Deskpro to Zoho Desk has no native migration path. CSV works for small flat moves; anything with threads, attachments, or relationships needs an API pipeline or managed service.
There is no native migration path from Deskpro to Zoho Desk — Zoho's built-in migration utility (Zwitch) only supports Freshdesk and Zendesk as source platforms. The two systems differ fundamentally in their data models: Deskpro uses a unified "People" record with Organizations, while Zoho Desk separates Contacts and Accounts relationally, and ticket messages in Deskpro map to distinct thread and comment endpoints in Zoho Desk's API. Any migration therefore requires either CSV export/import (which loses threads, attachments, and relationships), a custom API pipeline, a third-party tool, or a managed migration service to achieve full-fidelity data transfer.
Read this first
Pair-specific gotchas that catch teams out. Each one has cost somebody a weekend.
Zoho Desk's published standard modules do not include CRM objects like Leads or Opportunities
If Deskpro has sales-style data in custom fields, route it to Zoho CRM or, if the edition allows, a carefully designed Enterprise custom module. (help.zoho.com)
Do not start writing migration scripts until you have a finalized field mapping document
Do not start writing migration scripts until you have a finalized field mapping document and a signed-off migration scope. Scope creep mid-migration is the #1 cause of project delays.
Zoho Desk's paid plans (excluding Free and Trial) allow purchasing up to 5,000,000
Zoho Desk's paid plans (excluding Free and Trial) allow purchasing up to 5,000,000 additional credits per day. If your migration will run for several days at high volume, purchase add-on credits before you start via Setup → Developer Space → API.
Thread-level timestamp preservation
Zoho Desk's thread creation API (POST /tickets/{id}/threads) does not accept a createdTime parameter. Threads are timestamped at the moment of API call. This means while ticket-level creation dates can be preserved, individual reply timestamps will reflect the migration date. Document this limitation for stakeholders who need exact thread chronology — the content field can include a header line like "Original reply date: 2023-06-15T14:30:00Z" as a workaround.
Zoho's native CSV import uses GMT, not the importing user's timezone
If you are validating timestamps or SLA-related dates after a CSV import, compare them after timezone conversion rather than by eye in the UI. (help.zoho.com)
Store your ID cross-reference map (Deskpro ID → Zoho ID) in a persistent store like
Store your ID cross-reference map (Deskpro ID → Zoho ID) in a persistent store like Python's shelve, SQLite, or Redis — not just in memory. If the script crashes mid-run, you can resume from the last successful record without duplicating data. The map also serves as a permanent audit trail for post-migration troubleshooting.
The runbook
Work top to bottom. Tick steps as you go — your progress is saved in this browser.
01 Discovery Establish why you are moving, what "done" means, and who signs off.
Objective A written scope with agreed success criteria, a named owner per workstream, and a budget approved by finance.
Keep these open
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Pull the real numbers out of Deskpro
Export counts for tickets (open and closed separately), contacts, organisations, attachments, macros, triggers, automations, views and SLA policies. Note the oldest ticket date — history depth drives the whole timeline. Estimating from memory is the single most common cause of a blown migration window.
Data Profiler Get real record counts instead of estimating from memory -
Decide what history actually moves
Agree a cut-off with the support lead: all history, last 24 months, or open tickets plus a read-only archive. Every extra year of closed tickets adds API time and cost without adding much agent value. Get this in writing — it is the decision people relitigate mid-cutover.
A "move everything" default is what turns a two-week migration into a two-month one.
COI & ROI Calculator Build the 36-month business case you will need for sign-off -
Confirm Zoho Desk can hold your support model
Walk your current workflow through Zoho Desk: multi-brand, business hours, SLA targets, CSAT, side conversations, public vs internal notes, and any channel you depend on (voice, chat, WhatsApp, social). List anything with no native equivalent — those are project risks, not configuration details.
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Build the business case
Model licence delta, migration effort, agent retraining, and the cost of staying put (Cost of Inaction). Executives approve a number, not a plan, and you will be asked for it again at the go/no-go.
