Migrating Data to LiveAgent from another Helpdesk

Table of Content

 you are planning to transfer data from your existing helpdesk software to your new LiveAgent account, we have designed various migration plugins for your convenience.

Should your current helpdesk platform not be present in our list of migration plugins, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team at support@liveagent.com to raise a request for a new migration plugin. We will be happy to consider your request for a new migration plugin and assess the feasibility of transferring the data from your platform. Providing us with a detailed description of the data you wish to migrate will expedite the development of the plugin.

If you have an in-house IT/development team you can also choose to migrate the data independently using our API. Please note that in such a case, our support team won't be able to assist you with the custom migration or scripts.

Available migration plugins

The following plugins are available to facilitate migration from other helpdesk software to LiveAgent:

Initiating the migration

To start the migration, log in to your LiveAgent panel, navigate to Configuration > System > Plugins, search for the appropriate migration plugin for your current helpdesk platform, and activate it.

Upon activating the migration plugin, click on the Configure (pencil icon) button The migration plugin will require details to authenticate you as the owner of the other helpdesk account that you are migrating from. This could include details like account/domain name, username, password, API key, etc. The required details can differ based on the plugin.

As soon as you save the plugin's configuration window, a background task begins that initiates the data migration.

Before initiating the migration, it is recommended to deactivate the "Ticket resolved" email notification template in Configuration > Email > Customer to prevent spamming your customers with notifications in case some tickets are migrated and automatically put to the Resolved status.

Migration process overview

As soon as you save the migration plugin's configuration window to start the migration, LiveAgent begins to import data from your previous helpdesk account utilizing its API. A unique ID used in the previous system is attributed to each migrated item (if applicable) in a new custom ticket/contact field. While the migration is in progress, you are free to work in LiveAgent uninterrupted. Data is migrated in batches, creating e.g. new tickets or contacts continuously. Once all data is migrated, the background task stops and the migration is complete.

Approximate migration duration

The total duration of the migration process can vary significantly and depends on factors such as the volume of the migrated data or the speed at which your former helpdesk's API can provide the data. It is usual that APIs typically have rate limits, which can increase the time it takes to complete the migration. Depending on these factors, the migration could take several minutes, several hours, or even longer in some cases.

Background tasks are slowed down when there are no agents online in the panel. It is recommended to have at least one agent online to finish the migration as soon as possible.

How to track the migration progress

You can monitor the progress of the migration in the "Status" field in the migration plugin's configuration window.

Re-initiating the migration

If you continue to actively use the helpdesk from which you migrated data to LiveAgent and wish to re-run the migration, you can do so by re-saving the migration plugin's configuration. Tickets or contacts that retained their previous ID in a custom field won't be duplicated, and only the new data will be migrated. However, if a new message is added to a ticket in your previous helpdesk that's been already migrated, this ticket won't be updated in LiveAgent and the new message won't be added to the ticket.

We strongly recommend migrating only once you are ready to fully transition to LiveAgent and discontinue the use of your previous helpdesk software.

Troubleshooting

Should you encounter any issues, receive any error messages, observe that the number of migrated tickets is not increasing over a long duration, or find that some data were not migrated correctly, do not hesitate to reach out to our support team at support@liveagent.com or via our 24/7 available live chat.

×