Moving your customer service ecosystem from one platform to another is a critical business decision.
If you are planning to transition your support operations from Freshdesk to Trengo, a successful migration relies heavily on understanding the distinct data models and executing a precise, phased approach.
This guide will walk you through the process, covering every essential object from agents and customers to historical tickets and knowledge base articles.
Define Your Migration Scope
To ensure a smooth transition, we must clearly delineate which data sets can be migrated directly via API, which configurations require manual effort, and what information might need to be left behind.
Objects Migrated via API
The majority of your critical operational and historical data can be moved using available API endpoints, often with a direct 1:1 mapping:
- User Management: Freshdesk Agents directly translate to Trengo Users. Freshdesk Groups map cleanly to Trengo Teams.
- Customer Records: Your Freshdesk Contacts (Customers) convert to Trengo Contacts / Profiles. Your associated Freshdesk Companies transition smoothly into Trengo Contact Groups.
- Customization and Tagging: Custom Fields (Definitions) used in Freshdesk map directly to Trengo Custom Fields. Similarly, Freshdesk Tags correspond to Trengo Labels.
- Knowledge and Efficiency: Canned Responses convert directly to Quick Replies. The hierarchical knowledge base structure of Freshdesk Solution Categories and Solution Folders maps to Trengo Help Center Categories and Help Center Sections, respectively. The content of your Solution Articles also moves over easily.
- Core Data: Tickets (Metadata) are migrated using the Trengo Create a ticket endpoint.
Workarounds for Historical Data:
- Ticket Conversations/Replies (Freshdesk) → Ticket Messages / Imports (Trengo): While Freshdesk treats replies as conversations attached directly to the ticket, Trengo provides dedicated endpoints for importing historical data: Import text message and Import email message. This requires extracting conversation threads from Freshdesk and structuring them into the proper historical import payloads for Trengo.
- Ticket Notes (Freshdesk) → Contact/Profile Notes (Trengo): Freshdesk allows creating private and public notes on tickets. In Trengo, notes are tied to the customer record, allowing you to add Notes to Contacts or Profiles. You must extract the notes and map them to the corresponding customer record in Trengo.
Manual Configuration Required
Certain architectural elements in Freshdesk do not have a corresponding API endpoint in Trengo and must be manually rebuilt within the new platform:
- Roles: Freshdesk Roles, which define agent permissions, must be manually configured in Trengo as there is no specific API for migrating these permissions.
- Time Entries: Freshdesk Time Entries record the time agents spend on tickets. Trengo offers logging functions for phone calls, but there is no direct equivalent API for migrating detailed time tracking history, requiring manual handling of this data.
- Ticket Forms: Custom Ticket Forms used in Freshdesk must be manually configured in Trengo as the API does not support creating the structure of these forms.
Prepare Trengo for Data Import
Before commencing data transfer, you must establish the underlying structure in Trengo to ensure related data maps correctly. This foundational work must be executed in a specific sequence due to dependencies.
- Custom Fields: First, define all necessary Custom Fields to capture unique data points associated with contacts, profiles, and tickets that were utilized in Freshdesk.
- Users (Agents): Next, Create Users who will serve as your support agents in Trengo. These user IDs are crucial for subsequent object associations.
- Teams (Groups): With users in place, proceed to Create Teams (equivalent to Freshdesk Groups) and assign the newly created users to their respective teams.
- Labels (Tags): Create Labels (equivalent to Freshdesk Tags) to ensure that ticket classification systems are ready.
- Efficiency Tools (Quick Replies): Populate your new system with Quick Replies (Canned Responses).
- Help Center Structure (Knowledge Base): Build out the hierarchical structure of your knowledge base:
- Create a help center container.
- Create Categories (Solution Categories).
- Create Sections (Solution Folders) nested within those categories.
Migrate Objects
The migration of the actual data must follow a sequence dictated by object dependencies. If a ticket relies on a contact, the contact must exist first.
