Know How to migrate to HaloITSM A structured approach is what separates a successful transition from a project that generates more incidents than it resolves. The decision to switch ITSM platforms is, more often than not, made after months of accumulated frustration: SLAs that are not respected, reports that do not reflect the reality of the operation, rigid workflows, and increasing costs without proportional value delivery. The critical point is not the decision itself, but the execution. Understanding how to migrate to HaloITSM without compromising critical processes is the main challenge for corporate IT teams.
This article documents the complete migration process, from initial mapping to go-live, with special attention to preserving call history, ensuring business continuity, and ensuring actual adoption by the IT team.
Why are companies leaving Zendesk, GLPI, and Freshservice behind?
Part of this movement is happening because many companies have started looking into how to migrate to HaloITSM in order to better adhere to ITIL and gain greater operational flexibility.
Zendesk was born as a customer support platform, not as an ITSM tool. Enterprise IT companies that adopted it encountered a clear barrier: the platform was not designed for problem, change, and asset management with the depth that ITIL requires. The result is a system that works well for opening and closing tickets, but does not support mature service governance processes.
GLPI, widely adopted in the Brazilian market for being open source, carries a different cost: It's free to license, but expensive to operate.Customization requires a dedicated technical team, updates generate instability in customized environments, and support depends on the community or local partners with variable availability. Companies that have grown operationally end up supporting a system that demands more than it delivers.
Freshservice addresses some of these problems with a more modern interface and more comprehensive ITSM functionalities, but faces a cost-of-scaling bottleneck: as the operation grows, the agent-based licensing model increases costs, and the flexibility to configure more complex workflows runs up against platform limitations.
O HaloITSM It was developed for companies seeking to understand how to migrate to HaloITSM in a strategic, secure way, aligned with ITIL 4 best practices. The platform offers integrated management of incidents, problems, changes, assets, SLAs, OLAs, CMDBs, service catalog, and self-service portal natively, eliminating the need for additional modules or complex customizations that can compromise the stability of the environment. For medium and large companies with critical operations, migrating to HaloITSM means gaining more efficiency, governance, scalability, and control over IT operations.
What to evaluate before migrating to HaloITSM
Before starting any migration process, it is necessary to answer three questions that define the scope and risk of the project.
What is the volume and format of the historical data? This includes closed tickets, knowledge base, registered users, service categories, and registered assets. The larger the volume and the older the source platform, the more complex the data extraction and transformation becomes.
Which processes are currently active and which ones need to be redesigned? Migration is not a copy. It's an opportunity to review workflows that never worked well. Simply transferring a broken process to a new platform automates the problem. Before migrating, each workflow needs to be validated: does it still make sense? Does it meet the operational needs today?
What is the operation's tolerance for downtime during the transition? Environments with 24/7 support SLAs have much smaller transition windows than environments that operate during business hours. This variable defines the go-live strategy.
A T4IT conducts a diagnostic phase before any migration project to the HaloITSMThe goal is to map these three points precisely and size the project accurately, avoiding surprises during execution.
How to migrate to HaloITSM: the phases of the process
Phase 1: Mapping and inventory
The starting point is a complete inventory of the current environment. This means documenting all call categories, queues, service groups, SLA rules, custom fields, active integrations, and reports in use. It seems obvious, but most operations don't have this inventory up-to-date. Part of the work in this phase is discovering how the current platform is actually configured, not how it was planned to be.
Mapping historical data is equally critical. Determining which records need to be migrated and which can be archived for reading is a decision that directly impacts the time and cost of the migration. Tickets from the last 12 to 24 months generally need to be accessible on the new platform. Older records can be exported to an external repository without the need for active migration.
This phase also defines the initial architecture of HaloITSM: structure of teams, departments, service categories, access profiles, and priority integrations.
Phase 2: Data migration and call history.
One of the most important steps for anyone researching how to migrate to HaloITSM is ensuring the integrity of historical data.
Data migration is the phase with the highest technical risk. The main challenges are:
Differences in data structure between platforms. What GLPI calls a "category" might be what HaloITSM treats as a "ticket type," with an associated category field. This mapping needs to be done field by field before the technical execution of the migration.
Integrity of historical data. Opening and closing dates, service times, responsible parties, recorded solutions, and communication history must be preserved. Corrupted or poorly migrated data compromises historical reports and performance indicators.
Username and password migration. Most platforms do not export passwords in plain text for security reasons. The standard process is to migrate registrations and force password reset on first access, or integrate with the company's Active Directory for centralized authentication. Integration with Active Directory (AD) is, in most cases, the most efficient and secure approach.
T4IT uses validated migration scripts for the main source platforms, with an integrity verification process for each migrated batch before moving on to the next.
Phase 3: Flow configuration, SLA, and service catalog.
This is the phase that determines whether the operation will perform better than or the same as the previous platform. There is no value in migrating to HaloITSM and replicating exactly what existed before.
