Migrate from Support.ly by 500apps to Zoho Desk

Support.ly Tickets map to Zoho Desk Tickets. We map ticket status, priority, channel source (email, chat, social), and all timestamp fields (created, modified, resolved). The ticket_subject maps to Zoho's ticketSubject, ticket_description maps to ticketDescription, and priority/severity maps to ticketPriority. Custom fields on Support.ly tickets require pre-creation in Zoho Desk under the target department before import; we document the required field names, types, and picklist values from the vendor-provided export during scoping. Zoho Desk custom fields follow the cf_ prefix convention (e.g., cf_custom_field_name) and are scoped per department.

Support.ly Customer records map to Zoho Desk Contacts. We preserve full contact profiles including name, email address, phone, and any custom fields. The contact is linked to its parent Company or Account at import time using the AccountExtId reference. If a Support.ly Customer has no associated Company, the Contact is imported without an Account link and flagged for admin review. Zoho Desk requires Last Name as a mandatory field; we derive it from the full name field in the vendor export if no separate last name field exists.

Support.ly Companies map to Zoho Desk Accounts. We use the company name as the AccountName and preserve phone, email, website, and address fields. AccountExtId is assigned during import to support the Contact-to-Account lookup relationship. Zoho Desk Accounts are created before Contact import so that the account lookup is satisfied at the moment of Contact insert, preventing orphaned contact records.

Support.ly Agent profiles map to Zoho Desk Agents. We map the agent's name, email address, and team assignment. In Zoho Desk, agents are tied to departments; we use the Support.ly team-to-department mapping to assign the correct department during import. If an agent email already exists in the destination Zoho Desk portal, the system maps the import to the existing agent by email match. Agents are migrated first in dependency order because tickets and conversations reference agent IDs.

Support.ly Teams map to Zoho Desk Departments. We reconstruct the team membership by mapping agent-team relationships to department-agent assignments. In Zoho Desk, departments control ticket routing, SLAs, and escalation rules, so the department structure must be in place before tickets are imported. We preserve the original team names and add a custom field on the Department record (original_team_name__c) for audit continuity.

Support.ly conversation threads attached to tickets map to Zoho Desk Tickets Threads and Comments as two separate objects. The original message chain is preserved as a Thread record with the initial customer message, and subsequent agent replies are created as Comment records linked to the Thread. We preserve message timestamps, sender identity (agent vs customer), and HTML or plain-text formatting. Thread direction (incoming vs outgoing) is preserved as the threadType field in Zoho Desk.

File attachments on Support.ly tickets are downloaded from the vendor-provided export and re-uploaded to the corresponding Zoho Desk ticket as Attachments. We preserve original filenames and attachment ordering. Zoho Desk Zwitch does not migrate KB article attachments, and we flag this gap explicitly: attachments on knowledge base articles require manual re-upload or a separate KB migration pass. Ticket attachments migrate as part of the ticket child-module during Zwitch import if the vendor export includes them in the ticket data package.

Support.ly tags are a flat tagging structure applied to tickets and KB articles. We migrate the full tag vocabulary as Zoho Desk Tags, which are accessible via the Tags module. Alternatively, if the customer's tag set is stable and small (under 100 unique tags), we map them to a custom multi-select picklist field on the Ticket object in Zoho Desk, which provides better filtering and reporting within the ticket layout. The customer chooses the strategy during scoping based on their tagging workflow.

Support.ly KB Articles map to Zoho Desk Help Center Articles. We map article title, body content, category assignments, and publication status. HTML content complexity may affect rendering fidelity in Zoho Desk's article editor; we flag any articles with embedded iframes, JavaScript, or non-standard CSS as requiring manual review post-import. Zoho Desk articles belong to a specific help center portal, and we map the target portal during import.

Support.ly KB categories group articles for navigation. We reconstruct the category hierarchy in Zoho Desk's help center by creating the equivalent Category records and mapping articles to their target categories during import. Category ordering and parent-child nesting are preserved where the vendor export includes hierarchical category data. If the vendor export provides a flat category list only, we create a flat category structure and flag the nesting gap for admin review.

Support.ly survey and feedback data attached to tickets maps to a combination of Zoho Desk custom fields and embedded response data. CSAT scores and rating values migrate to numeric or picklist custom fields on the Ticket object. Free-text survey responses migrate to a multi-line text custom field. Zoho Desk does not have a native survey module on the Standard or Professional tiers; if the customer relies on the survey responses for reporting, we recommend using Zoho Survey as a separate integration post-migration rather than embedding survey logic into the ticket object.

Support.ly custom fields on tickets, customers, and companies require field-level discovery and pre-creation in Zoho Desk before data import. Since 500apps does not publish a public schema for custom field types and naming conventions, we derive the field map from a sample export or screenshots the customer provides during discovery. Each custom field must be created in Zoho Desk under the relevant department (for ticket fields) with the matching data type (string, integer, decimal, checkbox, picklist) before the migration import phase. We flag any fields that cannot be mapped due to unsupported Zoho Desk data types as requiring manual entry post-migration.