Overview of the upgrade process

So, you're ready to upgrade from Kayako Classic to the new Kayako. Congrats! We're excited to welcome you aboard the new platform.

During the upgrade process, we’ll handle the heavy lifting, migrating the bulk of your data over automatically from your Kayako Classic instance. All of your support tickets, as well as customer and staff information, will be be transferred into the new framework. Many of your configuration settings will also come over automatically.

Because we rebuilt the new Kayako from the ground up, there are quite a few features that function differently than they did in Kayako Classic. For these, we'll show you how to capture your existing settings and recreate them using the new Kayako's features, once the migration is complete.

For a detailed breakdown of how everything translates from the old platform to the new, please refer to our user guide article about how your data will be migrated.

The entire migration process can broken down into three phases:

• Phase I: Preparing your data for migration
• Phase II: Testing the new platform and going live
• Phase III: Replicating business rules and defaults after migrating

In this article, we'll provide a high-level overview of each phase, and then point you to detailed, step-by-step instructions for every part of the process. We'll also provide a downloadable checklist you can use to track you progress throughout the migration.

Phase I: Preparing your data for migration

To make the migration process as simple as possible, there are some steps you'll need to take, to get your data ready.

First, switching to a new platform is a prime opportunity to tidy things up, so you're not bringing over anything you don't need. We recommend running an audit of your departments, mailboxes, statuses, ticket fields, and staff accounts. Try to get it down to only the things your team uses regularly, and clear out anything outdated or extraneous.

For the Kayako Classic features that have changed significantly on the new platform, we have a migration worksheet that you'll use to capture all the data that won’t be moved automatically. Recording everything in one place will make it easier to replicate your defaults, business rules, and preferences, post-migration. 

You'll also share a copy of your completed worksheet with our support team, so they can review it and make sure you're ready to migrate. 

Next up is the knowledge base. The Help Center in the new Kayako has a more streamlined hierarchy, with just three levels: Categories, Sections, and Articles. Before migrating, it’s useful to have a plan for what your information architecture will look like in the new system, and where your articles will live in that new hierarchy.

And finally, if you're a Download customer, you'll share a backup of your database and files so we can migrate them onto the new platform.

You'll find detailed instructions for each one of these steps in our user guide article on preparing your data for migration.

Phase II: Testing the new platform and going live

Before you commit to upgrading, you'll have a chance to test out the new platform, complete with your own data. After you've sent us your migration worksheet, we'll set you up with a sandbox instance.

From there, you’ll be able to explore the new platform and see how your data looks. Outgoing emails will be disabled for your sandbox instance, so you won’t have to worry about inadvertently emailing someone while you kick the tires. When you’re ready to finalize the upgrade, we’ll get you set up with a production instance, and you’ll be ready to go live.

Learn more in our user guide article about testing and going live with the new Kayako.

Phase III: Replicating business rules and defaults after migrating

Once you've upgraded and are live on the new Kayako platform, you can take full advantage of its powerful new features. You'll likely want to start by recreating the business rules and defaults that you captured on the migration worksheet, during Phase I. Using the new automation engine, you can rebuild your SLAs, escalations, automated emails, workflows, and other business rules.

Get help with our user guide article about setting up your business rules in the new Kayako.

Start here: Migration worksheet and checklist

To make it easy to keep track of where you’re at with the upgrade process, we’ve put together a migration worksheet. In it, you’ll find a checklist to track your progress, as well as tabs to help you capture any of your data that can’t be moved automatically.

Go save a copy of our migration worksheet and start in on the checklist!