Migrate from CommBox to Zendesk

Each CommBox Conversation maps to a Zendesk Ticket. The conversation thread (all messages from all channels in chronological order) migrates as a series of Zendesk Comments on the ticket, preserving agent attribution, customer messages, and internal notes. Channel origin (WhatsApp, email, voice, chat, social) is stored in a custom ticket field zds_channel_source__c so agents see the omnichannel context without opening the ticket. Status, priority, and SLA timestamps carry over as native ticket fields. CommBox conversation ID is preserved in a custom field zds_conv_id__c for audit trail.

CommBox Customer profiles (name, email, phone, custom properties) map to Zendesk End User records. When a CommBox customer is associated with a company or organization in the source data, we map it to a Zendesk Organization and link the End User to it via the organization_id field. Customers without an organization association land as standalone End Users. Email serves as the primary dedupe key for End User resolution. Historical conversation count and last-contact date migrate as custom fields on the End User.

CommBox Agent profiles (name, email, team assignment, role) map to Zendesk User records. We resolve agents by email match against the destination Zendesk org. Agent team membership migrates to Zendesk Group membership, with CommBox team names mapped to Zendesk Group names. The customer's admin provisions Zendesk Users before migration or we create them with a placeholder password, flagging the account for activation. Any CommBox agent referenced on a conversation without a matching Zendesk User is documented for admin resolution.

CommBox Custom Fields (tenant-defined key-value pairs attached to Customer profiles) are extracted during discovery and explicitly mapped to Zendesk custom fields. We pre-create Zendesk custom ticket fields or user fields matching the CommBox field type (text, dropdown, checkbox, date) before migration. Fields without a Zendesk equivalent are flagged in a Custom Fields Inventory document for the customer to resolve. The original CommBox field name and definition are preserved in the Zendesk field description for audit.

CommBox conversation tags (labels applied for categorization) migrate to Zendesk Tags. Tag labels are preserved verbatim and re-applied to the corresponding Zendesk Ticket via the tag API. Zendesk tag limits (1,000 active tags per account) are checked during scoping; tags exceeding the limit are consolidated or archived post-migration.

File attachments (images, PDFs, voice recordings) embedded in CommBox conversations are extracted via the CommBox media API and re-uploaded as Zendesk ticket comment attachments. Inline image embeds in message bodies are replaced with Zendesk inline image markup after upload. Voice call recordings migrate as file attachments to the ticket. We handle both inline attachments (embedded in message JSON) and referenced attachments (separate media records) from CommBox's channel-specific storage.

CommBox knowledge base articles (title, body content, categories, publish status) migrate to Zendesk Guide articles. Article body HTML is cleaned and normalized for Zendesk Guide's article editor, with media embeds re-hosted as Zendesk-hosted assets. Section and category hierarchy maps to Zendesk Guide Sections and Categories. Draft status and author attribution are preserved. Customers should budget for post-migration formatting review because article layout may shift when rendered in Zendesk Guide's styling engine.

AssignX routing rules (which assign conversations to agents or teams based on conditions) are documented during scoping as a Routing Rules Inventory. The inventory captures the trigger, condition, and action for every active rule with screenshots. These rules cannot be exported as data and must be rebuilt manually in Zendesk as Triggers, Macros, or Routing Automations depending on the Zendesk plan. We do not automate the rebuild; the inventory is the deliverable.

CommBox SLA configurations (response and resolution timers per channel or team) are exported as structured metadata and documented in an SLA Policies Inventory. The inventory maps each SLA definition to the equivalent Zendesk SLA Policy configuration. The customer's Zendesk admin recreates the SLA policies in the Zendesk Admin Center. SLA breach timestamps from CommBox are not transferred because they are computed values rather than stored records.

CommBox channel metadata (WhatsApp, email, voice, chat, social) is a first-class attribute of every conversation. Zendesk's standard ticket model does not have a native channel field, so we normalize channel origin into a custom ticket field zds_channel_source__c with a dropdown set to the channel values present in the CommBox export. Channel-specific sub-properties (WhatsApp message ID, email thread ID, voice call duration) are stored as additional custom fields or in the ticket comment body depending on data type.