Migrate from Alemba Service Manager to Zoho Desk

Alemba Incidents map directly to Zoho Desk Tickets. Incident priority (Critical, High, Medium, Low) maps to Zoho Ticket Priority, and Incident status (New, Assigned, In Progress, Resolved, Closed) maps to Zoho Ticket Status. Linked history entries (internal notes, status changes, assignment logs) migrate as Ticket Threads. SLA response and resolution timestamps from the ASM incident record become custom fields on the Zoho Ticket if SLA policies cannot absorb them at the department level. We pre-coordinate with the customer whether to suppress ASM rules-engine SLA assignments during the batch import or apply them post-migration.

ASM Service Requests map to Zoho Desk Tickets with the type field set to Request. Approval chain history from ASM migrates as Ticket Threads with the approver name and decision timestamp preserved in the thread body. Catalogue item references from ASM (linking to the Self-Service Portal service catalogue) cannot be natively mapped since Zoho Desk's Service Request handling uses a different catalogue model; we create a custom field catalogue_reference__c and populate it with the ASM catalogue item identifier for the customer's admin to resolve post-migration.

ASM Change records carry full audit trails including CAB approvals, risk assessments, and CI links. Zoho Desk does not have a native Change Management object, so Changes are mapped to Zoho Tasks with a custom record type Change_Request if the Zoho edition supports custom record types, or as Tasks with a custom field change_type__c = 'Standard|Normal|Major'. CAB approval history and risk assessment data migrate as Task comments with structured formatting. The CI links reference ASM Configuration Items; these require the Products/Assets split to be complete first (object 7) so that lookups resolve correctly.

ASM Problem records are linked to their related Incidents via a known ASM relationship type. We extract Problems with their Known Error Records and root-cause annotations and map them to Zoho Tasks with problem_type__c set to 'Problem' and a custom field known_error__c for known error record content. The incident linkage is preserved through a custom field related_incident_ids__c containing a comma-separated list of incident ticket IDs from the migration, allowing the customer's admin to re-link relationships post-migration in Zoho.

ASM auto-generates Tasks via the Infra Rules engine for parent Incident, Request, Change, and Problem records. We extract all task records and migrate them as Zoho Desk Tasks linked to the parent ticket record via the ticket_id lookup. ASM task auto-generation rules differ from Zoho Desk's automation model, so we document the ASM rules configuration in the automation inventory deliverable and flag any task hierarchies that will need manual recreation in Zoho Blueprint.

ASM SLA definitions attached to ticket types define response and resolution windows with breach timestamps. Zoho Desk SLA policies are configured per department and define business hours and action triggers. We map ASM SLA response and resolution hour definitions to Zoho SLA policies during schema design, and preserve ASM SLA breach history as custom fields on the Zoho Ticket (sla_response_breach__c, sla_resolution_breach__c) since Zoho calculates SLA breaches at the policy level rather than storing historical breach records.

ASM CIs belonging to CMDB Item Types with financial and lifecycle attributes map to Zoho Products (the Zoho equivalent of asset records). CIs without financial attributes map to Zoho Assets if the destination Zoho Desk edition includes the Assets module (Professional and above). We split the ASM CMDB extract into Products (with UnitPrice, VendorName, and LifeCycleStatus) and Assets (with purchaseDate, serialNumber, and depreciation). Federated CMDB relationships sourced from external discovery tools are flagged as broken references in the migration inventory since those external systems do not migrate.

ASM Asset records with financial and lifecycle attributes map to Zoho Assets (available from Zoho Desk Professional tier). Asset records with missing depreciation or purchase_date fields are flagged during data quality review and held for the customer to supply before migration; assets with incomplete financial attributes migrate with those fields left blank rather than with placeholder values that would distort reporting.

ASM KB articles linked to service catalogue items migrate to Zoho Desk Help Topics. Article content (body text, categories, and associations) migrates directly. Articles containing embedded HTML or attachments require pre-migration content review because Zoho Desk Help Topics do not automatically migrate attachments; we extract attachments as separate file records and link them manually post-migration or advise the customer to re-attach after go-live.

ASM distinguishes End Users (Self-Service Portal, licence-free), Business Users (Nano interface), and Analysts (Core interface). We map ASM Analysts to Zoho Desk Agents, ASM Business Users to Zoho Light Agents, and ASM End Users to Zoho Contacts (or End Users if the Zoho Desk End-User Portal is configured). We resolve ASM user email addresses as the dedupe key. ASM role assignments (such as Incident Manager, Change Manager, Problem Manager) do not map directly to Zoho Desk roles; we flag them in the role mapping inventory for the customer to configure in Zoho Desk's Roles and Profiles setup.

For regulated deployments in healthcare, government, and financial services, ASM audit logs record every object state change with timestamps and actor attribution. We extract the full audit log table and map it to Zoho Desk Ticket comments or, if the Zoho edition supports custom record types, a Compliance_Record__c custom object. Actor attribution is preserved by matching ASM user IDs to the migrated Zoho Agent records. The customer must confirm during scoping whether audit log retention is a compliance requirement in the destination system and whether Zoho Desk's standard change history meets that requirement.

ASM Designer creates custom fields with BU_[fieldname]_[fieldtype] naming conventions. We extract the active schema definition and map each field to a Zoho Desk custom field of equivalent type. ASM field versioning creates duplicate schema entries when field types change between build cycles; we identify which version is referenced in active screens and workflows during discovery, discard deprecated field versions, and use only the current active definition in the mapping. Custom field values migrate as part of the parent ticket record.

ASM Service Catalogue items drive the Self-Service Portal and bundle related offerings with workflows, pricing, and category assignments. Zoho Desk does not have a native service catalogue object equivalent at standard tiers. We extract catalogue entries and item-to-category associations as a structured CSV deliverable for the customer to rebuild in Zoho Desk's Help Topics and, if required, Zoho Creator for more complex catalogue workflows.