Migrate from HelpDesk 3 to Zendesk

HelpDesk 3 Tickets map directly to Zendesk Tickets with status, priority, assignee, linked customer, and conversation thread preserved. We resolve the assignee by matching HelpDesk 3 agent email to Zendesk User email. HelpDesk 3's status values (open, pending, resolved, closed) map to Zendesk Ticket Status; any custom statuses without direct Zendesk equivalents are flagged in the audit. SLA timestamps migrate to Zendesk SLA Policy fields if the destination Suite plan supports SLA tracking. Multi-email linking to a single ticket is preserved as additional Requester emails on the Zendesk Ticket.

HelpDesk 3 Customer records map to Zendesk End Users. Contact details, company association, and email address transfer directly. Email address serves as the dedupe key; duplicate matches by email are merged during import. Customers with linked company data in HelpDesk 3 map to Zendesk Organizations if the company association is present, or remain as standalone Users if no company link exists. Billing profile fields migrate to a custom field section or to a separate customer notes field depending on the customer's post-migration billing strategy.

HelpDesk 3 Agent accounts (name, email, role, availability) map to Zendesk Agent accounts. We resolve agents by email match. Role assignments (Admin, Agent, Viewer) map to Zendesk Roles where Admin maps to light agent with admin rights, Agent maps to standard agent, and Viewer maps to an end-user role with view-only access. Availability settings in HelpDesk 3 do not have a direct Zendesk equivalent; we flag these for manual configuration in Zendesk admin settings post-migration.

HelpDesk 3 FAQ Articles export as structured HTML with title, body content, category, and visibility settings. We remap article categories to Zendesk Guide Sections and map visibility settings to Zendesk Article permissions (public, authenticated, or draft). HTML body content migrates directly; any embedded images are exported to cloud storage and their URLs updated in the article body to point to Zendesk's attachment hosting. Article publish date and author information migrate as metadata fields.

HelpDesk 3 stores in-app chat transcripts and email threads as separate conversation objects under a single ticket. We merge these into a single chronological conversation record in Zendesk by timestamp-ordering all messages and tagging each with its original channel (email or chat) in the Zendesk Comment author_type and public/private fields. Chat messages from HelpDesk 3 are imported as private comments in Zendesk unless the customer specifies they should be public. This merge step is critical to avoid duplicate or out-of-order message artifacts in the ticket timeline.

File attachments linked to HelpDesk 3 tickets and FAQ articles export to cloud storage, and their references relink to Zendesk's attachment hosting during import. Attachments stored as linked URLs (not uploaded files) are flagged separately and require a decision on whether to migrate as URL fields in Zendesk or leave them as-is with the original links preserved in ticket comments. Orphaned attachments with no parent ticket reference are logged and excluded unless the customer explicitly requests inclusion.

HelpDesk 3 tags on tickets and articles preserve as Zendesk tags. Tag namespaces are normalized at migration time so that a tag named priority-high in HelpDesk 3 does not conflict with a differently-named tag in Zendesk. We map tag names directly without namespace prefixing unless the customer requests a specific naming convention. Tags used for categorization across both tickets and articles migrate with their source object context preserved.

HelpDesk 3 per-ticket and per-customer custom field definitions and values are extracted during the audit phase. Custom field types (text, number, dropdown, checkbox, date) map to Zendesk field types (text, integer, dropdown, checkbox, date). Dropdown and multi-select custom fields in HelpDesk 3 require pre-creation of the field in Zendesk with matching option values before import; we handle this by exporting the option lists and uploading them as Zendesk field values via CSV before record migration begins. Custom field values migrate as typed field values, not as tags, to preserve reporting integrity in Zendesk.

HelpDesk 3 ticket status workflows (open, pending, resolved, closed, and any custom statuses) map to Zendesk Ticket Status values. We configure Zendesk ticket fields to represent HelpDesk 3's priority levels (low, medium, high, urgent) as a separate priority field or as custom field values, depending on the customer's reporting needs. Custom status values that lack a direct Zendesk equivalent are flagged in the audit and mapped to the nearest Zendesk Status value, with a note in the migration report.

HelpDesk 3 portal visibility rules and submission form configurations are tied to HelpDesk 3's CMS and are not structurally portable to Zendesk Guide or Support. We document the portal configuration during the audit, including visibility settings, submission form field layouts, and any custom branding or theming, and deliver a written configuration guide for the customer's admin to rebuild in Zendesk's Help Center and ticket form settings.