Migrate from CA Service Desk Manager to Freshdesk

CA SDM Requests map directly to Freshdesk Ticket. The ref_num becomes the Freshdesk ticket ID reference, description maps to the ticket description field, priority maps to Freshdesk priority (Urgent/High/Medium/Low), and status maps to the corresponding Freshdesk status (Open/Pending/Resolved/Closed). Custom attributes defined in CA SDM .maj files migrate as Freshdesk custom fields; we require the .maj file schema before mapping custom attributes. Open tickets migrate with current status and assignee preserved; closed tickets migrate as Closed tickets to maintain resolution history.

CA SDM Incidents are a distinct ITIL-aligned object separate from Requests, tracked via the request_type attribute. We collapse Incidents into Freshdesk Tickets with the Type field set to Incident. Incident-specific fields (root cause description, related problem link) migrate as custom fields or to Freshdesk internal notes. The incident-to-incident linking in CA SDM does not have a direct Freshdesk equivalent; we preserve cross-incident references in a custom field for audit purposes.

CA SDM Change Requests have a dedicated schema (change_id, category, risk_level, approval_status, implementation_schedule) with multi-level authorization chains. Freshdesk's Enterprise and Omnichannel plans expose a change_requests API endpoint for ITSM change management; lower tiers collapse Change records into typed Tickets. We scope this during discovery: if the destination is Enterprise/Omnichannel, Changes map to change_requests with risk_level and approval_status preserved. Otherwise, Changes map to typed Tickets with the Change category in a custom field and a status workflow approximating the original approval chain.

CA SDM Problem records track root-cause analysis separate from individual incidents. Problem records typically have lower volume than Requests or Incidents but carry high audit value. We offer two strategies during scoping: Problems map to Freshdesk Tickets with a Problem link field and a custom problem_id field referencing the CA SDM Problem identifier, or Problems are archived as Freshdesk Solutions articles (unpublished, internal) so that the root-cause knowledge is preserved even if the Problem record structure does not map cleanly to Freshdesk's ticket model.

CA SDM Knowledge Manager articles (km_record) export with title, summary, full_text, author, approval_status, and publication_date. We map km_record to Freshdesk Solution, but the category hierarchy in CA SDM's Knowledge Manager does not export as structured data—it must be manually mapped to Freshdesk Solutions categories during scoping. Published articles migrate with their text content and author. Articles with approval_status of Draft or Review do not migrate as published; we flag these for manual republishing post-migration. Article-to-request linkage references are preserved as custom fields on the Solution for traceability.

CA SDM Contacts (representing end-users and support staff) map to Freshdesk Contact. We export userid, last_name, first_name, email, phone, organization, and the user_type attribute distinguishing requesters from analysts. Role assignments (analyst group memberships, approval authority) do not map directly to Freshdesk agent roles and are preserved in a reconciliation document for the admin to configure post-migration. Contacts without email addresses are flagged as partial records and require manual resolution before Freshdesk import because Freshdesk requires a unique identifier per contact.

CA SDM Organization records (representing corporate entities that Contacts belong to) map to Freshdesk Company. We export org_name, org_uuid, description, and primary_contact references. Organizations export as a separate object before Contact import so that the Company lookup is satisfied at the moment Freshdesk Contact records are created. Multi-tenant and multi-site deployments in CA SDM require careful deduplication review during scoping because the same legal entity may appear under multiple org_name variants.

CA SDM support groups (grp objects with group_id, member list, and group lead) map to Freshdesk Groups. We export group memberships and preserve the analyst-to-group assignments as a lookup table so that destination groups can be pre-staged before Contact migration. CA SDM nested group hierarchies may need flattening in Freshdesk depending on the destination plan tier, since Freshdesk Groups support a flat structure on lower plans.

CA SDM integrates with CA CMDB for asset data. Asset exports include ci_name, ci_type, serial_number, assignment, and location. Freshdesk's Asset Management is available on Enterprise and Omnichannel plans; if the destination plan includes Asset Management, we map Configuration Items to Freshdesk Assets. Custom CI attributes defined in .mod files require the schema file for field-level mapping. Assets without a matching asset_type in Freshdesk are created as generic assets with the original CA SDM ci_type preserved in a custom field.