LiveAgent to Freshdesk migration requires API-based extraction because CSV drops message history. Plan 10-18 days for mid-size datasets and rebuild all automations manually.
Learn how to migrate from LiveAgent to Freshdesk with full message history. Covers API rate limits, data mapping, step-by-step architecture, and known limitations.
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Pair-specific gotchas that catch teams out. Each one has cost somebody a weekend.
TL;DR: LiveAgent to Freshdesk Migration
Migrating from LiveAgent to Freshdesk is a moderately complex, API-driven project. A typical migration of 10,000 to 100,000 tickets takes 10 to 18 days including mapping, testing, and cutover. The single biggest risk is losing threaded message history: LiveAgent's native CSV export only provides a ticket preview and drops the full conversation thread, so you must extract via the LiveAgent API v3. Automations, SLA policies, canned messages, and predefined answers cannot be migrated programmatically and must be rebuilt manually in Freshdesk. Teams with fewer than 5,000 simple tickets can attempt a scripted DIY migration. For anything larger — or if you need zero-downtime delta syncs and full attachment preservation — a managed migration service is the safer path. Targets LiveAgent API v3 and Freshdesk API v2.
What has no clean equivalent in Freshdesk
LiveAgent Forums (community discussion boards tied to the knowledge base) have no direct Freshdesk equivalent. Forum topics create tickets in LiveAgent, not articles, so they usually migrate as tickets or get archived. LiveAgent's Suggestion Categories and Feedback Boards also lack a 1:1 target. (support.liveagent.com)
Database dump option
LiveAgent offers a full database dump, but only for paying customers who are actively canceling their subscription. The dump contains raw SQL data, and attachments stored in AWS S3 are delivered as a separate file/folder structure. Your engineering team must manually match attachment IDs to ticket IDs. This is useful as a backup but adds significant transformation work compared to API extraction.
Trial account bottleneck
Freshdesk trial accounts are throttled to 50 API calls per minute. That is 4x slower than Growth and 14x slower than Enterprise. Do not benchmark your migration timeline on a trial account. Upgrade to a paid plan before running a full volume test.
Sandbox availability
Freshdesk sandbox environments are available only on Pro and Enterprise plans. If you are on a Growth plan, use a separate Freshdesk trial account for testing — but remember the 50 calls/min throttle will not reflect production throughput. Factor this into your test planning.
Verify timestamp behavior in sandbox
The Freshdesk Ticket Import API (/api/v2/import/tickets) supports writable created_at and updated_at fields. The standard ticket create endpoint (/api/v2/tickets) does not — it always sets created_at to the current server time. Sandbox environments are available on Freshdesk Pro and Enterprise plans only. If you are on a Growth plan, test against a separate trial instance but account for the 50 calls/min throttle. (developers.freshdesk.com)
Use notes, not replies, for historical replay
Freshdesk notes can be public or private, and they support incoming=true so imported events appear to come from outside the portal. Replies expose mail-specific fields like from_email, cc_emails, and bcc_emails — which means they can trigger outbound email notifications to customers. Notes are the safer default for silently reconstructing historical threads without alerting end users. (developers.freshdesk.com)
Do not classify LiveAgent notes by message.type == "M" alone
Since LiveAgent 5.62, notes can also use type M, and note group IDs can be UUID strings instead of integers. Store IDs as strings and support both old and new note markers in your extraction logic. (support.liveagent.com)
LiveAgent data retention after cancellation
LiveAgent stores data in its database for 7 days after account cancellation, then moves it to AWS S3 storage. Request a database dump before canceling. Once the account is fully deleted, data recovery is not guaranteed.
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 LiveAgent
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 Freshdesk can hold your support model
Walk your current workflow through Freshdesk: 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 LiveAgent → Freshdesk 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.
LiveAgent → Freshdesk specifics
- 5,000 to 50,000 tickets
- Custom API script with a dedicated engineer, or a managed service
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 LiveAgent 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 LiveAgent 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 LiveAgent 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 LiveAgent → Freshdesk 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 LiveAgent → Freshdesk 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 Freshdesk 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 Freshdesk sandbox that reconciles cleanly and has been reviewed by real agents.
Keep these open
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Stand up a Freshdesk 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 Freshdesk'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.
LiveAgent → Freshdesk specifics
- User acceptance testing (UAT)
- Have 2 to 3 agents work in Freshdesk for 1 to 2 days using real workflows. Check that ticket search, filters, and reporting function as expected.
