Migrate from CA Service Desk Manager to Intercom

CA SDM Requests map directly to Intercom Tickets. The ref_num becomes the Ticket ID, description maps to the initial message body, priority and status map to Ticket priority and state. Category and request_type attributes migrate as custom Ticket attributes. We preserve the requester contact reference as the Ticket author User in Intercom.

Incidents in CA SDM are a distinct request type with incident-specific attributes (impact, urgency, related CI). We map Incidents to Intercom Tickets using a custom attribute incident_type__c to flag them separately. The ITSM concept of a separate Incident object has no native Intercom equivalent, so we use a Ticket attribute to preserve the distinction for audit and reporting.

CA SDM Contacts map to Intercom Users. userid maps to the Intercom external_id, email to the email address, and first_name/last_name to the name fields. The user_type attribute (requester vs analyst) is preserved in a custom attribute contact_type__c. Analysts who will also be Intercom teammates require separate provisioning as Intercom Admins or Teammates outside the Contact migration scope.

CA SDM Organizations map to Intercom Companies. org_name becomes the Company name and org_uuid becomes the external_id for dedupe. If Contacts reference multiple organizations, the primary_org flag determines which Company association is primary in Intercom.

CA SDM Knowledge Articles (km_record) map to Intercom Help Center Articles. title and summary migrate as Article title and summary; full_text migrates as the Article body. publication_status maps to Article publish state. Article-to-request linkage references are preserved as custom attributes on the Article for cases where the customer wants to rebuild article-to-ticket linking through Intercom's rules engine.

CA SDM Change Requests track IT change orders with approval_status, risk_level, and implementation_schedule. Intercom has no Change Management object. We flag Change records for the customer to decide: archive as JSON, map to a custom Ticket attribute, or exclude from migration. The disposition decision is made during scoping and documented in the migration spec.

CA SDM Problem records track root-cause analysis separate from incidents, with related_incident lists and known_error_flag. Intercom has no Problem object. We extract the problem_id, related_incident references, and root_cause_description and deliver them as a structured JSON export alongside the ticket migration for the customer's audit or GRC team.

CA SDM support groups (grp objects with member list and lead) map to Intercom Teams. We export group_id, group_name, members, and lead as a lookup table during scoping. The customer provisions matching Teams in Intercom before migration begins, and we resolve the group-to-team mapping during Contact and Ticket import.

CA SDM CI records (ci_name, ci_type, serial_number, assignment, location) from the CMDB integration have no direct Intercom equivalent. Intercom is not an asset management platform. We extract CI data as a structured CSV export during migration and flag it for the customer to import into a dedicated CMDB or asset management tool post-migration.

SLA targets in CA SDM are stored in policy files and not accessible via REST API. We preserve the request-level SLA assignment (sla_pl value) as a custom attribute on the migrated Ticket. Full SLA policy definitions (escalation thresholds, business-hour calendars) require manual export from CA SDM policy files and are delivered as a written document for the customer's admin to assess against Intercom's SLA inbox settings.

CA SDM attachments are doclink entries referencing server filesystem paths or an external document repository. We identify attachment references during export, then perform a secondary pass to upload files to Intercom's attachment storage and link them to the corresponding Ticket. The CA SDM server filesystem must remain accessible throughout the migration window; if it is decommissioned before attachment extraction completes, those files are inaccessible.

CA SDM post-resolution survey scores and responses linked to requests map to Intercom Conversation Ratings if the customer enables this feature. If Intercom Conversation Ratings are not active, we deliver survey data as a structured export linked to the original Ticket ref_num for the customer's admin to review.