Helpdesk Migration Planner Turn ticket volume into a dated Deskpro → Zoho Desk timeline -
Name owners and set the go/no-go date
One named owner each for data, configuration, integrations, and agent enablement, plus a decision-maker who can call a rollback. Put the go/no-go meeting in calendars now, 48 hours before the freeze.
Deskpro → Zoho Desk specifics
- Cost consolidation
- Teams already on Zoho CRM, Zoho Projects, or Zoho One want a single vendor for helpdesk. Zoho Desk pricing: $7/user/month (Express), $14 (Standard), $23 (Professional), $40 (Enterprise). Deskpro's agent-based pricing starts at $29/agent/month (Team) and $59/agent/month (Professional). For a 20-agent team, that's $460–$800/month on Zoho Desk vs. $580–$1,180/month on Deskpro.
- Simpler administration
- Deskpro is powerful but configuration-heavy. Zoho Desk's opinionated defaults appeal to teams that don't want to maintain a custom helpdesk build.
- Ecosystem fit
- Zoho Desk natively connects to Zoho CRM, Zoho Analytics, and Zoho SalesIQ with pre-built bidirectional sync. If those tools are already in your stack, the integration story is stronger than Deskpro's webhook-based approach.
- Multi-brand consolidation
- Zoho Desk Enterprise supports multi-department and multi-brand help centers (up to 15 departments), which can replace separate Deskpro instances for agencies managing multiple clients.
Don't move on until
- Record counts confirmed for tickets, contacts, organisations and macros
- Success criteria signed off by the support lead
- Freeze window provisionally booked with the business
02 Data Audit Find out what is actually in the data before you try to move it.
Objective A profiled, cleaned export with every quality defect either fixed at source or explicitly accepted.
Keep these open
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Take a full Deskpro export and profile it
Export to CSV or JSON and profile every file: row counts, null rates per column, distinct values, and type consistency. Compare row counts against the API totals from Discovery — a gap here means your export is silently truncated, usually by pagination.
Data Profiler Profile the Deskpro export for nulls, outliers and type drift -
Validate file structure before anyone writes a transform
Check delimiters, quoting, encoding (expect UTF-8, watch for BOMs and Latin-1), duplicate headers, and embedded newlines in ticket bodies. Ticket descriptions with raw newlines and commas break naive CSV parsers and silently shift columns.
A single unescaped quote in one ticket body can shift every subsequent column without any error.
CSV Validator Catch broken headers and ragged rows in the raw export -
Inventory PII and set retention
Scan for emails, phone numbers, payment card fragments, national IDs and anything else regulated in ticket bodies and custom fields — support tickets are where customers paste things they should not. Decide what gets migrated, masked, or dropped, and record the legal basis.
Ticket bodies and attachments routinely contain card and ID data that never appears in a structured field.
PII & Compliance Scanner Find regulated fields before they land in a new system -
Quantify duplicates, orphans and dead references
Count duplicate contacts (same email, different casing), tickets whose requester no longer exists, organisations with no members, and attachments whose parent ticket is gone. Fix these in Deskpro where you can — migrating them just moves the mess.
Data Cleaner Strip empty rows, stray whitespace and dead columns -
Clean and normalise the export
Trim whitespace, drop empty rows and columns, normalise casing on emails and tags, and standardise every timestamp to UTC ISO 8601. Timezone drift is invisible at load time and shows up weeks later as SLA reports nobody can reconcile.
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Produce a masked copy for sandbox work
Generate a realistic but fake version of the export for testing and for any vendor who needs sample data. Loading real customer PII into a sandbox is a breach in most jurisdictions, and sandboxes are rarely covered by your DPA.
PII Masker Generate a safe copy for sandbox and vendor testing
Don't move on until
- Export parses cleanly with no ragged rows or encoding errors
- PII inventory complete and retention decisions recorded
- Duplicate and orphan records quantified and triaged
03 Field Mapping Turn two schemas into one signed-off mapping spec.
Objective A reviewed field-level mapping covering every object, with an explicit decision for every field that has no target.
