Migrate Data from Other Help Desk Services to Zoho Desk (Zwitch)
Customer support is the cornerstone of every organization. Businesses rely on help desk software that simplifies ticket management, streamlines support processes, and improves overall customer satisfaction.
As your business expands, your requirements evolve, leading you to seek a more robust system that aligns with your expectations. When you move to other software, it's important to migrate the existing data to prevent data loss, track essential information, safeguard confidential details in tickets and conversations, and maintain continuity of agent and knowledge base resources.
Zoho Desk is a cloud-based platform that enables easy data migration from other help desk systems. The robust ticketing and customer service software allows teams to work more efficiently and effectively towards providing a better support experience.
Data can be migrated to Zoho Desk securely from the following services:
- Freshdesk
- Zendesk
- Salesforce
- Kayako
- Intercom
- HappyFox
- Help Scout
- Other services
Permission Required The Primary Contact of the Zoho Desk account and users who are Support Administrators can initiate data migration.
Check Feature Availability and Limits
Exporting data from existing accounts
Before migrating to Zoho Desk, ensure that data from your current application is exported in the format specified below. In addition, before you begin data export, certain key information must be readily available. Refer to the table below for details:
Services | File Format | Key Requirements |
Freshdesk | XML/JSON |
|
Zendesk | JSON |
|
Salesforce | CSV |
|
Kayako | SQL |
|
Intercom | CSV |
|
HappyFox |
|
|
Helpscout | Data can be fetched via API calls |
|
Others |
|
|
Prerequisites
- You must provide the API key from the service you are migrating and ensure it remains active throughout the migration process.
- Disable Zoho CRM or Salesforce integration (if enabled) during migration to prevent duplicating contacts and accounts in Zoho Desk.
Must know to ensure appropriate ticket assignment
- Provide the Name or ID of agents, fields, and departments for mapping the records accurately and avoid mismatches or errors during migration.
- Tickets are mapped to agents using their email addresses. Make sure the agent email addresses are correct in the data file.
- Ensure the agents are active in the Desk account and their email address is the same as that mentioned in the source file. This will ensure the ticket details, contact information, and comment ownership is retained. Read more on accepting the invitation.
- If the agent is inactive or there is a mismatch in the email address, the tickets will be assigned to the Primary Support Administrator by default.
General information
- Supported edition - Migration is supported for all paid editions. For Trial Edition, you can migrate only up to 2 GB of data.
- Probability of failure - 3% to 5% migration failure could occur due to data limitations or schema mismatches. Failed data will be provided as a backup in a .csv file.
- Migration ETA - The timeline for data migration depends on the volume of records being transferred and is processed on a priority basis (queue-based). As a result, an exact ETA can be provided by the team after data analysis and once the migration begins.
- File size - File size up to 10GB can be uploaded during the process of migration. For files more than 10GB please contact the support team at: support@zohodesk.com
- Migration cancellation - Data migration requests can only be cancelled if their status is Submitted in Queue.
Understanding the data migration process
The migration is carried out in two phases by Desk's migration team.
Best practices
- Before performing the full-scale migration (Phase I), it's advisable for customers to initiate a Sample Migration, a small-scale transfer of minimal data to test the migration process.
- Typically, data migrations are performed in two phases. In Phase 2, all additional requests will be accepted and completed. However, any requests made after Phase 2 will not be accepted.
Phase 1
The Initial Migration phase involves transferring all data from your source account to the destination account (Zoho Desk account). Data from the modules, such as tickets, contacts, and accounts, are migrated in bulk. A support ticket will be created to share migration details.
Once the migration is complete, migration report and error logs are generated to give you a detailed view of the progress. These reports are shared with the primary contact (or who initiated the migration) in a compressed .zip file format via email. The zip file will consist of:
- .csv files containing the successfully migrated modules.
- Error logs detailing the issues encountered during migration are provided in each .csv file that will be shared as a reply in the migration ticket. Customers must respond within two weeks of receiving the error log. Requests made after a two-week period will not be processed.
