Migrate from Halo Service Desk to Zendesk

Halo Tickets map to Zendesk Tickets with the full lifecycle preserved (status, priority, type). Halo ticket_id becomes a custom Zendesk field for cross-reference during validation. Ticket SLA associations migrate as tags linked to the Zendesk SLA Policy reference. Status mappings are defined during scoping against the customer's Halo ticket type configuration. Approval processes must be disabled before import to prevent email floods and SLA clock starts on migrated records.

Halo Conversations on a Ticket map to Zendesk Comments on the corresponding Ticket. The is_public flag determines whether the comment is public (visible to the requester) or internal (agent-only). Author attribution maps from Halo agent_id to the Zendesk User record resolved during the owner reconciliation step. Timestamps and thread ordering are preserved by setting the Zendesk Comment created_at to the original Halo conversation timestamp.

Halo Customers are standalone records that can link to multiple Companies. We split each Customer into a Zendesk User (the contact record) and optionally link or create a Zendesk Organization. The customer's primary Company in Halo maps to the Organization name; additional linked Companies are preserved in a custom text field organization_names__c. Email, phone, and address fields map directly. If a Customer has no linked Company in Halo, we create a Zendesk User with no Organization assignment.

Halo Companies map to Zendesk Organizations. Organization name, domain, address, and custom fields transfer directly. We pre-create the Organizations before User import so that the organization_id lookup is satisfied at the moment of User insert. If the same organization appears under multiple names in Halo (from multiple linked Companies), we merge them into a single Zendesk Organization and note the duplicates in the reconciliation report.

Halo Agents map to Zendesk Users. We resolve by email match against the Zendesk destination account. Any Halo Agent without a matching Zendesk User goes to a reconciliation queue for the admin to provision before record import resumes. Agent team assignments map to Zendesk Groups, and individual agents are added to Groups during the team mapping step. Agent role configurations (admin vs agent) map to Zendesk Admin vs Agent roles.

Halo Teams map to Zendesk Groups for ticket routing and queue management. Agent-to-Team assignments are preserved by adding each mapped agent to the corresponding Zendesk Group. Group names and descriptions transfer directly. If a ticket in Halo has a team assignment rather than an individual agent, we map that to Zendesk Group assignment on the Ticket.

Halo KB articles with title, body content, category, and publish status map to Zendesk Help Center articles. Article attachments migrate as linked file records. Category hierarchy from Halo maps to Zendesk Section structure. Publish status (draft vs published) maps to Zendesk's draft and published states. HTML content is preserved as-is; the customer validates rendering in the Zendesk Help Center after migration.

Halo custom fields (text, date, dropdown, multiselect) require pre-creation in Zendesk Admin before import because Zendesk stores custom field values in a numeric ID-keyed array. We coordinate the pre-creation step: each Halo custom field becomes a Zendesk ticket or user custom field of the equivalent type. Dropdown and multiselect options must be created in Zendesk first so that option IDs exist for mapping. SQL lookup fields in Halo are text fields referencing other records; we map these to a Zendesk text field with the referenced value embedded.

Halo SLA Policies define response and resolution timeframes tied to Ticket types and priorities. We map these to Zendesk SLA Policies with corresponding First Reply Time and Next Reply Time targets. Halo's business hours and holiday calendar configuration must be recreated in Zendesk Admin as Zendesk Business Hours and Holiday Calendars before SLA policies can reference them. SLA metric names and targets transfer directly; SLA status ( breached, met, in progress ) is not migrated as it is a runtime state recalculated by Zendesk.

Halo Assets linked to Customers and Sites have no direct Zendesk equivalent at the object level. We map asset records as a custom Zendesk ticket field or Organization-level field holding the asset identifier, type, and serial number as a structured text block. Asset-to-Ticket relationships are preserved by embedding the asset reference on the migrated Ticket. Full asset management functionality requires a Zendesk Asset Management add-on which the customer may activate separately.