Keep these open
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Generate the first-pass Deskpro → Zoho Desk field map
Start from an automated match on both schemas, then review every row by hand. Automated matching gets the obvious 70% right and is confidently wrong on the rest — especially anything named "type", "status" or "custom_field_1".
Schema Mapper Opens pre-loaded with the Deskpro → Zoho Desk field pair -
Map status, priority and channel values, not just field names
Enumerate every value in each picklist on both sides and map them explicitly. Value-level mismatches are the defect class that survives all the way to production because the field itself mapped fine — a ticket that should be "Pending" arriving as "Open" reopens SLA clocks.
Statuses with no target equivalent (on-hold, pending-customer) need a policy decision, not a best guess.
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Decide how custom fields land
Create the target custom fields first, matching type exactly (a dropdown mapped to free text can never be mapped back). Where Zoho Desk has no equivalent, decide between a new custom field, a tag, or a note appended to the ticket body — and record which.
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Resolve identity and threading
Decide how source IDs are preserved — most platforms will not let you set the primary key, so keep the original ID in a custom field. Without it, reconciliation becomes fuzzy matching and every future support question about an old ticket is unanswerable.
Losing the original ticket ID makes reconciliation and rollback effectively impossible.
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Plan attachments, inline images and threading order
Confirm size limits, allowed MIME types, and whether inline images survive as attachments or need rehosting. Decide the comment ordering and author attribution rules: comments loaded out of order, or all attributed to the API user, destroy the conversation history agents rely on.
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Freeze and sign off the mapping spec
Version the spec, walk the support lead through it row by row, and get explicit sign-off. Any change after this point goes through change control — mid-flight mapping edits are how partial loads happen.
Don't move on until
- Every source field is mapped, deliberately dropped, or parked in a custom field
- Status, priority and channel value maps agreed with the support lead
- Mapping spec version-controlled and signed off
04 Test Migration Prove the pipeline on a small, representative slice.
Objective A pilot load into a Zoho Desk sandbox that reconciles cleanly and has been reviewed by real agents.
Keep these open
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Stand up a Zoho Desk sandbox that matches production config
Create the custom fields, groups, brands, business hours and SLA policies first. A pilot into a default sandbox tests nothing, because the failures you care about are all configuration mismatches.
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Pick a deliberately nasty pilot sample
Take 500-1000 records chosen for difficulty, not convenience: the longest ticket threads, tickets with the most attachments, non-Latin character sets, merged and split tickets, deleted requesters, and every status value. A clean random sample proves only that easy records are easy.
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Run the load with masked data and instrument everything
Log every API request and response with its source record ID. When 40 records fail out of 10,000 you need to know exactly which ones and why, without re-running the whole batch.
PII Masker Never load real customer PII into a sandbox -
Measure real throughput against the rate limit
Record achieved records-per-hour under Zoho Desk's actual rate limits, including retries and backoff. Extrapolate to the full volume: if the maths says the full load exceeds your freeze window, you fix that now, not on cutover night.
Published rate limits are ceilings, not throughput. Assume real-world rates are meaningfully lower once retries and backoff are counted.
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Reconcile the pilot and triage every failure
Diff source against target on record counts and field-level values. Every discrepancy gets a root cause and a fix — "probably fine" at pilot scale becomes thousands of broken records at full scale.
Migration Validation Tool Diff the pilot batch against source before scaling up -
Put real agents in front of the pilot data
Have two or three agents work sample tickets end to end in the sandbox. They find the things reconciliation cannot see: unreadable threading, missing context, macros that no longer make sense. Fix the mapping, then re-run.
Don't move on until
- Pilot batch reconciles to 100% on record counts
- Agents have reviewed sample tickets and confirmed they are workable
- Measured throughput extrapolates to a viable full-load window
05 Cutover Execute the switch inside a controlled, reversible window.
Objective All in-scope data live in Zoho Desk, agents working in the new system, and a rollback path that stayed available throughout.
