Delta Migration: How It Works and When You Need It

Posted by Liubov Samoilovych

Updated February 9, 2026

When a help desk no longer works for a business, support slows down. Agents spend more time working around the system than actually helping customers.

Switching to a better platform is an obvious step, yet migration downtime often gets in the way. Teams hesitate about ticket freezes and paused workflows, and for a good reason. Every third customer tends to buy less from brands with poor service, and in 2025 alone,
businesses lost 3 billion globally due to bad customer experiences.

At the same time, sticking with an outdated or unstable help desk can cause the very service issues teams are trying to escape. So how do you move forward without risking customer trust?

Delta migration is built to break that cycle.

What is Delta migration?

Instead of re-migrating all data, this post-migration data sync captures recent changes — new tickets, replies, and updates — and transfers them to the target help desk. Your data stays current while your support team continues working in the source system throughout the migration process.

Delta migration is designed for teams that want to transition to an accurate, up-to-date target system with zero downtime.

Why a zero-downtime data migration solution is a must for many help desk migration scenarios

Many support teams operate 24/7. Tickets come in around the clock, agents work in shifts, and customer expectations don’t pause for system changes.

Meanwhile, traditional help desk migrations usually move data in one fixed snapshot. To make sure nothing changes during that snapshot, teams are often asked to introduce a ticket freeze when agents stop replying, updating statuses, or closing tickets in the source system until the migration is finished.

This pause is meant to prevent common migration issues:

But there’s another side to the coin.

Tickets still arrive during the pause, but agents can’t act on them. A backlog piles up fast, and once the migration is complete, teams scramble to catch up. In that rush, updates get missed, conversations get crossed, and priority requests slip through the cracks. The result? Missed SLAs and frustrated customers.

This is exactly the problem Delta migration is designed to solve.

How Delta migration works

Delta migration is activated after a Full Data Migration. It doesn’t freeze ticket activity, but captures only the changes made while the migration was in progress.

Here’s how the process works, step by step:

Step 1: Delta migration identifies ticket updates and new tickets created after Full Data Migration

Delta migration begins with locating the tickets that were created or updated after the Full Migration started. It uses the time of the last successful read as the reference point.

Here's how the process looks:

1. Once you start the Full Migration, the migration tool reads all data from the source help desk and records the timestamp of the last successful read.
2. The read data is migrated to the target system.
3. Delta migration pulls in only the tickets that were created or updated after that timestamp.

This ensures that Delta migration always works with an up-to-date data snapshot.

Example:
If the Full Migration started at 2 pm on March 10, Delta migration will include tickets created or updated after 2 pm that day.

If the Full Migration was restarted on March 11 at 9 am, Delta migration will instead use 9 am on March 11 as the reference and include only later changes.

Step 2: Delta migration retrieves ticket data

For every created or updated ticket identified in the previous step, Delta migration brings over all the associated data.

This includes:

• Conversations and replies
• Attachments
• Ticket metadata and relationships

By migrating this information alongside each ticket, Delta migration preserves the full context so agents see the complete history and keep working without gaps or missed details.

Step 3: Delta migration refreshes updated records

If a ticket already exists in the target help desk and is updated in the source system, Delta Migration replaces the outdated version in the target with the latest version from the source platform. This ensures that only the most up-to-date ticket data is retained.

This step prevents duplicate tickets and ensures the target help desk always reflects the most current ticket state.

Step 4: Delta migration migrates ticket updates and new tickets to the target system

Once filtering and validation are complete, Delta migration moves the data to the target help desk.

As a result:

• Newly created tickets are added to the target system.
• Updated tickets include the latest content and status.

The target help desk reflects what’s happening in real time, allowing teams to switch systems with confidence, without missing updates or breaking customer support continuity.

Why Delta migration enables help desk migration without downtime

Delta migration eliminates the risk of downtime and other service disruptions during or after the switch.

By transferring only the changes made after the Full Data Migration, it allows your support team to continue working in the source system while migration runs in the background — no ticket freezes, no workflow changes, no impact on customers.

It also speeds up the move to the new help desk. Confident that all recent tickets and updates are already there, you don’t need to re-add data to the new platform manually. Since the target system stays in sync automatically, Delta migration reduces the risk of error from manual input, such as missed updates or duplicate tickets, which can disrupt your support flow.

Still, Delta migration is a paid feature, and it’s only fair to ask whether it’s always necessary. A short answer: no, it isn't.

How to know if Delta migration is worth it for your business

Delta migration is especially valuable when your support operations can’t afford to pause, and data keeps changing during migration.

In short, this zero-downtime help desk migration feature is a good fit if:

You handle hundreds or thousands of tickets per week

When ticket volume is high, even a short freeze can snowball into backlogs and missed updates. Delta Migration captures new and updated tickets automatically while your team keeps working.

Your support team works across time zones

Coordinating a global ticket freeze is tough when agents are always online. Delta migration removes the need for a shared downtime window and keeps support running 24/7.

You have strict SLAs

For teams with strict customer-facing commitments, such as guaranteed 24/7 support, pausing ticket updates can quickly trigger escalations. Delta migration keeps ticket activity flowing while data stays in sync, which minimizes the SLA impact during migration.

Your migration includes historical data and live operations

Moving years of ticket history while managing active conversations is tricky. Delta migration bridges the gap between past data and ongoing support work.

You want to minimize manual checks before go-live

Without Delta migration, teams often compare systems manually to ensure nothing has been missed. Delta migration reduces this risk by automatically syncing recent changes.

You’re migrating during a busy period

Campaigns, launches, or seasonal spikes can create a surge of updates right before the scheduled migration. Delta migration makes sure none of them slips through the cracks.

Conclusion

Growth is the goal for most businesses, but help desk migration often comes with a hidden risk: downtime.

Delta migration removes that migration downtime risk. It lets you move away from an outdated system that hinders your growth without putting support on hold.

As we mentioned earlier, Delta migration is part of our Help Desk Migration solution. If you want your next platform switch to be invisible to your hard-earned customers, our tool (with a Free Demo available) and our team are at your service.

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