Migrate from Freshdesk to Zendesk

Freshdesk Tickets map to Zendesk Tickets with full conversation history. The Freshdesk status Open and Pending map directly to Zendesk Open and Pending. Freshdesk Resolved maps to Zendesk Solved (terminology difference, not a schema gap). Freshdesk Closed maps to Zendesk Closed. Ticket priority, type, group, and agent assignments migrate directly. We use Zendesk's /imports/tickets endpoint to preserve created_at, updated_at, and closed_at timestamps on historical records.

Freshdesk Contacts (called Requesters) map to Zendesk End Users. Email is required for all Zendesk requesters; we flag any Freshdesk Contact without an email address during scoping and either create placeholder records or exclude per the customer's data-quality policy. Custom contact fields migrate as Zendesk user fields after the destination fields are pre-created in Zendesk Admin.

Freshdesk Companies map to Zendesk Organizations. The domain field on Freshdesk Company populates Zendesk's domain for auto-linking. Organizations must exist before Contacts that reference them can be imported, so we load Organizations first. Multiple company memberships per contact (available in Freshdesk Pro and Enterprise) map to Zendesk's multi-organization membership model.

Freshdesk Agents map to Zendesk Agents. We extract agent records with their group assignments and role definitions. Agents who are also ticket requesters are flagged during scoping to prevent circular references (an agent cannot be both the assignee and the requester on the same ticket). Agent groups migrate as Zendesk Groups, and roles are mapped to Zendesk's Agent roles and permissions.

Freshdesk public conversation threads migrate as Zendesk Ticket Comments. Each comment carries its author, timestamp, and body. Public vs private distinction is preserved via Zendesk's is_public flag on the Comment API payload. Inline images attached to conversations migrate as Zendesk inline attachments under the 50 MB per-attachment limit.

Freshdesk private notes migrate as Zendesk internal comments with is_public=false. Author attribution is preserved by resolving the Freshdesk agent ID to the Zendesk Agent record. Private notes are visible only to Zendesk agents, matching Freshdesk's permission model.

Freshdesk Products (used to track customer-owned items associated with tickets) map to Zendesk Assets in the Zendesk Asset Management module (available on Enterprise Suite). If the destination Zendesk instance does not include Asset Management, we migrate product associations as a ticket custom field.

Freshdesk SLA Policies (available on Pro and Enterprise) migrate as Zendesk SLAs. SLA policies must be pre-created in Zendesk Admin Center before ticket import begins. We audit Freshdesk SLA definitions—first response time, next response time, resolution time, business hours—and map them to Zendesk's SLA metric and policy structure. Only Zendesk Suite Enterprise and above support SLAs; Pro-plan customers receive a written inventory of their SLA configuration for manual recreation.

Freshdesk custom ticket fields migrate as Zendesk ticket fields after the destination fields are created in Zendesk Admin. Dependent fields (conditional visibility in Freshdesk) have no native Zendesk equivalent; we document the dependency logic and recommend Zendesk Conditional Fields configuration post-migration. Field types map by data type: dropdown to dropdown, checkbox to checkbox, date to date.

Freshdesk custom contact fields migrate as Zendesk user fields. All custom fields must be pre-created in Zendesk Admin before the contact import phase. We pull the field definition from Freshdesk Admin > Support Operations > Customer Fields and replicate the field type, required flag, and dropdown options in Zendesk.

Freshdesk KB Articles with categories, sections, and translations migrate to Zendesk Help Center. We export article body (HTML), title, section assignment, author, status, and all locale translations. Attachments within articles migrate as Help Center article attachments. Categories map to Zendesk Sections; Sections map to Zendesk Categories in a flattened structure.

Freshdesk tags (flat list, applied to tickets, contacts, companies, and solutions) migrate directly as Zendesk tags. Tag associations are preserved on each record during migration. Tags are not hierarchically nested in either platform, so no transformation is required.