Migrating from Zendesk to Chatwoot — translating tickets and triggers

Why Zendesk is harder than Intercom#

Axis	Intercom	Zendesk
Primary usage	Real-time chat	Tickets + email
Export	Solid API	Official exporter, slow
Automation complexity	Medium	High (Triggers / Automations / Macros / SLA)
Multi-brand	None	Yes (separate forms per brand)

Zendesk’s Triggers + Automations + Macros + SLA Policies have no 1:1 equivalent in Chatwoot. Redesign required.

Two phases#

Step 1 — data migration (easy)#

curl "https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets.json?page=1" \
  -u email/token:API_TOKEN > tickets.json

curl "https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com/api/v2/users.json" \
  -u email/token:API_TOKEN > users.json

Mapping:

Zendesk	Chatwoot
ticket.subject	conversation.additional_attributes.subject
ticket.priority	conversation.priority
ticket.status (open/pending/solved/closed)	status (open/pending/resolved)
ticket.custom_fields[i]	conversation.custom_attributes[i]
comments	messages
organizations	contacts.additional_attributes.organization

Step 2 — automation translation (hard)#

Triggers (run immediately on condition)#

Zendesk Trigger: “New ticket + priority=high → assign Team A”

Chatwoot equivalent: Automation Rule (conversation_created / updated)

name: High priority to senior team
trigger: conversation_created
conditions:
  - priority == high
actions:
  - assign_team: senior-team-id

Automations (scheduled)#

Zendesk Automation: “Unanswered after 12h → escalate”

Chatwoot has no native scheduled Automation. Wire n8n:

n8n cron (every 10 min) →
  query Chatwoot API for all conversations
  → filter not-replied > 12h
  → escalate + notify

Macros#

Zendesk Macros bundle text + field changes + tags. Chatwoot Canned Responses are text-only. Split:

• Text → Canned Response
• Field changes → Custom View / Manual Action
• Tag changes → same

SLA Policies#

Chatwoot 4.x supports SLAs:

sla_policy:
  name: Premium customers
  first_response_time_threshold: 1h
  next_response_time_threshold: 4h
  resolution_time_threshold: 24h
  applicable_when:
    - contact.tag == premium

Multi-brand#

Zendesk isolates per brand with its own Help Center and ticket form. Chatwoot approximates with multi-Account or multi-Inbox:

• Multi-Account — total isolation (enterprise)
• Multi-Inbox — single account, by inbox (SMB)

Real timeline#

Week	Work
1-2	Export + mapping scripts
3	Trigger / Automation translation design
4	n8n workflows
5	Historical import (overnight, batched)
6	Agent training
7-8	10% → 50% → 100% traffic switch

Don’t#

• Don’t cut over without parallel run — many Zendesk Automations have run unmaintained for years; you’ll only find out what’s missing after cutover
• Don’t drop historical search — customers will ask “what about that ticket from last month”
• Don’t carry every macro — let the support team curate to 30-50 actually used; drop the rest