Migrate from ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus to Freshdesk

ServiceDesk Plus Requests map to Freshdesk Tickets. Standard fields (subject, description, status, priority, category, subcategory, technician, requester) extract via the REST API. The key extraction constraint: custom ticket fields (e.g., team assignment, Customer Tier, Service Impact) do not appear in GET /requests list responses. We call GET /requests/{id} individually for each record to retrieve custom field values and map them to Freshdesk custom ticket fields. Status values (Open, Pending, On Hold, Resolved, Closed) map to Freshdesk ticket_status equivalents. SLA-related priority fields map to Freshdesk urgency and priority.

ServiceDesk Plus Requesters (end users who submit tickets) map to Freshdesk Contacts. We export requester name, email, phone, department, and site via the REST API. Requester-to-request associations preserve as ticket-requester links in Freshdesk. On Professional and Enterprise tiers, the Department and Site objects map to Freshdesk company groups or tags for organizational reporting.

ServiceDesk Plus Organizations map to Freshdesk Companies on applicable plans. Organization name, address, website, and industry fields transfer. Companies serve as the parent grouping for Contacts in Freshdesk, enabling account-level ticket views and reporting by customer organization. This object is not present in Standard-tier ServiceDesk Plus instances.

ServiceDesk Plus Solutions (knowledge base articles) map to Freshdesk Knowledge Base articles. Article content, category assignments, and approval status export. Inline images and formatting preserve where possible. ServiceDesk Plus notes that Solution Owner and Workaround type fields cannot migrate due to Freshdesk schema differences. Article summary and description fields map to Freshdesk article title and description, with folder structure mapping to Freshdesk category and section hierarchy.

ServiceDesk Plus Assets (hardware, software, and IT components) map to Freshdesk Assets on applicable plans. Fields including name, type, serial number, purchase date, vendor, and associated requester transfer. Asset-to-request associations preserve as ticket Asset links in Freshdesk. Assets with In Use state map to Freshdesk available or assigned status; duplicate service tags require resolution before import.

ServiceDesk Plus Contracts (vendor, start/end dates, terms, cost) map to Freshdesk Contracts where available on the destination plan. Contract-to-asset associations preserve as foreign-key notes in the migration inventory. This requires Freshdesk to have the Contracts feature enabled, which may require an upgrade from the Starter plan.

ServiceDesk Plus Problem records (ITIL Problem management entities linking multiple incidents) map to Freshdesk Tickets with a custom Problem tag or a Freshdesk ITSM-specific type field. Problem-to-incident associations document as linked ticket references. If the customer upgrades to Freshservice for full ITSM change and problem workflows, this maps directly; otherwise it becomes a tagged ticket category in Freshdesk.

ServiceDesk Plus Change records with approval workflows, risk assessments, and implementation plans map to Freshdesk Tickets with a Change tag or Freshservice Change object. Approval Board content does not migrate as a functional workflow; it documents as a written note on the ticket record for the admin to recreate as Freshdesk approval workflows. Task counts exceeding 300 per change require splitting into multiple ticket records.

Custom fields on ServiceDesk Plus requests (stored in a separate database table from standard request fields) require per-record detail calls to extract. During scoping we identify all custom field names and data types. Each custom field is pre-created in Freshdesk as an equivalent custom ticket field before migration. Incident Additional Fields and Service Catalog Additional Fields with duplicate alias names cause migration failure in SDP-to-SDP; we rename duplicates during extraction to avoid data loss in the cross-platform migration.

Request attachments (file metadata, binary content) require individual per-record API calls to the ServiceDesk Plus file attachment endpoint. We download attachment content where the API grants access and re-upload to Freshdesk as ticket attachments. This approach multiplies against the 60 reads/minute throttle for large ticket volumes. Conversation threads (internal notes and public replies) extract via the request detail API and store as Freshdesk note or conversation records linked to the parent ticket.