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 Freshdesk, 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 LiveAgent 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 Freshdesk'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 LiveAgent 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 LiveAgent read-only rather than cancelled — cancelling the old contract on day one removes your only fallback.
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Update customer portal links
Revert any DNS CNAME changes pointing your support subdomain from Freshdesk back to LiveAgent.
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Handle tickets created in Freshdesk during the failed window
Export any new Freshdesk tickets via GET /api/v2/tickets?updated_since={cutover_timestamp} and manually recreate them in LiveAgent, or forward them via email.
LiveAgent → Freshdesk specifics
- Re-route inbound email
- Change your support email forwarding rules (in your email provider or MX records) back to LiveAgent's inbound address. This typically takes 5 to 15 minutes for forwarding rule changes, or up to 24 hours for MX record propagation.
- Communicate to agents
- Send an immediate notification that the team is reverting to LiveAgent, with instructions to resume work in the original system.
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 LiveAgent and Freshdesk 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 Freshdesk, 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 LiveAgent 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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Record-count reconciliation
Compare total tickets, contacts, companies, and KB articles between source and target. The numbers must match exactly. Use LiveAgent's GET /api/v3/tickets?_perPage=1 with the total count header and Freshdesk's GET /api/v2/tickets?per_page=1 with the X-Total-Count response header.
LiveAgent → Freshdesk specifics
- Field-level spot checks
- Sample 2% to 5% of migrated tickets (minimum 100 tickets for datasets over 5,000). Verify subject, status, priority, assignee, tags, custom field values, and conversation thread completeness.
- Attachment verification
- Confirm that attachments are downloadable from Freshdesk. Check file sizes match the originals. Verify at least 20 tickets with attachments across different size ranges.
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.
How Map LiveAgent Objects to Freshdesk
| LiveAgent field | Freshdesk field | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tickets | Tickets | Status values differ. LiveAgent uses string-based statuses. Freshdesk uses numeric codes (2=Open, 3=Pending, 4=Resolved, 5=Closed). Map before import. |
| Messages (per ticket) | Conversations (replies/notes) | Each LiveAgent message must be created as a Freshdesk note or reply via POST /api/v2/tickets/{id}/notes. Private messages become private notes. |
| Customers | Contacts | LiveAgent stores contacts as "Customers." Freshdesk requires at least one of email, phone, mobile, or twitter_id per contact. Email is the primary unique identifier. |
| Companies | Companies | Direct 1:1 mapping. Companies must be created before associating Contacts. Associate contacts via company_id. |
| Agents | Agents | Each Freshdesk agent consumes a paid seat. Create agents before importing tickets to preserve assignment. |
| Departments | Groups | No 1:1 structural equivalent. Map each LiveAgent Department to a Freshdesk Group. LiveAgent departments also control member roles and service availability. (support.liveagent.com) |
| Tags | Tags | Direct string mapping. Audit for duplicates before import. |
| Custom Fields | Custom Fields (cf_ prefix) | Freshdesk custom fields must be pre-created in the admin UI before API writes. Field API names use the cf_ prefix, not the UI display label. |
| Knowledge Base Categories | Solution Categories | LiveAgent uses a two-level hierarchy (Category > Article). Freshdesk uses three levels (Category > Folder > Article). Create an intermediate Folder for each Category. |
| Knowledge Base Articles | Solution Articles | HTML content transfers directly. Embedded images must be re-hosted or uploaded as attachments. |
| Canned Messages / Predefined Answers | Canned Responses | No programmatic migration path. Export from LiveAgent via API v3, then manually recreate in Freshdesk. |
| Automations (Rules) | Automation Rules | Cannot be migrated. Must be rebuilt manually in Freshdesk's Dispatcher, Supervisor, and Observer rule engines. |
| SLA Policies | SLA Policies | Cannot be migrated. Recreate in Freshdesk Admin > SLA Policies. |
| Attachments | Attachments | Download from LiveAgent using the download_url returned by the messages endpoint. Upload to Freshdesk as multipart/form-data when creating notes or replies. |
What breaks
Known failure modes. Have a recovery plan for each before you cut over.
Picklist and enum handling
LiveAgent custom fields with dropdown values must be recreated with identical option labels in Freshdesk before import. Mismatched labels cause silent field-value drops — the API accepts the ticket but quietly discards the unrecognized value.
