Migrate from Request Manager to Zoho Desk

Request Manager Ticket records map 1:1 to Zoho Desk Ticket records. Standard fields — Subject, Description, Priority, Status, Created Time, Modified Time — transfer directly. The Zoho Desk Ticket API name is 'tickets'. Status values from Request Manager (e.g., Draft, Submitted, Under Review, Approved, Closed) are mapped to Zoho Desk Ticket Status values during scoping. Department assignment on the ticket maps to Zoho Desk Department.

Request Manager Requester records represent submitting users. We map these to Zoho Desk Agent profiles, extracting name, email, department, and contact details. Zoho Desk Agents are scoped to departments, so we provision each Requester in the department corresponding to their Request Manager organizational assignment. Agents without a Zoho Desk account go to a reconciliation queue for admin provisioning before ticket migration begins.

Request Manager approval chain records link approvers to tickets with step-order, approval status, and timestamp. Zoho Desk does not have a native multi-step approval chain object. We map approval chain structure to one of two strategies: (1) task-based — create sequential Tasks assigned to each approver in step-order, with task status reflecting approval outcome; or (2) Blueprint — document the approval sequence as a Zoho Desk Blueprint ticket process with step transitions. The customer chooses the strategy during scoping.

Request Manager ticket comments and internal notes migrate to Zoho Desk Ticket Threads. Author, timestamp, and body transfer directly. The private vs. public visibility flag on Request Manager notes maps to Zoho Desk's thread visibility model — internal notes become private threads, requester replies become public threads. Thread ordering is preserved by created timestamp.

File attachments on Request Manager tickets are extracted with filename, MIME type, and binary content. Upload to Zoho Desk is handled via the Tickets attachments API endpoint. We chunk large files and apply exponential backoff on rate limit responses. The attachment is linked to the corresponding Zoho Desk Ticket by ticket ID resolved during migration.

Request Manager custom ticket fields are organization-scoped, meaning the full custom field schema must be extracted from the customer's tenant before any mapping begins. We pull all custom field definitions (field name, data type, options) and map each to a Zoho Desk custom field. Zoho Desk custom fields are department-scoped and module-specific (created per department per module), so we create the fields in the target department before ticket import. Custom field data type translation: string maps to single-line, text area maps to multi-line, dropdown maps to picklist, date maps to date, checkbox maps to boolean.

Request Manager priority values (e.g., Low, Medium, High, Critical) transfer as categorical Zoho Desk Ticket Priority values. We do not re-normalize priority scales unless explicitly requested. Priority-to-SLA mapping (linking a Request Manager priority level to a Zoho Desk SLA policy) is a configuration step performed in Zoho Desk by the customer's admin post-migration.

Request Manager status values (Draft, Submitted, Under Review, Approved, Rejected, Closed) map to Zoho Desk Ticket Status values. The Zoho Desk Status field is a picklist configurable per department. We define the status mapping during scoping and apply it at migration time. If the customer has custom status values beyond the standard set, we create new Status picklist entries in the target department's ticket layout.

Department assignments on Request Manager tickets or requester profiles map to Zoho Desk Department records. We extract all departments from Request Manager at the start of migration, provision them in Zoho Desk with matching names and hierarchies, and use the Zoho Desk Department ID as the routing key for ticket and agent assignments. Self-hosted or on-premise Request Manager deployments may require manual department reconciliation.

Request Manager requester profile fields beyond name and email — department, title, phone, location — map to Zoho Desk Contact fields. If the customer uses Zoho Desk's Account/Contact model (as opposed to a flat contact-only model), we provision the Account first, then link the Contact to it. Requester external ID is preserved as a custom field on the Contact for cross-system reference.

Request Manager attachment metadata (file size, upload timestamp, uploader identity) is preserved as Zoho Desk Document records linked to the parent Ticket. The Zoho Desk Document API name is 'documents' for attachments. We extract the MIME type and apply Zoho Desk's supported attachment type validation before upload.

All Request Manager ticket lifecycle timestamps — created date, last modified date, approval submitted date, approval completed date — transfer as Zoho Desk Ticket createdTime and modifiedTime fields. We set these via the API rather than letting Zoho Desk auto-generate them so that the original ticket lifecycle history is preserved on the destination record. Approval timestamp fields map to custom Ticket fields if the customer has approval timestamp columns in their custom field set.