Once the initial migration is successfully completed, customers can begin to access their Zoho Desk account.
Phase 2
Phase 2 begins approximately two weeks after the completion of Phase 1. This is the final stage of migration. Any files, records, or data that were not included during the Initial Migration (e.g., new tickets created in the old system during the two-week period) are transferred to Zoho Desk.
Failed migration shared in the error log are also re-migrated in phase 2. Some files or records might fail to migrate due to issues like missing mandatory fields, invalid formats, or mapping errors.
Initiating Data Migration
Data migration can be initiated by providing the following information:
Entering basic information
This includes the name of the help desk software from which the data needs to be migrated. The email address and password used to access the platform from which the data needs to be migrated. Additionally, the service URL that is the company's access URL must be included. For example, https://portalname.freshdesk.com.
Uploading data file
The export file containing the data to be migrated must be uploaded. You can migrate up to 10 GB of data, with each file size limited to 2 GB. A maximum of 5 files can be uploaded simultaneously. If your data exceeds 10 GB, please contact our support team for assistance. We’ll ensure a seamless migration experience. Additionally, ensure that each module is saved as a separate .csv file for accurate processing.
Selecting modules and sub modules where data will be migrated to
In this step, you must select the Zoho Desk modules to which the data should be migrated:
- Agents
- Accounts
- Contacts
- Products
- Tickets
- Threads
- Ticket comments
- Attachments
- Knowledge Base Articles (Attachments will not be migrated)
Data migration will be carried out to the modules in the order mentioned above. In other words, agent details will be migrated first, followed by accounts, contacts, and so on. Therefore, it is important that you provide the data for the modules in this order to prevent migration delays and data loss.
Providing additional info
Any instruction that the Zoho Desk team must follow while migrating the data can be included in this section.
Authenticating data
The Zoho Desk portal to which the data should be migrated should be selected. This is applicable only if the primary contact is part of multiple portals.
Acknowledging migration request
Once the above steps are completed, the primary contact is sent an email with the migration details as provided during the initiation of migration. The migration is carried out by the Zoho Desk team after analyzing the submitted data.
The estimated time for completing the migration is provided based on the existing migration queue and the amount of data to be imported. The primary contact is informed of this by the support team.
To initiate data migration
- Navigate to Setup > Data Administration > Zwitch > New Migration
- On the New Migration page, do the following:
- In Basic Information select a service under Migration From, enter the Service URL, Email, Password, API Key, etc.
- The fields displayed here will depend on the service from which you are migrating. Refer to this table for more details
- In the Import Data From field, upload the file that needs to be migrated.
- Under Modules that will receive the data field, select the Modules.
- Under Additional Info, enter details to be conveyed to the migration team at Zoho Desk.
- Click Submit and Authenticate.
You will be redirected to the Zwitch Migration Authentication page. - Select a Desk portal to which the data should be migrated.
- Click Submit.
- In the Zwitch Migration page, click Accept.
- Click Reject to cancel the migration.
Note: Data migration request can be cancelled any time during the Submitted status. Once it is in progress, you cannot cancel the request.
To re-initiate data migration
- Navigate to Setup > Data Administration > Zwitch(Data Migration)
- To reinitiate a data migration record, navigate to the desired record. Reinitiation is only possible for records with the status Waiting for Authentication, typically when the process was paused during the authentication step (Step 4 from To initiate data migration).
- Click Submit & Authenticate.
Viewing Migration History
Migration history is an audit log that stores and displays the migration details in chronological order. It displays the zipped file names along with their current status of migration. The following status will be displayed:
- Waiting for Authentication: If the primary contact submits the data for migration without completing the authentication, the record will be displayed here.
- Submitted in Queue: The migration request has been successfully submitted and is queued for processing. The system will process the request in the order it was received.
- Completed: The migration process has been successfully completed, and all data has been imported into the system.
- Canceled: The migration request has been cancelled, either by the user or due to a system action, and no further processing will occur.
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