This article provides an overview of how to plan, test, and launch the migration from Zendesk Chat to messaging. Each step includes a brief description of the recommended actions, along with links to resources with more detailed information. Some of the resources are sections in this guide; others are published elsewhere in Zendesk documentation.
Use this article if you’re an administrator planning a migration from Zendesk Chat to messaging and want to understand the overall workflow before you begin.
This article includes the following steps:
- Step 1: Review your technical readiness
- Step 2: Learn how messaging works and prepare your migration
- Step 3: Migrate your Chat settings to messaging
- Step 4: Prepare your agents
- Step 5: Test messaging in a sandbox
- Step 6: Test messaging in production during a low traffic period
- Step 7: Launch messaging
Step 1: Review your technical readiness
Reviewing your Chat configuration can help to identify any potential problems before the migration and guide the decisions you make in your messaging setup.
Consider the following questions:
- What customizations have you implemented in your Chat setup?
- Are you using any Chat APIs or webhooks that you need to replace or rebuild for messaging?
- Do you have any compliance or security requirements specific to your industry?
- Do you have internal teams, such as developers or security reviewers, who need to be involved before launch?
See the Technical readiness assessment for a more thorough list of questions and actions to consider before migrating to messaging.
Step 2: Learn how messaging works and plan your migration
Before you migrate, you should learn how messaging works and review any new features you plan to use.
- Review the basics of messaging. Start with the article About conversational support with messaging, which describes many of the options for designing your messaging channel.
- Learn about omnichannel routing in About omnichannel routing.
- Consider alternative conversational styles (optional): In addition to the live chat style, you can configure messaging to manage returning customers, or you can set it up to act as a longer, ongoing conversation, like you’d have in a social channel. Read Conversational styles in messaging for detailed information about the advantages of these styles.
- Consider turning on AI Agents. AI agents can automatically resolve many customer issues, freeing your human agents to handle more difficult support requests. About AI agents is a good starting point.
Even if you’re not ready to migrate, reading the articles in this guide can give you a clear idea of what the migration process entails and help you identify additional information you may need before Chat deprecates on January 31, 2028.
Step 3: Migrate your Chat settings to messaging
When you’re ready to begin setting up a messaging configuration, you can migrate your Chat settings into Admin Center.
If you’re currently using a Chat or legacy Web Widget to deliver conversational support, follow the steps outlined in our self-migration guide to create a messaging setup that closely matches your Chat configuration. The migration process reviews your current Chat configuration and recreates those settings in Admin Center so you can configure, test, and practice working with messaging. These migration steps don’t move your active conversational support to messaging, and they don’t turn off or replace your live chat channel.
Step 4: Migrate to omnichannel routing (recommended)
Start using omnichannel routing during the transition from live chat to messaging. Using omnichannel routing while migrating from chat to messaging walks you through the steps for recreating, as much as possible, your chat routing setup in omnichannel routing.
Step 5: Prepare your agents
Messaging changes how agents receive, manage, and resolve conversations and tickets. Review the following resources to help your agents prepare for the new workflow.
- Training your agents provides an overview of some key changes.
- Agent Workspace for messaging introduces agents to their main screen, where they’ll be interacting with customers in real time, as well as working with Support tickets.
- Understanding live conversation translation is a must-read for agents working with multiple languages. This article explains the automatic translation feature, how it works, and how agents can manage it.
Step 6: Test your messaging configuration
Set up messaging in a restricted test environment to preview how it functions. Use your own testing environment, or transfer your messaging settings to your sandbox (available for Enterprise and Enterprise+ accounts).
During testing, verify that your widget behavior, routing configuration, agent workflows, and any AI agent or automation flows work as expected.
Step 7: Test in production during a low-traffic period
Before you fully launch, test the configuration in your production environment during a period of lower activity. This helps you confirm that everything works as expected with real traffic. Have your agents test it, so you can correct errors before customers run into issues so you can identify and fix issues before a broader rollout.
Consider limiting the initial rollout to a low-volume brand, a small group of agents, or a low-risk use case. Use that rollout to refine your process and correct any errors, then migrate higher-volume brands gradually to ensure everything functions as desired.
Step 8: Launch messaging
Once you’ve completed testing and made your final updates, you’re ready to turn off Chat and start using messaging in your live Web Widget or mobile app. As with your final production test, it’s recommended that you launch messaging during a low-traffic period, or for a brand that isn’t heavily used.
After launch, monitor agent feedback, routing behavior, and customer experience closely so you can make adjustments quickly.