Migrate from Richpanel to Zoho Desk

Richpanel Conversations migrate to Zoho Desk Tickets as the primary record. We preserve the full message thread including internal notes and public replies by mapping them to Zoho Desk's Comment structure with the isPublic flag set accordingly. Conversation status, priority, assignee, and tags migrate to Ticket fields. The original conversation ID is stored in a custom field for audit. Zoho Desk's ticket ID is generated at import time.

Richpanel Customer Profiles map to Zoho Desk Contacts. We map first name, last name, email, phone, and address fields 1:1 where field names match, and flag any custom profile fields for individual mapping during discovery. Customer Profile IDs are stored in a custom field on the Contact record for cross-reference. If the customer uses Zoho CRM alongside Zoho Desk, we map to CRM Contacts to enable account-level context.

Richpanel Agent records (name, email, role, team membership) map to Zoho Desk Agent records. We match agents by email address. Role mapping (Admin, Agent, Viewer in Richpanel) translates to Zoho Desk's Support Administrator, Agent, and Light Agent profiles. Agent status is preserved; deactivated agents in Richpanel cannot be migrated to Zoho Desk and are flagged in the reconciliation report.

Richpanel Teams migrate to Zoho Desk Teams. Zoho Desk requires Teams to be created before agent reassignment. We pre-create Teams in Zoho Desk using the migration API, then assign agents to their respective Teams during the agent import phase. Note that Zoho Desk requires the Team Assignment setting to be enabled in Setup before team-based routing functions correctly post-migration.

Richpanel Orders linked from the connected ecommerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce) do not have a direct Zoho Desk equivalent object. Order references, line items, totals, and fulfillment status migrate as a linked Task record on the Ticket with order details stored in the Task description or a custom Order Info section. If the customer licenses Zoho Inventory, we map order data to Products with custom fields for order metadata.

Tags applied to Richpanel Conversations migrate as Zoho Desk Tags. We migrate all tags as flat key-value strings. Where Zoho Desk uses a hierarchical tag taxonomy or Zoho CRM tags, we flag the taxonomy difference during scoping and the customer chooses whether to flatten the tag structure or reorganize hierarchically post-migration.

Richpanel Help Center articles migrate to Zoho Desk Help Center articles with title, body content, categories, and published status preserved. Article author and creation date migrate as metadata. The portal tier (Starter lacks it, Pro and above include it) determines article count and access level. Custom portal flows and order management widgets are configuration and do not migrate as records; we document them as a rebuild artifact for the customer admin.

Help Center categories and section hierarchy from Richpanel migrate to Zoho Desk article categories and sections. Category names, descriptions, sort order, and parent-child relationships are preserved. The Zoho Desk Help Center structure requires at least one published category before articles can be associated, so we migrate categories before articles in the import sequence.

Richpanel Subscriptions (available on certain plan tiers) are migrated as linked Task records on the associated Contact or Ticket. Subscription metadata (recurring amount, billing frequency, status) is stored in a custom field block on the Task. If the customer licenses Zoho Subscriptions or Zoho Billing, we map to those objects with a custom integration plan documented separately.

File attachments on Richpanel Conversations (images, PDFs, order documents) are migrated as Zoho Desk Ticket Attachments. We download files from Richpanel's media layer and re-upload them to the corresponding Zoho Desk Ticket record during import. Attachment metadata (filename, size, content type) is preserved. Zoho Desk's Zwitch migration notes that attachments migrate with Tickets automatically when the Ticket module is selected.

Richpanel custom fields on Conversations and Customer Profiles are discovered via the API during scoping. We create matching custom fields in Zoho Desk at the module level (Ticket, Contact) before migration begins. Field types are mapped: text to string, dropdown to picklist, date to date, checkbox to checkbox. Custom fields are specific to the department in Zoho Desk, so we confirm the target department during schema design.

Richpanel Automations and Rules are platform configuration, not stored as exportable records. They do not migrate. We run a discovery audit of every active automation, documenting trigger type, conditions, actions, and affected Conversation routing. This inventory is delivered as a written artifact for the customer's admin to rebuild in Zoho Desk Blueprint and escalation rules post-migration. Macros are similarly scoped as documentation-only for manual rebuild.