Keep these open
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Pre-load history before the freeze
Load closed tickets and contacts days or weeks ahead while Deskpro stays live. Only open tickets and the final delta need to move inside the freeze — this is the single biggest lever on window length.
Helpdesk Migration Planner Size the freeze window from Zoho Desk's real API limits -
Publish the runbook with times, owners and abort criteria
A timed sequence: freeze start, final export, delta load, channel switch, smoke test, go/no-go, agent switch. Name who does each step and the explicit condition that triggers a rollback. Decide the abort criteria before the night, when nobody wants to be the one to call it.
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Freeze Deskpro and take the final delta
Stop new ticket creation, let agents finish in-flight replies, then export everything changed since the pre-load. Announce the freeze to the whole business, not just support — someone always tries to raise a ticket during it.
Tickets created during an unenforced freeze land in the old system and are the most common source of permanently lost data.
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Load the delta and open tickets
Run the delta load, then reconcile counts before touching any channel. Do not repoint email until the delta has verified — an inbound ticket arriving mid-load is far harder to untangle than a few extra minutes of freeze.
Migration Validation Tool Confirm the final delta landed before you reopen -
Repoint channels and verify with live traffic
Switch email forwarding and MX or connector settings, update chat widgets and web forms, and re-authorise integrations. Then send real test tickets through every channel and confirm each lands, routes and triggers the right automation.
Email forwarding changes can take up to a full DNS TTL to propagate — check the TTL days in advance and lower it if needed.
Cron Expression Builder Schedule the delta syncs that run through the freeze -
Run the go/no-go and switch the agents
Walk the exit criteria with the decision-maker, call it explicitly, then move agents over with a named person on hand for the first few hours. Keep Deskpro read-only rather than cancelled — cancelling the old contract on day one removes your only fallback.
Don't move on until
- Full historical load complete and counts matched
- Inbound channels repointed and verified with live test tickets
- Rollback decision point passed explicitly, not by default
06 Validation Prove the migration is complete, then close it out.
Objective Documented evidence that data, workflow and reporting all survived, and a signed acceptance.
Keep these open
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Run the full reconciliation
Compare source and target on every object: total counts, counts by status, counts by group, attachment counts, and field-level spot checks on a random sample. Produce one report you can hand to an auditor.
Migration Validation Tool Reconcile Deskpro and Zoho Desk record-for-record -
Verify field completeness, not just record counts
Re-profile the loaded data and compare null rates per field against the source profile. Matching record counts with a field that silently arrived empty is the failure mode counts alone will never catch.
Data Profiler Prove field completeness held up through the load -
Rebuild reporting and compare against baselines
Recreate your core dashboards — volume, first response time, resolution time, CSAT — and compare to pre-migration figures for the same period. Explain every variance; a changed SLA calculation is a real finding, not a rounding error.
SLA and first-response metrics are usually recalculated from the loaded timestamps, so they will differ if any timestamp mapping was approximate.
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Test the workflow layer end to end
Fire every trigger, automation, SLA escalation, macro and notification with a live ticket. Workflow does not migrate — it gets rebuilt — so it is untested until someone has actually watched it run.
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Confirm compliance and produce the audit trail
Re-scan the loaded data for regulated fields, confirm retention and deletion policies are configured in Zoho Desk, and file the evidence with your PII decisions from the audit phase.
PII & Compliance Scanner Produce the compliance evidence your auditor will ask for -
Sign off, then decommission on a schedule
Get written acceptance against the Discovery success criteria. Keep Deskpro read-only for an agreed period (30-90 days is typical), take a final archive export, and only then cancel. Diarise the decommission date so it does not quietly renew.
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Rebuild automations
Deskpro triggers and escalations do not migrate. Recreate them as Zoho Desk workflows (Setup → Automation → Workflows), assignment rules, SLA policies, and Blueprints. Map each Deskpro trigger to its Zoho equivalent before cutover.
