Migrate from DeskDirector to Zoho Desk

DeskDirector Tickets map directly to Zoho Desk Tickets with subject, description, status, priority, and created/modified timestamps. The 6-month culling rule means tickets not updated within 6 months are absent from DeskDirector's API; we flag these during scoping so the customer can decide whether to patch last-update timestamps in DeskDirector before export or accept them as out-of-scope. Zoho Desk's native import does not preserve original Created_at dates for tickets (they default to import time); we embed the original creation timestamp in the first comment body attributed to the creating agent to maintain audit integrity.

DeskDirector Contacts migrate to Zoho Desk Contacts. VIP flag maps to a custom picklist field vip_status__c with values VIP/Standard; Approval flag maps to approval_access__c as a boolean; Invoice access flag maps to invoice_access__c as a boolean. These flags have no native Zoho Desk equivalents and must be preserved as custom fields. Contact-to-multiple-Company associations in DeskDirector require resolution: we attach each Contact to its primary Company in Zoho Desk and preserve secondary associations in a custom multi-select field secondary_companies__c for the customer's admin to disambiguate post-migration.

DeskDirector Companies map to Zoho Desk Accounts. The Domain SID stored in DeskDirector for AD auto-login is preserved in a custom text field domain_sid__c as a reference; this must be re-registered in Zoho Desk or the customer's AD configuration post-migration. Email Domain routing from DeskDirector becomes the Account Website field as a fallback identifier. Companies are migrated before Contacts so that AccountId is resolved at Contact insert time.

DeskDirector Boards act as ticket queues with independent permission sets per Contact. Board-to-Zoho Desk mapping depends on routing complexity: single-queue MSPs map a Board to a Zoho Desk Department; multi-queue MSPs map each Board to a Zoho Desk Department with its own Team membership. Board permission gates (which Contacts can see which Boards) map to Zoho Desk Team membership and role assignments. Any custom overrides not discoverable via API must be confirmed with the customer during scoping and manually reconfigured in Zoho Desk Teams post-migration.

DeskDirector Agents (technicians) map to Zoho Desk Agents. Agent-to-board assignments migrate as Zoho Desk Team membership and department associations. Agent chat presence settings do not have Zoho Desk equivalents. Zoho Desk requires that agents exist before tickets referencing them are imported; we enforce Agent provisioning as the first phase of production migration and hold any ticket import pending unresolved Agent references.

DeskDirector Dynamic Forms with conditional logic and custom field configurations are exportable as configuration JSON but require manual re-implementation in Zoho Desk's Layout and Fields designer. We deliver the exported form JSON with a field-by-field mapping to Zoho Desk field types (text, picklist, multi-select, checkbox, date, number). Conditional logic branches, field visibility rules, and pre-triage routing do not transfer automatically and must be rebuilt as Zoho Desk Blueprint flows or macro conditions by the customer's admin.

DeskDirector Knowledge Base articles and category hierarchy map to Zoho Desk Solutions articles and sections. We export article content and category structure during migration. AI Assistant rule configurations (auto-referencing rules, bespoke custom tools) are tenant-specific and not covered by the DeskDirector API; we flag their existence and note they must be manually rebuilt as Zoho Desk macros or knowledge base manual configurations. Article attachments migrate with URL preserved; if DeskDirector blob storage is used, URLs break at cutover unless the customer migrates the blob storage simultaneously.

DeskDirector SLA configurations (response time, resolution time, priority-to-SLA mappings tied to boards) map to Zoho Desk SLA Policy definitions. SLA metric definitions migrate as configuration records; actual SLA breach data (whether a ticket breached its SLA during DeskDirector's tenure) does not migrate as a field because Zoho Desk tracks SLA status independently. Priority mapping from DeskDirector (typically P1-P4) migrates as Zoho Desk Priority values with the same labels.

Tags on DeskDirector Tickets and Companies migrate as 1:1 string arrays on the corresponding Zoho Desk Ticket or Account record. Tags are a flat string-keyed label system in DeskDirector and map directly to Zoho Desk's tag feature without transformation.

Ticket attachments referenced by URL in DeskDirector migrate with the URL preserved. If attachments are stored in DeskDirector's blob storage, the destination URL breaks after cutover unless the customer migrates the blob storage simultaneously. We flag any DeskDirector-hosted attachment URLs during export so the customer can decide whether to re-host or accept broken links before the migration window.

DeskDirector Chat Sessions are ephemeral runtime records managed by the Chat Session Manager with no API endpoint for historical transcript retrieval. Chat history is not migratable. We flag this explicitly during scoping and recommend the customer export required conversation logs manually via DeskDirector's UI before the cutover window if regulatory or audit requirements demand preservation.

DeskDirector AI Assistant Custom Tools are bespoke tenant-specific integrations referencing internal endpoints not covered by the public API. These do not migrate. We flag their existence in the migration inventory and note they must be manually rebuilt as Zoho Desk macros, Blueprint flows, or Zia AI configurations by the customer's admin post-migration.