Use this checklist to review the technical and operational requirements for migrating from Zendesk Chat to messaging. As you work through each section, identify settings, integrations, workflows, and reporting requirements you need to preserve, replace, or redesign before launch.
This article includes the following topics:
Assessment 1: Reviewing your current Chat implementation
Review how you currently use Chat on the web and mobile, and identify the settings and customizations you need to recreate in messaging.
Moving from a live chat widget to the messaging Web Widget
Admins should audit and prepare the Chat settings they use before migrating. Some Chat settings are not accessible after you turn on messaging for your account, so recording them will make it easier to confirm that the migration was successful and your messaging experience is working as expected.
Before you migrate, document the Chat settings you currently use. Some Chat settings are no longer accessible after you turn on messaging, so recording them now can help you validate your new configuration later.
- Active Chat triggers: Remove or deactivate any unnecessary triggers, and clean up the rest. Note whether each remaining trigger will become a messaging trigger, a Support ticket trigger, or a proactive messaging trigger.
- Goals: Review chat goals and remove duplicates, redundancies, or goals you no longer need.
- Chat tags: Special characters and capitalized letters aren’t allowed in messaging tags, and will be replaced with an underscore. Review your existing tags and clean them up if needed. See Setting up chat tags.
- Operating hours: Check your current operating hours setup so you can confirm they convert correctly to a Support schedule during migration. If you have more than one set of operating hours for a department, they’ll be merged into a single schedule.
- Banned IP addresses: Make sure your Banned Visitors list is current so unwanted visitors can’t access your new messaging channel.
- Widget customizations: Document any branding, launcher behavior, authentication, or custom widget behavior you need to recreate in the messaging Web Widget.
- Routing and automation: Identify any routing logic, departments, or business rules that depend on your current Chat configuration.
Moving from Zendesk Chat for mobile to the mobile SDK
Document the Chat mobile settings you currently use, and consider the following:
- What customizations have you implemented in your Chat setup?
- Are you using any Chat APIs or webhooks that will need to be migrated?
- Do you have any compliance or security requirements specific to your industry?
- Are you using a customized mobile chat experience that must be rebuilt with the messaging SDK?
- Do you pass customer identity, authentication, or metadata into the mobile experience?
- Do you rely on any mobile-specific workflows or integrations that need to be recreated?
- Have you identified the engineering work required to replace Chat SDK functionality with messaging SDK functionality?
Assessment 2: Reviewing agent workflow changes
Messaging changes how agents receive, manage, and close conversations. Review your current workflows and identify any training or process changes needed before launch.
Consider the following questions:
- Are your agents currently using the Agent Workspace or the Chat dashboard?
- Do your agents need training on the Agent Workspace for messaging?
- How are incoming chats currently routed to agents?
- How do agents currently handle conversation handoffs?
- What tools do agents use alongside Chat?
- Do agents need updated macros, workflows, or internal guidance for messaging?
- Do agents understand the differences between live chat and asynchronous messaging?
- Have you planned time for agents to test messaging before launch?
For more information, see Agent Workspace for messaging, Managing conversation handoff and handback, and Understanding live conversation translation.
Assessment 3: Reviewing integrations and customizations
Document any external tools, custom integrations, and automation used with Chat, and confirm whether they’re compatible with messaging or need to be replaced.
Review the following:
- CRM systems
- Knowledge base integrations
- Ticketing system integrations
- Analytics platforms
- Third-party bots/automation
- Workflow automation tools
- Chat APIs, webhooks, or custom code
- Any integrations that depend on Chat-specific events, tags, departments, or routing behavior
- Any integrations that can be replaced by native messaging features
Also consider how customer context is shared between Chat and other systems today, and whether that behavior needs to change for messaging.
Assessment 4: Reviewing reporting and data requirements
Before you migrate, review your reporting requirements. Some Chat metrics have different names in messaging, and some Chat reporting concepts don’t map directly to messaging. Because messaging supports different conversation and routing patterns, you may need to update your dashboards, reporting expectations, and service level targets.
Consider the following questions:
- What key metrics do you track for Chat performance?
- Do you have custom reports or dashboards built on Chat data?
- How do you segment your chat data for analysis?
- What are your SLA requirements for chat responses?
- Which reports or dashboards need to be updated after migration?
- Do stakeholders understand that messaging reporting differs from Chat reporting?
- Do you need to preserve historical Chat data for ongoing analysis?
For more information, see Migrating from Chat analytics to messaging reporting.