Migrate from Service Creatio to Zendesk

Service Creatio Cases map to Zendesk Tickets as the primary migration object. We extract the CaseId, CaseNumber, Subject, Description (mapped to ticket comment as initial description), CaseStatus (mapped to ticket Status via a status-mapping table), Priority, and Owner (mapped to Zendesk agent by email match). Custom columns on Cases migrate to Zendesk ticket custom_fields entries. The original Creatio CaseNumber is stored in a Zendesk custom ticket field (migrated_case_number__c) for cross-referencing. Case creation and modification timestamps migrate as ticket timestamps to preserve the historical timeline.

Service Creatio Contacts map to Zendesk end-users (not agents). We extract ContactId, FullName, Email, Phone, and custom Contact properties. Contacts serve as the requester on Cases, so we load Users before Tickets to satisfy the Zendesk requester_id foreign-key requirement. If a Contact email appears as an existing Zendesk user, we match by email and link the existing record; otherwise we create a new Zendesk user from the Contact data. The 360-degree contact view (account history, prior cases) does not migrate as a unified object — the linked Case history surfaces via ticket search in Zendesk.

Service Creatio Accounts map to Zendesk Organizations. We extract AccountId, Name, Industry, Website, Address fields, and custom Account properties. Account hierarchy migrates as a flat Organization structure in Zendesk; multi-level account hierarchies in Creatio do not have a direct Zendesk equivalent and are denormalized into individual Organization records with a custom field parent_organization__c holding the parent reference. Organizations load before Users so that the organization_id can be assigned to users linked to a Company record.

Creatio Knowledge Base articles map to Zendesk Guide articles. We extract article title, body content (HTML or rich text), publication status, and category assignment. Creatio article categories map to Zendesk Guide Sections, and top-level categories map to Zendesk Guide Categories. Publication status (Published/Draft/Archived) maps directly to Zendesk article status. Article-to-case linkage used during Creatio case resolution surfaces in Zendesk as the article being linked manually during ticket resolution. Articles are migrated before Tickets so that any automated article linking in Zendesk triggers post-migration can reference the articles.

Service Creatio Activity records (calls, emails, meetings, tasks, notes) attached to a Case migrate as Zendesk ticket comments. The Activity type maps to the comment author (agent or end-user) and the activity timestamp maps to the comment timestamp. Activity body content (email body, call notes, meeting summary) migrates as the comment body. Activity attachments migrate as Zendesk ticket attachments via the Attachments object. Call duration and disposition from Creatio Activity custom fields migrate to Zendesk custom ticket fields. We exclude recurring activity patterns that rely on Creatio's BPM engine; these are documented for Zendesk admin rebuild.

Creatio SLA rules define response and resolution time commitments per case category with time-bound conditions. We extract the SLA rule definition — applicable case categories, time triggers (First Response, Next Response, Resolution), and business hours configuration — and map it to a Zendesk SLA Policy. Zendesk SLA Policies use metric targets and business hours definitions that differ from Creatio's condition-logic model. We document the original Creatio SLA rule and provide the recommended Zendesk SLA Policy configuration steps; SLA Policy creation is a Zendesk Admin Center configuration task that the customer completes or commissions. Creatio SLA violations and timer data are not carried forward as they are calculated fields.

Creatio Queues group cases for team or individual assignment with routing rules defined in the process designer. We export queue membership and the case-to-queue assignment but queue-to-user mappings require review because Creatio queues and Zendesk Groups/Views serve different routing philosophies. We recommend mapping each Creatio Queue to a Zendesk Group (for agent assignment) plus a View (for ticket filtering), with the routing rule logic documented as Zendesk Trigger or Automation configuration steps for the customer's admin to implement.

Custom objects created via Creatio Studio Object type schemas map to Zendesk Custom Objects (the post-September 2023 relational model). Each Creatio custom schema requires explicit schema discovery during the technical audit: we enumerate all column definitions, identify lookup relationships, and map the schema to a Zendesk custom object. Key constraint: Zendesk's new custom objects require a mandatory name field and cannot model nested or hierarchical data, so multi-level Creatio custom schemas must be flattened into separate Zendesk custom object records with lookup relationships. We run schema discovery before migration scope is finalized to avoid surprises in the custom object migration phase.

Custom fields added to standard Creatio objects (Cases, Contacts, Accounts) via the UI designer map to Zendesk ticket custom_fields (for tickets), user fields (for users), or organization fields (for organizations). We enumerate all custom field definitions during discovery, map field types (text, dropdown, multi-select, checkbox, numeric, date) to their Zendesk equivalents, and exclude rich text fields from the initial export pass to avoid triggering the OData RAM ceiling. Rich text field content is fetched separately in a second export pass and stored in a Zendesk private comment on the ticket.

Creatio file attachments (stored via File-type schemas like ContactFile, CaseFile) map to Zendesk ticket attachments. Large attachment sets are chunked during export to avoid triggering the OData MaxMemoryUsageToGetDataViaEntityCollection ceiling. We extract file binary data, file name, MIME type, and the parent record reference, then upload to Zendesk via the Zendesk Attachments API. Attachments exceeding 50 MB are flagged and uploaded separately. We verify a sample set of attachments post-migration to confirm linkage integrity.

Creatio Tags applied to Cases and Contacts map to Zendesk Tags. We export tag names and their associations (tag-to-case, tag-to-contact) and import them as Zendesk tags linked to the migrated tickets. Tags used for classification or reporting in Creatio function as Zendesk tags with the same filtering behavior. Tag-to-taxonomy relationships (if Creatio tags are organized in a taxonomy) are denormalized as individual tags in Zendesk since Zendesk does not support tag hierarchy.

Creatio Users serve as case owners, activity assignees, and queue members. We map Creatio users to Zendesk agents by email lookup against the destination Zendesk org's user table. Inactive Creatio users are preserved as historical owners (mapped to Zendesk tickets with the original owner stored in a custom field migrated_owner__c) rather than reassigned. Active Creatio users without a matching Zendesk agent go to a reconciliation queue for the customer's Zendesk admin to provision before record migration resumes.