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Set up integrations
If Deskpro was connected to Slack, Jira, or CRM tools via API, reconfigure those integrations with Zoho Desk's connectors or Zoho Flow. Key integrations: Zoho CRM sync (bidirectional), Slack notifications (via Zoho Desk Marketplace app), Jira (via Zoho Desk's built-in Jira integration).
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Update email routing
Configure Zoho Desk's email channel to receive support emails. Update your support@ MX records or forwarding rules. Set the reply-from address to match your existing support email to avoid confusing customers.
Deskpro → Zoho Desk specifics
- Reconfigure SLAs
- Zoho Desk's SLA engine works differently from Deskpro's. Deskpro calculates SLA based on ticket properties at creation; Zoho Desk recalculates on ticket updates. Map response and resolution targets manually and test with sample tickets.
- Train agents
- Zoho Desk's UI and terminology differ from Deskpro. Plan a 1–2 hour hands-on session covering ticket views, macros, the knowledge base editor, and Zoho-specific concepts like Blueprints and Happiness Ratings.
Don't move on until
- Full reconciliation report attached to the project record
- Reporting baselines match pre-migration figures within agreed tolerance
- Formal acceptance signed and archive retention scheduled
Field mapping reference
The field-by-field mapping for each object. Use this as the starting point for your mapping spec.
Object Object
| Deskpro field | Zoho Desk field | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| People (Users) | Contacts | 1:1 mapping. Email is the dedupe key in both systems. |
| Organizations | Accounts | 1:1 mapping. Name is the primary identifier. |
| Agents | Agents | Map by email. Agent must exist in Zoho Desk before ticket import. |
| Departments | Departments | Map by name. Must be pre-created in Zoho Desk. |
| Tickets | Tickets | Core object. Map status, priority, and department. |
| Ticket Messages | Threads | Each message becomes a thread entry. Distinguish public vs internal. |
| Ticket Notes | Comments | Deskpro agent notes → Zoho Desk comments (isPublic: false). |
| Attachments | Attachments | Must be downloaded from Deskpro blob storage and re-uploaded to Zoho. |
| KB Categories | KB Categories | Structural mapping. |
| KB Articles | KB Articles | HTML content transfer. Inline images need re-hosting. Article permissions/visibility must be set separately. |
| Labels/Tags | Tags | Direct mapping. Zoho Desk tags are limited to 50 characters per tag and 10 tags per ticket. |
| Custom Fields | Custom Fields | Must pre-create matching fields in Zoho Desk. Type compatibility matters. |
| Forum Topics | No equivalent | Zoho Desk's community forums have a separate data model with no import API. These cannot be migrated. |
Deskpro Zoho Desk
| Deskpro field | Zoho Desk field | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| id | cf_deskpro_id (custom) | Store as custom field for cross-reference; Zoho assigns its own ID |
| ref | cf_deskpro_ref (custom) | Deskpro ticket reference number |
| subject | subject | Truncate if exceeds 255 characters |
| status | status | Map: awaiting_agent → Open, awaiting_user → On Hold, resolved → Closed |
| priority | priority | Map: urgent → High, normal → Medium, low → Low |
| department_id | departmentId | Map Deskpro department ID → Zoho department ID |
| agent_id | assigneeId | Map Deskpro agent ID → Zoho agent ID |
| person_id | contactId | Map Deskpro person ID → Zoho contact ID |
| person.email | email (Contact) | Dedupe key. Zoho requires lastName — if Deskpro only has a full name, split it. |
| organization_id | accountId | Map via contact's primary account |
| date_created | createdTime | ISO 8601. API only — not settable via CSV. |
| date_resolved | closedTime | ISO 8601 |
| labels | tag | Comma-separated in Zoho |
| custom_fields [n] | cf_{alias} | Must match field type. Picklist values must exist in Zoho. |
Risk matrix
Per-object risk for this pair. Plan extra validation around anything marked high.
