Migrate from TriActive to Zendesk

TriActive ticket records (subject, description, status, priority, assignee, created date, updated date) map directly to Zendesk Tickets. We extract via customer-assisted manual export, transform to Zendesk ticket JSON format, and load via Zendesk REST API. Any custom ticket field values identified during discovery phase become Zendesk custom_fields entries. Original ticket IDs are preserved in a custom field triactive_ticket_id__c for audit and cross-reference.

TriActive customer records map to Zendesk End User records. We extract requester name, email, phone, and any custom fields and load them as Zendesk users with role=end-user. Email serves as the dedupe key. If TriActive stores a separate contact type for requesters vs. billable contacts, we map all to Zendesk End User and note the distinction in a custom field triactive_customer_type__c.

TriActive agent profiles map to Zendesk Users with role=agent. We extract agent name, email, and team assignment during discovery. Agent email serves as the dedupe key for matching against the Zendesk destination account. We resolve Agent-Team assignments by mapping TriActive team names to Zendesk Support groups, which we configure in Zendesk Admin Center before agent import.

TriActive team structures map to Zendesk Support Groups. Each TriActive team becomes a Zendesk Group in Admin Center. We preserve agent-group membership by matching agent email to the newly created Zendesk users. If TriActive has a team hierarchy (nested teams), we flatten it to Zendesk's single-level Group structure and document the hierarchy as a custom field triactive_team_hierarchy__c on each user for reference.

Custom ticket fields in TriActive are identified during the discovery-led schema extraction phase, since no public documentation exists. We map each discovered custom field to a Zendesk custom_field with the matching type (text, dropdown, numeric, checkbox, date). The Zendesk field IDs are generated during field creation and stored in our migration manifest for ticket import. Zendesk does not support hierarchical custom field categories, so any grouping logic from TriActive is flattened into field names or documented for the admin to handle in Zendesk.

TriActive conversation threads and internal notes map to Zendesk Ticket Comments. We extract full thread history with author, timestamp, body, and visibility (public/internal). Public replies become comments with public=true; internal notes become comments with public=false and author_type=agent. Thread ordering is preserved by setting the Zendesk comment created_at to the original TriActive timestamp. We flag any conversation records that cannot be tied to a valid TriActive ticket ID for manual review before loading.

File attachments referenced in TriActive ticket records are retrieved via the customer-assisted export process and re-uploaded to Zendesk during ticket comment creation. We map attachment filename, MIME type, and storage reference. Any attachments stored in TriActive locations that cannot be retrieved (broken URLs, inaccessible storage paths) are flagged in a pre-migration gap report with the affected ticket ID for the customer to resolve manually.

TriActive company or account records map to Zendesk Organizations. We extract company name, domain, and any associated custom fields. Organization is created before user import so that the organization_id lookup is satisfied at user insert. If TriActive stores multiple contacts per company with different roles, all contact records are imported as separate End Users and linked to the same Organization by domain match or explicit mapping from the export data.

TriActive Knowledge Base articles map to Zendesk Articles within the target Folder. We extract article title, body (HTML or plain text), author, creation date, and publication status. Article content is loaded via the Zendesk Help Center Articles API. We preserve the original TriActive article ID in a custom field triactive_article_id__c for cross-reference. Draft or archived articles are imported with their TriActive status and set to draft in Zendesk for the admin to review before publishing.

This is the primary structural change in the TriActive-to-Zendesk migration. TriActive organizes KB articles by Categories, while Zendesk organizes them in Folders (Categories are not a Zendesk Help Center concept). We map each TriActive Category to a Zendesk Folder, create the folder in the target Zendesk Help Center section, and reassign articles to the corresponding folder during import. If TriActive has a nested category hierarchy, we flatten it to a single Zendesk folder level and document the original hierarchy in a custom field triactive_category_path__c on each article for the admin to reference when rebuilding folder structure in Zendesk.

Images and files embedded in or attached to KB articles are extracted from TriActive and uploaded to the Zendesk Help Center as Article Attachments via the Zendesk Help Center API. We preserve attachment URLs in article HTML bodies and re-host them in Zendesk's attachment storage. Any inline images with broken source references are flagged for the customer to update post-migration.