcoming Features

  This is your guide to what is coming in Zoho Vertical Studio throughout 2026. We’ll update this post throughout the year as items move from development to release, and as and when new initiatives are added. Once a feature is released, it will be reflected

• Vendor legal and DBA names for USA users

  I would like to hear how Zoho Books users are handling DBA names in the vendor profile. If the Company name in the vendor profile has to be the legal name (line 1 of the W-9), whare are you entering the DBA name (the name that checks are made out to)

• Zoho Books API invoice email bouncing with 'relaying-issues' error

  I have waited over 30 days for zoho books uk to assist with the following and i have had no replies or tickets erronously closed. The service has been terrible - very unlike zoho! So i am raising this here hoping that a community member can assist: Hello,

• Stop the Workarounds: We Need Native Multi-Step Forms

  After over 17 years of community requests, I'm hoping the Zoho team can finally address the lack of native multi-page form support in Zoho Creator. This has been one of the longest-standing feature requests in the community, with threads spanning nearly

• Next Page