Migrate from Helpwise to Zoho Desk

Helpwise Conversations map directly to Zoho Desk Tickets. The conversation thread body, all message entries (customer and agent), timestamps, assignee, status, and priority transfer into the Zoho Desk ticket with its thread history intact. The Helpwise inbox assignment maps to the Zoho Desk Department based on the channel type routing configured during schema design. We preserve the original conversation ID in a custom field hw_conversation_id__c for audit trail and cross-reference during reconciliation.

Helpwise Contacts migrate to Zoho Desk Contacts by email address as the dedupe key. Full name, email, phone, mobile, and any custom contact properties transfer directly. A known limitation: Zoho Desk requires email to be unique per Contact record, and Helpwise does not enforce email uniqueness at the account level, so duplicate emails found during scoping are flagged and the customer decides which Contact wins or whether to merge.

Helpwise shared inboxes (the primary organizational unit) do not have a direct Zoho Desk equivalent because Zoho Desk uses Department as the primary organizational container with channel routing configured per department. We map each Helpwise inbox to a Zoho Desk Department, configuring the channel type (Email, Live Chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram) on the department. Assignee membership from the Helpwise inbox is reproduced by adding the corresponding Zoho Desk agents to the department. Multi-brand Helpwise accounts (used by MSPs) map each brand inbox to a separate department.

Tags applied to Helpwise conversations and contacts migrate to Zoho Desk Tags with the tag name and color preserved exactly. If duplicate tag names exist across different Helpwise inboxes, we scope them with an inbox prefix in Zoho Desk to prevent collision. We do not rename or deduplicate tags unless explicitly requested by the customer during scoping.

Helpwise internal notes attached to conversations migrate to Zoho Desk Notes linked to the corresponding Ticket. Author, timestamp, and body text transfer with the internal visibility preserved. Notes in Zoho Desk are accessible to agents with the appropriate department permissions but are not visible to end customers on the portal.

Helpwise team members map to Zoho Desk Agents by email address. We create the agent record, assign them to the departments that correspond to their Helpwise inbox access, and set their role (Agent, Light Agent, or Support Administrator) based on their Helpwise permission level. If a team member email does not have a corresponding Zoho Desk user provisioned before migration, we hold the agent mapping in a reconciliation queue for the customer's admin to provision.

Helpwise Saved Replies (canned responses) map to Zoho Desk Macros with the shortcut code and full body content preserved. Helpwise Standard caps Saved Replies at 15; if the source account exceeds this, we audit the full list during scoping and present the gap to the customer for manual pruning before migration, or recommend upgrading the destination to Premium (unlimited macros) first.

Helpwise Help Center articles and categories map to Zoho Desk Help Center sections and articles. Published status, article body content, and category structure transfer. Internal hyperlinks within articles are rewritten to point to the new Zoho Desk article URLs post-migration. If the Helpwise Knowledge Base uses custom domains, the Zoho Desk Help Center URL structure is documented for DNS reconfiguration after cutover.

Helpwise Automation Rules (assignment, tagging, forwarding, and routing triggers) do not have a direct Zoho Desk equivalent in structure. Zoho Desk Blueprint defines ticket stages with required actions and transitions; Workflows define automated actions based on field changes. We audit every active Helpwise Automation Rule, document its trigger conditions, actions, and routing logic, and produce a written Blueprint and Workflow specification for the customer's admin to rebuild in Zoho Desk. Automations are not executed as part of the data migration scope.

Helpwise SLA Rules (available on Advanced tier at $49/user/month) map to Zoho Desk Service Level Agreements with First Response Time and Resolution Time targets. Helpwise SLA conditions (business hours, priority level, assignee) translate to Zoho Desk SLA conditions by matching priority and department scope. If the destination Zoho Desk account is on a plan below Professional, SLA enforcement will not activate post-migration; we flag this gap during scoping and recommend plan selection before migration begins.

Helpwise custom contact fields and custom ticket fields migrate with field names and values preserved in Zoho Desk. A critical distinction: Zoho Desk custom fields are scoped per department, not account-wide. If a Helpwise custom field was used across multiple inboxes, it must be created separately in each relevant Zoho Desk department. We document every Helpwise custom field, its data type, and the departments in which it was used, then reproduce it in each destination department during schema setup.

Attachments to Helpwise conversations migrate as file attachments to the corresponding Zoho Desk Ticket. Zoho Desk enforces a 10 GB file size limit per migration (confirmed via Zoho Desk migration documentation). We audit total attachment volume during scoping; if the migration approaches or exceeds 10 GB, we notify the customer and recommend a selective attachment migration (excluding media files over a size threshold) or a direct Zoho Desk support escalation for the overage. Large video or image attachments may be flagged for manual re-upload if they exceed the cap.