Migrate from LiveAgent to Zoho Desk

LiveAgent Tickets map to Zoho Desk Tickets. The LiveAgent ticket ID is preserved in a Zoho Desk custom field (zohoTicketId__c or equivalent) for cross-system audit. LiveAgent statuses (New, Open, Pending, Resolved, Archived) map to Zoho Desk status values that we configure as part of the department layout before import. Priority and assignee map directly. Note: Zoho Desk requires Agents to exist in the system before Tickets can be assigned to them, so agent pre-provisioning is a hard prerequisite that must complete before the Ticket import phase.

LiveAgent Customers map to Zoho Desk Contacts. Name, email, phone, address, and social profile fields (Facebook, Twitter) migrate directly. The AccountExtId reference in Zoho Desk's Contacts CSV format is optional — if the LiveAgent Customer is linked to a Company, we import the Account first and then reference it on the Contact import. If no Company link exists, the Contact imports without an Account association. Custom fields on Contacts in LiveAgent require pre-creation in Zoho Desk under the target department's layout before import.

LiveAgent Companies map to Zoho Desk Accounts. Company name becomes Account Name, domain becomes Website, and industry, annual revenue, and description fields map to their Zoho Desk equivalents. Accounts must be imported before Contacts so that the Account lookup reference is available at Contact insert time. If the LiveAgent account does not use Companies, we skip this object and Contacts import without an Account association.

LiveAgent Conversations (the threaded message history within a Ticket) map to Zoho Desk Ticket Threads. Each thread record carries the message body, author type (customer or agent), timestamp, and channel type. Zoho Desk's import documentation states that selecting the Ticket module automatically includes its child modules — Ticket Threads and Attachments — so thread migration is handled as part of the ticket import pipeline. We fetch conversation records via LiveAgent's Conversations API and flatten them into the thread structure Zoho Desk expects.

LiveAgent Tags applied to Tickets migrate as Tags in Zoho Desk. Tag names are preserved exactly. Zoho Desk does not have a separate Tag management API for bulk creation, but tags are created implicitly when they appear in the ticket import data. If the customer's Zoho Desk plan limits tag-based filtering, we flag the constraint during scoping.

LiveAgent Agents must be matched to Zoho Desk Agents by email before ticket import. Zoho Desk requires that agent profiles exist in the system before tickets can be assigned to them — the import rejects ticket records that reference an Agent email not found in Zoho Desk. We extract all distinct agent emails from LiveAgent ticket assignments, cross-reference against Zoho Desk's existing agents, and create any missing agents via Zoho Desk's API before the ticket phase begins. Agents receive an email invitation to activate their Zoho Desk account, which must be accepted before they appear in reports.

LiveAgent Knowledgebase articles migrate to Zoho Desk Knowledgebase articles, but the Zoho Desk assisted migration documentation explicitly states that KB article attachments will not be migrated. We export all LiveAgent KB articles including content, category, status, and ACL settings, then upload them to Zoho Desk as articles. Any article attachments (images, PDFs, files) are re-uploaded separately and the article is updated with the new attachment URLs. The knowledgebase article migration runs as a separate phase after the ticket migration is validated.

LiveAgent file attachments linked to Tickets and Conversations are downloaded via the LiveAgent Files API and re-uploaded to Zoho Desk. Attachments are linked to the parent Ticket and Thread in Zoho Desk. File size limits in Zoho Desk are enforced during re-upload — files exceeding the plan limit are flagged and stored externally with a link embedded in the thread. Note: attachments on Knowledgebase articles do not migrate per Zoho Desk's documented exclusion.

LiveAgent ticket custom fields (account-specific schemas discovered dynamically via the API) require pre-creation in Zoho Desk before ticket import. Zoho Desk custom fields are scoped to a specific department and layout — we enumerate all LiveAgent ticket custom fields during scoping, create matching Zoho Desk custom fields under the target department's Ticket layout, and then map field values during import. Field type mapping is direct for string, integer, decimal, currency, and checkbox types. Dropdown fields in LiveAgent map to picklist fields in Zoho Desk with the same option values.

LiveAgent customer (contact) custom fields follow the same pattern as ticket custom fields — account-specific schemas requiring dynamic discovery and pre-creation in Zoho Desk under the target department's Contact layout. We map each LiveAgent contact custom field to a Zoho Desk equivalent, creating new custom fields if no matching standard field exists. Customer Groups in LiveAgent (used to segment customers by tier or region) are documented as a custom picklist field on the Contact record in Zoho Desk since Zoho Desk does not have a native Customer Groups API equivalent.

LiveAgent Customer Groups are used to segment customers by tier, region, or other dimensions. Zoho Desk does not have a native Customer Groups object with API endpoints, so we map group membership to a custom picklist or multi-select picklist field on the Contact record. We export group assignments from LiveAgent, create the equivalent field in Zoho Desk, and populate during the Contact import phase. If the customer has more than 30 distinct groups, we discuss whether to use a picklist or store the data in a custom related object.

LiveAgent Macros and Rules are not accessible via the public REST API. We do not migrate automation rules as code. We deliver a written inventory of every LiveAgent Macro and Rule configuration discovered during scoping — including trigger conditions, actions, SLA settings, and routing logic — mapped to Zoho Desk Blueprint and Escalation Rule equivalents where a direct translation exists. The customer's admin rebuilds the automations in Zoho Desk post-migration using the delivered inventory as the configuration guide.