SLA configuration in HaloITSM is done with true granularity. It is possible to define SLAs by call type, by client, by service hours, and by the criticality of the affected asset. This means that a critical incident on a production server has a different SLA than a system access request. This differentiation, which seems simple, is not natively possible on several competing platforms.
The service catalog in HaloITSM acts as the end-user's entry point. Each catalog item has an approval workflow, an associated SLA, specific information gathering fields, and automatic routing to the responsible team. A well-configured service catalog reduces the volume of calls due to lack of information and eliminates manual routing., which is one of the main causes of delays at the service desk.
The configuration of Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) between internal teams is also done at this stage. HaloITSM allows each support team to have its own internal SLA, which makes up the external SLA delivered to the client or end user.
Phase 4: Training and go-live
Training is not a final step. It's a process that begins in the setup phase, with team leaders, and expands throughout the operation before go-live.
The most efficient format is profile-based training: first-level analysts need to master opening, triaging, and closing tickets. Second- and third-level analysts need to master problem management, change management, and the knowledge base. Managers need to master reports, SLA dashboards, and rule configuration.
Parallel go-live, where the old and new platforms operate simultaneously for a defined period, is only recommended for operations with a very high volume of calls or with critical integrations still under validation. In most cases, a direct go-live, with intensive support during the first five business days, is more efficient and avoids the confusion of having two systems active at the same time.
Big bang vs. phased migration: which strategy works for ITSM?
The choice between migrating everything at once (big bang) or migrating by modules or teams (phased) depends on three variables: user volume, complexity of integrations, and the size of the IT team involved in the project.
Big bang migration is most suitable when: The call volume is manageable, integrations are few and well-documented, and there's a clear cutoff date justifying the simultaneous switch. The advantage is operational clarity: from a certain date, everyone uses the new system. There's no ambiguity about where to open tickets.
Phased migration is most suitable when: The operation has multiple teams with very different processes, integrations are complex and require individual validation, or the user volume is very high and the risk of cultural resistance is real. The advantage is the possibility of adjusting the configuration before expanding to the next group.
In both cases, The critical point is communication with end users before go-live. A week of proactive communication, explaining what will change, why it will change, and how to access support during the transition, significantly reduces the volume of confusion calls in the first 48 hours after go-live.
How to ensure the team adopts the new platform
Resistance to adoption is the main reason why platform migrations occur. ITSM They fail after a technically well-executed go-live. The analyst who has spent years using GLPI has a mental workflow built around that interface. Changing that requires more than just technical training.
Three practices consistently increase adoption rates:
Involve team leaders in the setup. When the senior analyst participated in defining the flows and categories, he became a natural adopter. He explains to his colleague how it works because he helped build it.
Create an internal knowledge base about the new platform. Short articles with screenshots and specific steps for the most common day-to-day tasks reduce dependence on external support and accelerate team autonomy.
Establish visible indicators of improvement. When the team sees the MTTR dropping, the volume of reopened tickets decreasing, and the SLA reports showing real results, resistance organically diminishes. Concrete data showing improvement is the most effective argument against cultural resistance.
What T4IT delivers in the migration and support of HaloITSM.
T4IT is a HaloITSM implementation partner in Brazil and conducts migration projects from initial diagnosis to post-go-live support. See what's included in each stage:
The combination of structured implementation and continuous support is what ensures that the investment in the platform generates real results over time, not just in the first month after go-live.
FAQ
How to migrate from GLPI to HaloITSM without losing ticket history?
Migrating from GLPI to HaloITSM requires a data extraction process via API or direct database export, followed by transformation to the format accepted by HaloITSM and batch-validated loading. The call history, including communications, assignees, and recorded solutions, can be fully preserved with the correct process. T4IT manages this process using specific scripts for migration from GLPI.
How long does a migration to HaloITSM take?
For medium-sized operations, with up to 50 agents and manageable historical volume, the complete project takes between 6 and 10 weeks. Larger operations, with multiple integrations and a high volume of historical data, may require between 12 and 16 weeks. The initial diagnosis precisely defines the timeline.
Is HaloITSM better than Zendesk for enterprise IT?
For IT operations that follow the ITIL framework, yes. Zendesk was built for customer support and doesn't natively have the issue management, change management, CMDB, and asset management modules that HaloITSM delivers in an integrated way. For companies that need complete ITSM, HaloITSM is technically more suitable.
Is it possible to understand how to migrate to HaloITSM without interrupting operations?
Yes. With proper planning of migration windows and, when necessary, parallel operation during a transition period, it is possible to perform the migration without impacting end users. Most migrations conducted by T4IT are performed without any noticeable downtime for operations.
Do you want to understand how to migrate to HaloITSM in a secure, structured way without impacting your IT operations?
T4IT offers a free diagnostic assessment within 5 business days, including data mapping, project timeline estimates, and a no-obligation project proposal. Contact a specialist.
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