Migrate from SolarWinds Web Help Desk to Freshdesk

WHD Tickets map to Freshdesk Tickets with the WHD description field becoming the initial Freshdesk Conversation note, and WHD status values mapped to Freshdesk ticket status (Open, Pending, Resolved, Closed). Priority, category, and assignee migrate directly. WHD SLA breach timestamps become Freshdesk SLA overdue flags. Time entries on WHD tickets migrate as private internal notes in Freshdesk with a timestamp prefix. Parent-child ticket threading in WHD (linked tickets) maps to Freshdesk Ticket Conversations only if the relationship is 1:1; multi-level ticket hierarchies require flattening.

WHD Clients export via CSV template and map to Freshdesk Contacts. Name, email, phone, and organization fields migrate directly. WHD Location references on Clients resolve to Freshdesk Contact address fields. If WHD has a company field on the Client record, we create a Freshdesk Company first, then link the Contact. Mobile phone numbers that WHD stores separately from phone fields merge into the Freshdesk phone field on Contact import.

WHD Client records with an organization name or company field become Freshdesk Companies. We create the Company record before Contact import so that the company_id lookup is satisfied at Contact insert time. Company domain and industry fields migrate as custom fields or standard fields where applicable.

WHD Assets map to Freshdesk Assets on Growth and Estate plans. Asset type, serial number, purchase date, vendor, and location fields migrate directly. We flag whether the destination Freshdesk plan includes asset management during scoping because Freshdesk's free and Pro plans do not include the Asset object. Assets linked to tickets in WHD preserve the relationship as Freshdesk ticket custom fields referencing the Asset ID.

WHD Technicians map to Freshdesk Agents. WHD per-technician licensing means we audit active versus inactive technician accounts during scoping to help right-size the destination Freshdesk plan (billed per agent on Growth and above). Group and role assignments in WHD map to Freshdesk Groups and Roles. Inactive WHD technicians import as Freshdesk agents with a status of offline or can be held in a reconciliation queue.

WHD Knowledge Base Articles export as HTML content and import as Freshdesk Solutions articles. WHD category hierarchy maps to Freshdesk Solutions categories. Article attachment references export as metadata and require manual re-upload to Freshdesk because the actual file blobs move through separate file transfer. We flag any article with over 50KB of HTML content for manual review because WHD rich-text export can include broken image references that Freshdesk will not render.

WHD Locations (sites with address, contact, and parent-location hierarchy) export via template. Freshdesk does not have a standalone Location object; location data maps to address fields on Contact and Company records. We flag whether the destination uses Freshdesk's multi-location feature (Estate plan) and map WHD locations to Freshdesk Locations if available, or flatten them into Contact and Company addresses if not.

WHD custom fields on Tickets and Clients (filterable, sortable, searchable variants) export via template. We pre-create Freshdesk custom fields of matching types (text, dropdown, date, number, checkbox) before migration. WHD custom field indexing occurs overnight (8pm PT for US datacenter), so we schedule custom field imports 24-48 hours before the full data migration pass to ensure field indexes are populated and field validation does not reject records on the first import attempt.

WHD SLA configurations (response and resolution timers by priority or category) export as configuration metadata. Freshdesk SLA Policies are structured differently: they define first-response and resolution time goals tied to ticket priority, requester type, or SLA filter conditions. We deliver a written SLA mapping document showing the WHD SLA timer converted to a Freshdesk SLA Policy configuration for the customer's admin to recreate. Active SLA breach data migrates as ticket custom fields rather than live SLA tracking.

WHD stores attachment metadata (name, size, upload timestamp) on tickets and assets. We export file metadata as a reference list. Actual file blobs require separate file transfer: on self-hosted WHD we use direct filesystem extraction; on cloud-hosted WHD we use manual download-and-reupload. WHD attachment export via MAPI imposes a practical ceiling of 25MB per file; we flag any attachment exceeding this threshold during scoping and handle oversized files separately.

WHD tags on tickets and assets export as plain-text arrays and map to Freshdesk Tags. Tags used for categorization (WHD categories, not WHD tags) map to Freshdesk ticket categories or Freshdesk product categories depending on usage. We preserve tag assignments per record during import so that the customer's filtering and reporting by tag continues in Freshdesk.