Transferring Customer Data (Companies and Contacts)
The logical starting point for migrating customer data is setting up the corporate structures. Freshdesk Companies typically translate to Contact Groups in Trengo. Utilize the Create a contact group operation to establish these organizational units.
Next, migrate individual Contacts from Freshdesk into Trengo’s Contacts. If a contact already exists with the given identifier, the Trengo system may simply return the existing details instead of creating a duplicate.
After the contact records are established, associate any existing Contact Custom Field Values from Freshdesk by setting the custom data fields on the contact level.
Migrating Knowledge Base Content (Articles)
Once the structure (Categories and Sections) is ready, the content itself can be imported.
Migrate your Freshdesk Solution Articles into Trengo Help Center Articles. If your articles use complex embedded components, note that some elements may need to be organized into Blocks during creation.
Importing Tickets and Conversations
This is the most intricate phase, as it involves transactional history and unstructured message bodies.
- Tickets (Metadata): Begin by creating the core Tickets in Trengo. This establishes the basic container, including metadata and headers, based on the Freshdesk records.
During this process, be sure to set the Ticket Status for resolved or closed cases.
After creation, associate Ticket Labels (from Freshdesk Tags), and apply Ticket Custom Field Values (custom data). - Conversations and Attachments: Historical message content, whether public replies or private Conversations/Notes from Freshdesk, requires specialized handling in Trengo to ensure accurate time stamping and authorship.
Rather than using standard message posting APIs, use the dedicated message import tools, specifically Import text message or Import email message.
If your communications included Attachments, these files must first be uploaded and then referenced and linked during the message import/creation steps.
Post Migration Configuration
After all data has been moved, the focus shifts to restoring the operational automation layers.
Business Logic and Rules
Any complex behavioral logic that existed in Freshdesk, such as Automations (e.g., rules based on ticket creation or updates), must be manually rebuilt natively within Trengo’s system. Similarly, reconfigure your Service Level Agreements (SLAs), making sure your Freshdesk SLA Policies are accurately translated into the required response and resolution targets within Trengo.
Time Configuration
Re-establish all Business Hours and business calendars manually within Trengo, ensuring they align with the rules established in the replicated SLA policies. If you chose the manual workaround for historical Time Entries, approximate logs can be manually recorded using the Log a phone call action for high-level approximations, but this is best managed through internal logging practices outside of bulk data API imports.
Insider Secrets
Navigating a massive platform migration reveals nuanced challenges that standard documentation might overlook. Here are a few indispensable tips born from practical experience:
- Date and Time Format is Everything: Pay extremely close attention to date formatting when pushing historical data. Trengo APIs often require specific ISO 8601 encoded formats. Even small discrepancies here can cause API calls to fail silently or result in inaccurate reporting metrics for your historical data.
- Rate Limiting is Absolute: Freshdesk enforces strict rate limits on data extraction, often calculated per minute, which can vary greatly depending on your plan tier and the specific endpoint used. To avoid costly delays, implement client-side throttling or queuing to ensure you respect these limits while exporting data, particularly when dealing with high-volume entities like tickets and conversations.
- Authentication and Permissions: Ensure the API credentials used for bulk operations possess the absolute highest level of permission necessary. Creating fundamental objects like agents, teams, and custom fields almost always requires administrative privileges in Freshdesk during export and elevated permissions within Trengo during import.
Summary
Migrating from Freshdesk to Trengo requires a thoughtful, staged approach, prioritizing the foundational structure before migrating dependent data.
By systematically transferring core configuration elements (Users, Teams, Custom Fields, Labels, Help Center structure), followed by core customer data (Contacts and Contact Groups), and finally importing the complex transactional records (Tickets and historical Messages/Attachments), you can ensure comprehensive data continuity.
The key to a smooth migration lies not just in executing API calls, but in meticulous preparation and diligent management of dependencies and technical constraints inherent to moving data between complex modern helpdesk platforms.
If you’d rather focus on your revenue instead of wrestling with mapping sheets and pagination loops, ClonePartner can handle the full migration for you. Every project gets a dedicated engineer who understands the nuances of both APIs and ensures zero downtime.