Migrate from Novo Help Desk Software to Zoho Desk

Novo Accounts (top-level tenant representing a company) map directly to Zoho Desk Accounts. We use the Account name as the dedupe key during import. Account Type, if present as an optional designation on the source, migrates as a custom field on the Zoho Desk Account record. Zoho Desk's department-centric layout does not require a department to be created before Account import, so Accounts import early in the dependency order after layout design is finalized.

Novo Contacts (individual users within an Account who submit and receive tickets) map to Zoho Desk Contact. We resolve the parent AccountId by matching the Novo Contact's Account reference to the migrated Account record. Email address serves as the dedupe key. Contact-level fields including name, email, phone, and any custom contact properties migrate as-is or to equivalent Zoho Desk Contact custom fields.

Novo Tickets are the primary migration object, mapping to Zoho Desk Ticket. Subject, description, status, priority, and assignment fields migrate directly. We resolve the assignee by matching the Novo ticket owner reference to the migrated Zoho Desk Agent. The Zoho Desk Ticket number auto-generates; we do not preserve the original Novo ticket number unless it is stored as a custom field on the Zoho Ticket. Department assignment in Zoho Desk may require a pre-created Department record to satisfy the lookup.

File attachments associated with tickets migrate as file uploads attached to the corresponding Zoho Desk Ticket. We handle file integrity validation post-transfer, chunk large attachment batches to avoid timeout, and preserve original file names and paths in a Zoho custom field for reference. File size limits and encoding formats are validated against Zoho Desk's supported types before import.

Novo Activity records (audit-style log entries attached to tickets) map to Zoho Desk Event records with timestamps preserved as Event StartTime and EndTime. Activity descriptions map to Event subject and notes. If the activity represents billable or logged time rather than an event, we store it in a custom numeric field on the Zoho Desk Ticket rather than as a native Event, since Zoho Desk's time tracking is department-level and does not have a standalone Time Entry object outside of Projects integration.

Any custom fields defined on Novo Tickets require explicit field-level mapping because Novo's custom field schema is not publicly documented and must be inventoried during scoping. We create matching custom fields in Zoho Desk under Setup > Customization > Layouts and Fields before migration begins. Field type translation (dropdown to picklist, free text to text area, date to date field) is handled in the mapping document and validated in the sandbox migration phase.

Account-level custom fields from Novo (such as Account Type designations) map to Zoho Desk Account custom fields. These are created in the Zoho Desk Account layout under Setup > Customization > Layouts and Fields before Account import begins. We preserve the original field label and any picklist values as Zoho Desk picklist options.

Novo Account Type is an optional designation indicating service support level. We migrate this as a custom picklist field on the Zoho Desk Account record. If the source account set contains fewer than twenty distinct Account Type values, we create a Zoho Desk picklist; if more, we use a free-text custom field to avoid picklist inflation.

Novo ticket owners and account administrators map to Zoho Desk Agents. We match by email address. If a Novo owner has no corresponding Zoho Desk Agent record, the account goes to a reconciliation queue and the customer's Zoho Desk admin provisions the missing Agent before the Agent-dependent ticket import phase begins. Active Directory sync (a paid Novo add-on) does not migrate; we recommend rebuilding agent provisioning in Zoho Directory post-migration.

Zoho Desk organizes tickets, agents, and layouts by Department. Novo Help Desk Software does not expose a native Department object in available documentation, so we work with the customer's IT team during scoping to identify the departmental groupings that should exist in Zoho Desk. We create Zoho Desk Departments before ticket import so that the Department lookup is satisfied at the moment of record insert.

Ticket tags or labels from Novo migrate to Zoho Desk Tags. Tags are stored on the Ticket record as comma-separated values in a custom field or mapped to Zoho's native Tag feature where the source export supports tag extraction. Tag migration is validated post-import against a random sample of 25-50 records.

Novo's SLA tooling (if present as a module) does not migrate as a configured SLA policy in Zoho Desk. SLA values and thresholds are documented as part of the migration scope and delivered as a written specification for the customer's admin to configure in Zoho Desk under Setup > SLA Policies. We preserve any SLA-related ticket fields as custom fields on the Zoho Desk Ticket during the migration window.