Migrate from Gladly to Zoho Desk

Gladly Customer Profiles carry the primary contact identity (name, email, phone, address) and all associated conversation history. We split each Customer Profile into a Zoho Desk Contact record (primary identity fields) and optionally an Account record (for B2B or multi-contact households). The Gladly Customer ID is stored as a custom field gladly_customer_id__c on the Zoho Desk Contact for audit and reconciliation. If the customer uses Gladly's secondary contact fields, those map to Zoho Desk Contact custom fields.

Gladly enforces one open Conversation per Customer Profile at any time. Each Conversation maps to one or more Zoho Desk Tickets based on issue type or channel split. The Conversation subject, creation timestamp, last-modified timestamp, and status (open, paused, closed) map to Zoho Desk Ticket subject, createdTime, modifiedTime, and status. If a single Gladly Conversation contains multiple distinct issue threads, we split by Topic or message gap into separate Tickets to preserve clean issue tracking in Zoho Desk.

Gladly Conversation Items represent individual messages across email, SMS, voice call summary, and chat. We map each Conversation Item to a Zoho Desk Ticket Comment with direction (customer/agent), channel metadata, timestamp, and agent attribution preserved. Voice call recordings are stored as attachments in Gladly; we map the recording URL to a Zoho Desk Ticket attachment and flag it for re-link if Zoho Desk supports the same file hosting. Channel metadata (email, SMS, voice, chat) migrates as comment channel type via Zoho Desk's channel field.

Gladly Topics are taggable labels applied to Conversations for routing and analytics. We export Topic assignments per Conversation and apply them as Zoho Desk Tags on the corresponding Tickets. Tags preserve the routing and category context that agents use for filtering and reporting. If Zoho Desk's department-scoped tags are in use, we coordinate tag names across departments during scoping.

Gladly User records (name, email, role, permissions) map to Zoho Desk Agent records. We match by email address. Role mapping from Gladly (Admin, Supervisor, Agent) to Zoho Desk role profiles (Support Admin, Agent) is defined during scoping, and any role without a direct equivalent is escalated to the customer's admin for manual assignment post-migration. Inactive Gladly users migrate as inactive Zoho Desk agents to preserve historical attribution.

Gladly Workflows encode routing logic, spam filtering, required disclosures, and agent handoff rules as platform configuration. Zoho Desk Blueprint and workflow rules handle escalation, SLA timing, assignment, and notification flows differently. We audit every active Gladly Workflow during discovery and deliver a written specification document mapping each Workflow trigger, condition, and action to its Zoho Desk Blueprint or workflow rule equivalent. The customer's admin or a Zoho consultant rebuilds these in the destination. We do not migrate Workflows as code.

Gladly uses Topics to route Conversations to queues or agents. Zoho Desk uses Departments as the primary organizational unit with ticket assignment rules within each department. We map Gladly Topics to Zoho Desk Departments or to tag-based assignment rules depending on the customer's routing complexity. Multi-topic routing requires either department restructuring or a custom assignment rule configuration in Zoho Desk that we design and hand off.

Gladly exposes a webhook system with configurable events, retry policies, and ping events. Zoho Desk has a separate webhook and third-party integration architecture. We export the customer's Gladly webhook configurations (event types, endpoints, payload structure, retry settings) during discovery and provide a written specification for reimplementing the same triggers in Zoho Desk. Any downstream systems consuming Gladly webhooks (CRMs, analytics tools, order management) need to be updated to the new Zoho Desk endpoint post-migration.

Gladly Answers articles (title, body, categories, metadata) map to Zoho Desk Help Center articles. We export article content, category structure, and internal/external visibility flags. Article URLs change after migration, so we document the full URL mapping for the customer's web team to set up redirects. AI-generated response templates in Gladly Answers do not migrate as AI configurations; they become standard articles that the customer's admin can re-train in Zoho Desk's Zia AI or similar tool.

Gladly supports custom data mappings on Customer Profiles and Conversations for complex rules and custom objects. Zoho Desk implements equivalent data as department-scoped custom fields on Tickets, Contacts, or Accounts. We audit the customer's Gladly configuration for any custom objects, map them field-by-field to Zoho Desk custom fields of matching type (text, number, date, picklist, checkbox), and create the destination schema before migration. Zoho Desk enforces per-module custom field limits (total 230 across all field types) which we verify during scoping.

Gladly's Work Sessions Report retains old Customer IDs after profile merges, which we use to preserve both current and historical IDs during migration. Zoho Desk reporting captures agent handle time, first response time, resolution time, and CSAT natively. We export the customer's Gladly CSV reports for historical context and deliver a reconciliation note flagging any Work Sessions Report data that uses merged Customer IDs. Post-migration, the customer's admin rebuilds any custom Gladly reports as Zoho Desk report configurations.

Gladly Customer Profiles store secondary contact data beyond primary email and phone (loyalty IDs, preferences, social handles, birthday). We map these to Zoho Desk Contact custom fields. Social profile URLs and messenger handles from Gladly become Zoho Desk Contact text fields. Loyalty program status and custom identifiers become picklist or text custom fields depending on the data type.