Migrate from LiveAgent to Zendesk

LiveAgent Tickets map directly to Zendesk Tickets. The LiveAgent ticket status (Open, Resolved, Archived) maps to Zendesk Ticket Status (Open, Pending, Solved, Closed) via a status mapping table defined at scoping. Priority, assignee email, customer email, subject, and custom field values transfer directly. We preserve the original LiveAgent ticket ID in a Zendesk custom ticket field for cross-reference after cutover. The 180 req/min export throttle requires paginated fetching; we use cursor-based pagination and chunk tickets into batches of 100 to stay within the limit.

LiveAgent Customer records map to Zendesk Users. Each Customer's name, email, phone, and address fields map to the corresponding Zendesk User fields. Custom field values on the Customer record transfer to Zendesk custom user fields, which we create dynamically if they do not exist in the destination. Email serves as the primary dedupe key; if a Zendesk User with the same email already exists, we update rather than create.

LiveAgent Company records map to Zendesk Organizations. Some LiveAgent accounts do not use Companies; we check the account schema during scoping and only create the Organization mapping if Companies are actively used. The Organization is created before any linked Tickets to satisfy Zendesk's Organization lookup requirement. Company custom fields map to Zendesk Organization custom fields in the same dynamic manner as User custom fields.

LiveAgent Conversation records on a Ticket map to Zendesk Comments on the corresponding Ticket. Each Conversation has an author (agent or customer), message body, timestamp, and optional attachment references. We preserve the author identity by resolving the LiveAgent agent email to a Zendesk User; customer-authored messages attach to the end-user (requester) on the Zendesk Ticket. Message ordering is preserved by setting the Comment creation timestamp to the original Conversation timestamp. Comments with public/internal visibility in LiveAgent map to public/private comments in Zendesk.

LiveAgent does not expose a standalone Agents API object; agent identity is embedded in ticket assignments and conversation author fields. We extract all distinct agent emails from Tickets and Conversations during scoping, then map them to Zendesk User records by email match. The customer's Zendesk admin provisions any missing agent accounts before migration, and we flag agents without a Zendesk User record in a reconciliation queue.

LiveAgent Tags applied to Tickets migrate to Zendesk Tags. Tags are created at migration time in Zendesk using the Tags API if they do not already exist, and then assigned to the corresponding Tickets via the Ticket Tags relationship. Tag name casing is preserved. Tags used for conversation-level labeling in LiveAgent apply to the parent Ticket in Zendesk.

LiveAgent Customer Groups (used to segment customers by tier or region) have no direct Zendesk equivalent. We evaluate the customer's use of Groups during scoping. If Groups represent a demographic segmentation, we map them to a Zendesk user custom field; if they represent an account-level segmentation, they map to an Organization custom field. The customer chooses the target during scoping.

LiveAgent Knowledge Base articles migrate to Zendesk Guide articles. LiveAgent categories map to Zendesk Guide Sections, and the Knowledge Base structure (categories containing sections containing articles) maps to the Guide Section hierarchy. We transfer article content, status (published/draft), and any ACL settings. Zendesk Guide must be activated in the destination account before article import; we configure Guide in setup mode and publish articles post-migration. Article author information maps to a Zendesk article author field.

LiveAgent file attachments linked to Tickets and Conversations are downloaded via the LiveAgent Files API, then uploaded to Zendesk as Ticket Attachments via the Comments API. We re-upload each file against the correct Ticket ID and Comment ID. Large attachment files (exceeding Zendesk's 50 MB per-file limit) are flagged for the customer's admin to store externally and link manually.

LiveAgent custom fields on Customer records vary per account and are discovered dynamically via the LiveAgent API during scoping. Each discovered custom field is created in Zendesk as a matching User custom field of the equivalent type (text, dropdown, checkbox, date, number) before Customer import begins. Dropdown fields require the LiveAgent picklist options to be mirrored as Zendesk tag or custom field options during the field creation step.

LiveAgent custom fields on Tickets follow the same dynamic discovery pattern as Customer custom fields. We enumerate all ticket custom field schemas during scoping, create the equivalent Zendesk ticket custom fields, and map the field values during ticket import. Custom field type mapping is verified during the demo migration phase to catch type mismatches (e.g., LiveAgent multi-select vs Zendesk tag arrays) before production migration begins.