Date and timezone formats
LiveAgent API v3 returns dates in the account's configured timezone. Freshdesk expects UTC. Apply timezone offset conversion during transformation. If your LiveAgent account timezone is not UTC, use Timezone-Offset during reconciliation because API results follow account timezone while filters operate in UTC. (support.liveagent.com)
Required fields
Freshdesk ticket creation requires email or requester_id, subject, description, status, and priority. LiveAgent tickets missing any of these fields will fail on import.
Custom field limits
Freshdesk limits the number of active custom fields based on your plan. If your LiveAgent instance has many custom fields, you may need to consolidate them or map legacy data into a single text block within the ticket description.
Inactive picklist values
If a LiveAgent picklist has an obsolete or inactive value, the Freshdesk API will reject the ticket creation payload. Map obsolete values to a generic legacy field or recreate them in Freshdesk before import.
Attachment size mismatch
Freshdesk enforces a strict 20 MB limit for incoming attachments. LiveAgent allows up to 25 MB. If a LiveAgent ticket contains oversized files, the Freshdesk API will reject the payload with HTTP 422. Compress the file, host it externally (e.g., S3 with a signed URL), or append a download link to the ticket body.
Inline images in ticket bodies
LiveAgent often embeds images using base64 encoding in the HTML body. Freshdesk has strict request payload size limits and may reject messages with massive base64 strings. Parse the HTML, extract base64 images, upload each to Freshdesk as a standard attachment, and rewrite the <img> tag to point to the new URL.
Duplicate contacts
LiveAgent allows multiple contacts with the same email across different customer groups. Freshdesk enforces email uniqueness across the entire account. Deduplicate before import or merge records. Use Freshdesk's GET /api/v2/contacts?email={email} to check for existing contacts before creation.
Multiple requesters per ticket
LiveAgent allows multiple customers on a single ticket in certain routing scenarios. Freshdesk requires a single primary requester. Designate one customer as the primary requester and add the others as CCs using the cc_emails field.
Multi-knowledge-base setups
LiveAgent supports multiple knowledge bases per account. Freshdesk supports multiple Solution portals on certain plans, but the mapping is not 1:1. Plan the folder hierarchy carefully and verify your Freshdesk plan supports the number of portals you need.
Chat and call transcripts
LiveAgent stores chat sessions and call recordings as separate objects. Freshdesk does not have a native historical import for chat transcripts. Attach them as text files or notes on associated tickets.
Freshdesk pagination ceiling
Freshdesk's filter endpoint (/api/v2/search/tickets) is capped at 10 pages of 30 results each (300 results total). For large datasets, use the List All Tickets endpoint (GET /api/v2/tickets) with updated_since filters instead.
Custom field creation
Freshdesk custom fields must be pre-created in the admin UI before API writes. There is no API endpoint to programmatically create custom field definitions.
Freshdesk per-agent pricing
Freshdesk charges per agent per month. For large teams on LiveAgent's flat-rate plans (e.g., Large plan at $59/month for unlimited agents), moving to Freshdesk can increase agent seat costs significantly. A 20-agent team on Freshdesk Pro costs $980/month versus LiveAgent's flat rate. Factor this into your total cost of ownership before migrating.
Tools used in this playbook
All free, all run entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
FAQ
Can I migrate LiveAgent to Freshdesk without losing data?
Yes, but only if you extract data via the LiveAgent API v3. The native CSV export drops full message history and only provides a ticket preview. API-based extraction preserves all messages, notes, attachments, and metadata.
How much does a LiveAgent to Freshdesk migration cost?
A DIY API migration costs 60 to 120 engineer-hours. Third-party migration tools charge $500 to $3,000 for small datasets. Managed migration services range from $3,000 to $15,000+ for 10,000 to 100,000 tickets depending on complexity.
Can LiveAgent ticket timestamps be preserved in Freshdesk?
The Freshdesk Ticket Import API (/api/v2/imports/tickets) supports timestamp preservation. The standard ticket create and note endpoints do not expose writable created_at fields. Verify behavior in your Freshdesk sandbox before committing to a plan.
Does Freshdesk have a native LiveAgent import tool?
No. Freshdesk does not offer a built-in import wizard for LiveAgent. The migration must be done via API scripts, third-party tools like Help Desk Migration, or a managed migration service.
Can LiveAgent private notes be preserved in Freshdesk?
Usually yes, as Freshdesk private notes. The extraction trap is that since LiveAgent 5.62, notes can share message type M with regular messages and can carry UUID group IDs. Your extraction logic must handle both old and new note markers.