Migrate from Insightly Service to Zoho Desk

Insightly Tickets migrate directly to Zoho Desk Tickets with Ticket Number, Subject, Description, Status, Priority, Assignee (resolved via agent email lookup), and Created Date preserved as a custom field since Zoho Desk sets ticket creation date to migration completion by default. Ticket category and custom fields use the FIELD_NAME endpoint from Insightly's /CustomFields/TICKET API to map custom field values to Zoho Desk custom fields pre-created in the destination. Linked Organization and Contact records resolve via accountExtId and contactExtId lookup after the Account and Contact import phases complete.

Insightly Ticket conversations migrate to Zoho Desk Thread entries and Comments. The first inbound message becomes a Thread; subsequent exchanges add to the Thread with direction (inbound/outbound) preserved where available. Author information migrates as a comment note because Zoho Desk's assisted migration tool does not preserve comment authorship for Contact or Agent attribution, a limitation common to Zoho's own Zwitch tool. Thread content, timestamps, and direction are preserved; author contact linkage requires manual review post-migration.

Insightly Organizations (the CRM-level Account equivalent) migrate to Zoho Desk Accounts. Organization Name maps to Account Name, website to Website, industry to Industry, and address fields to the standard address compound. Organization is imported before Contact so that accountExtId can be referenced on the Contact record during insert. The ORGANISATION_ID-to-accountExtId relationship is preserved in a custom field for audit trail.

Insightly Contacts migrate to Zoho Desk Contacts with one structural requirement: Zoho Desk Contacts must link to an Account. We pre-process the Contact set to identify any Contacts without a linked Organization in Insightly. Those records receive a placeholder Account created during migration so that the Contact import does not fail. Standard fields (First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, Mobile, Street, City, State, Country, Zip) map directly. Custom fields use FIELD_NAME lookup from Insightly's /CustomFields/CONTACT endpoint.

Insightly Agents migrate to Zoho Desk Agents. Each agentExtId is provisioned as a Zoho Desk Agent with First Name, Last Name, and Email. Role assignment (Admin, Agent, Supervisor) maps from Insightly's team role configuration. If a Zoho Desk agent with the same email already exists in a multi-portal Zoho account, the existing agent record is used. Agent-Team assignments are preserved as Zoho Desk Team memberships.

Insightly Teams migrate to Zoho Desk Teams with team name and member assignments preserved. Team membership is restored by resolving each member's email to their newly provisioned Zoho Desk agent record. Team-based ticket routing rules in Zoho Desk are recreated using the written inventory we deliver post-migration.

Insightly Opportunities exist in the CRM layer and may link to Tickets via Organization or Project. We do not migrate Opportunities as a standalone object to Zoho Desk (which has no Opportunity object). Instead, we preserve Opportunity references as a custom field on the related Account (opportunityName__c, opportunityValue__c) and document the Opportunity-to-Account linkage for the customer's admin to reconnect in their CRM if Zoho CRM is also in scope.

Insightly Projects linked to Tickets migrate as a set of Zoho Desk Tasks with a custom field projectId__c preserving the original Insightly PROJECT_ID. Standalone Projects without a Ticket linkage are documented in the handoff inventory for the customer's admin to evaluate for recreation in Zoho Projects or a project management tool if project tracking continues within the Zoho ecosystem.

Insightly custom fields on Tickets, Contacts, and Organizations require FIELD_NAME lookup from the /CustomFields/{objectName} API endpoint before mapping. The display label does not serve as the write key; the FIELD_NAME identifier is required for API writes. We enumerate all custom field definitions per object during discovery, create equivalent custom fields in Zoho Desk with matching data types before migration, and map values using the FIELD_NAME as the source key and Zoho's custom field ID as the destination key.

Ticket attachments on Insightly migrate as Files attached to Zoho Desk Tickets. We export attachment metadata (filename, URL, size) and file content via the Insightly API, then upload to Zoho Desk using the /api/v1/Attachments endpoint. Filename, file size, and MIME type are preserved. If attachment URLs in Insightly point to expiring signed URLs, we re-download and re-upload during migration rather than relying on URL forwarding. LinkedAttachments from Knowledge Base articles do not migrate, a limitation consistent with Zoho Desk's own Zwitch documentation.

Insightly Notes linked to Tickets migrate as Ticket Comments in Zoho Desk with a note indicator prefix in the comment body so agents can identify the original note content. Notes linked to Organizations or Contacts without a Ticket are documented in the handoff inventory as Zoho Desk Account-level or Contact-level notes for manual creation.

Insightly KB Articles migrate to Zoho Desk Knowledge Base with title, body content, category assignments, and publish status preserved. Article publish status (published, draft) maps to Zoho Desk's Published/Draft state. However, KB attachments embedded in article bodies do not migrate; Zoho Desk's own migration documentation explicitly states that Knowledge Base Attachments are excluded. We flag all affected articles during discovery and document the attachment list for manual re-upload post-migration.