| Object | Risk | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tickets | medium | Ticket records themselves can be migrated via API, but preserving original creation timestamps and ticket IDs is not possible through CSV import and requires careful API handling. |
| Ticket Threads (Replies) | high | CSV import drops all ticket threads entirely, and API migration requires mapping Deskpro messages to Zoho Desk's separate thread endpoint while preserving chronological order. |
| Internal Notes | high | Deskpro internal notes must be routed to Zoho Desk's comments API (a different endpoint from threads), and CSV imports do not support them at all. |
| Contacts | medium | Deskpro's "People" records must be split and re-linked as Zoho Desk Contacts with proper Account associations, and multi-organization memberships require special handling. |
| Organizations / Accounts | medium | Deskpro Organizations map to Zoho Desk Accounts, but the relational model differs since Zoho Desk Contacts typically have a single primary Account unless multi-account is explicitly enabled. |
| Attachments | high | Attachments are completely lost in CSV imports and require a two-step binary download/upload process via API, with inline attachments in ticket bodies being particularly fragile. |
| Custom Fields | medium | Custom fields can be mapped via API but require manual picklist value translation, and third-party tools may not support all Deskpro custom field types. |
| Knowledge Base Articles | medium | Deskpro KB categories, articles, and downloads must be restructured into Zoho Desk's category-section-article hierarchy, with downloads and news items having no direct equivalent. |
| Automations and SLAs | high | Deskpro triggers, escalations, and macros cannot be migrated programmatically and must be manually rebuilt using Zoho Desk's Workflows, Assignment Rules, and Blueprints. |
| Agents and Teams | low | Agent and team structures map relatively cleanly between the two platforms, though department-level permission isolation requires manual reconfiguration. |
The hard parts
What makes this specific migration difficult, beyond the mechanics.
No Native Migration Path
Zoho Desk's Zwitch migration tool only supports Freshdesk and Zendesk, so Deskpro migrations require a custom CSV, API, or third-party approach.
Contact-Account Model Mismatch
Deskpro's unified "People" records with multi-organization membership must be decomposed into Zoho Desk's separate Contacts and Accounts with single-primary-Account relationships.
Thread and Comment Separation
Deskpro ticket messages and internal notes must be routed to different Zoho Desk API endpoints — threads for replies and comments for internal notes — requiring careful classification during migration.
API Credit Rate Limiting
Zoho Desk uses a credit-based daily API system that can be exhausted within hours by unthrottled scripts, stalling migrations for 24 hours at a time.
Attachment Binary Transfer
Migrating attachments requires a two-step process on both platforms — downloading blobs from Deskpro's API and re-uploading them to Zoho Desk — with no shortcut for inline or embedded attachments.
Department Permission Mapping
Deskpro's department structure does not map 1:1 to Zoho Desk's department isolation model, requiring careful reconfiguration of agent permissions and ticket routing rules.
Tools used in this playbook
All free, all run entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
FAQ
Can I migrate from Deskpro to Zoho Desk using a built-in tool?
No. Zoho Desk's native migration utility (Zwitch) only supports Freshdesk and Zendesk. Deskpro-to-Zoho migrations require CSV export/import, API scripting, a third-party tool, or a managed migration service.
Does Zoho Desk CSV import preserve ticket threads and attachments?
No. Zoho Desk's CSV import creates flat ticket records without threads, comments, or attachments. To preserve full conversation history and file attachments, you must use the Zoho Desk REST API.
What are Zoho Desk's API rate limits for migration?
Zoho Desk uses a credit-based API system. Credits range from 5,000/day (Free) to 100,000/day + 1,000 per agent (Enterprise). Exceeding credits returns HTTP 429. Paid plans allow purchasing up to 5,000,000 additional credits.
Does Zoho Desk require a contact for every ticket?
Yes. Zoho Desk does not allow creating a ticket without associating it to a contact. Orphan Deskpro tickets tied only to an email string need a placeholder contact or a pre-merge pass before loading.
What data cannot be migrated from Deskpro to Zoho Desk?
Triggers, escalations, SLA rules, automations, and macros must be recreated manually in Zoho Desk. Forum/community data and Deskpro-specific features like downloads and news posts have no equivalent in Zoho Desk.