Zammad User Documentation¶
Hint
You are currently reading the Zammad user documentation. There are also system and administration manuals available.
Zammad Glossary¶
Ever wondered what we mean by a specific term? We’ve been collecting the most relevant terms below for your insight.
Note
Due to translation alphabetical sorting may be off in non english versions of this page.
A¶
- Admin
An admin(istrator) is a user in Zammad who has special rights. Admins can configure user accesses, time recording settings, templates, and text modules and, on a higher level, integrations, reporting, etc. So if you’re looking to make a change within your Zammad and you find that it doesn’t work, find an admin in your organization and ask them - chances are, they can help.
- Agent
An agent is what we call a user in Zammad who processes tickets/inquiries. There are usually several or many agents who use Zammad regularly and sometimes even consider it their main tool. Some of them are admins, meaning that they can change settings, user rights, and so on (see above).
- API
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a connection that allows you to create or modify business objects. Zammad has a REST (Representational State Transfer) API that allows our users, among other things, to connect third-party systems to their instance (such as social media or messengers).
You can learn more on our API landing page.
- Article
Each correspondence within a ticket is called an article. Ticket articles can be internal (so only agents can see them) or public (e.g. emails to your customers, which they receive, too).
- Auto Response
Zammad can send automatically generated responses to customers. By default, this is configured for newly created tickets (to confirm that the email was received and to provide the ticket number to the customer). Your admin may change this or even add more auto generated messages.
- Automation
There are many processes that can be automated with Zammad. This means that certain steps or actions take place automatically, hence no further action is required from the agents. One example would be the weekly deletion of tickets at a pre-defined time.
- Autosave
Autosave might be one of the coolest traits of Zammad: It saves all your work as you go along, so if you ever log out unexpectedly or your browser crashes (we’ve all been there…) none of your work gets lost!
You can learn more on our Autosave landing page.
- Avatar
An avatar is basically a graphical representation of a user. By defaults the user’s avatar consists of the initials of the user. It can be an image, too. To customize it, go to the avatar section in your user profile.
The avatar of an user is visible in different places in Zammad. For example you can see it next to an article in a ticket or in the bottom bar if another agent is viewing or editing the same ticket.
B¶
- Branding
Every company has a different identity, and Zammad accommodates this in various ways, e.g. by letting you design your signatures freely and add your company logo to the platform.
Learn more about branding options in the admin documentation.
C¶
- Changelog
With every new release comes a new changelog. It is basically a list of all the things that have changed, from new enhancements to bug fixes.
You can find them all on our GitHub!
- Channel
A channel is a way how customers can get in touch with you. Standard channels are email and phone. Additional channels can be configured by your admin.
- Checkmk
Checkmk is a powerful IT monitoring tool that can send real-time status alerts to Zammad via email or REST API. Set these alerts up in Checkmk, and Zammad will automatically create, update, and close tickets based on the health of your system.
Learn more about checkmk integration in the admin documentation.
- Clearbit
Clearbit is a marketing data engine designed to collect information on your contacts. Thus, new queries from unknown users in Zammad can be automatically enriched with information such as company, number of employees, annual turnover, industry, and much more.
Learn more about clearbit integration in the admin documentation.
- Conflict Warning
When two agents edit the same ticket at the same time, a lot can go wrong - from duplicate replies to overwritten messages. Zammad helps you to avoid this with its integrated conflict warning. So if you see another agents avatar and a little pen at the bottom of your ticket, it means they are currently editing it.
Learn more on our following up page.
- Core Workflows
This feature allows every organization to configure their individual dynamic fields and ticket masks based on their specific workflows. This way, certain Groups will only (or always) see certain fields. You can even set up dependencies, as in, if one field is filled in, another one opens up or becomes mandatory.
Learn more about Core Workflows in the admin documentation.
- CTI
CTI stands for Computer Telephony Integration and allows you to collect detailed information on all your incoming and outgoing calls. This includes, for example, a call log, an overview of which agent is currently on a call, a caller ID search, and even a Do-Not-Disturb-Mode.
You can learn more on our CTI landing page.
Here you can find the fitting documentation pages:
- Custom Development (CD)
We are constantly working on improving Zammad, and we keep adding new features with every single release. However, sometimes our customers might require a very specific new feature, addition, or adjustment that is either very urgent or very particular to their individual use case. This is when a custom development can take place: We offer the customer to develop the desired feature at a price that we agree upon previously (which is based on the expected hours needed for completion).
- Custom Object Attributes
Zammad allows the creation of custom object attributes by admins. This can be done on ticket level, user level, organization level or group level.
You can think of such a custom object attribute as a new field which has a pre-defined format and optionally selectable values.
- Customer
A customer is a person that you communicate with from within Zammad. Every customer receives a profile page, which we call the Customer Information Page, and it shows all the tickets of this particular customer. Various customers can be assigned to the same organization. Each customer can access their individual Customer Interface, where they see all their tickets with the current status and live updates.
D¶
- Dashboard
The dashboard is every agent’s individual Welcome Page in Zammad and gives you feedback on your situation by collecting information and statistics about your work. Here you can find all sorts of overviews, such as the open tickets, the average waiting time, or the reopening rate. You can also see what your colleagues are doing by checking the Activity Stream.
Learn more on Checking Your Stats.
- Documentation
If this Glossary isn’t enough already (just kidding, it won’t be), our Documentation is the place to head to for all information on Zammad, especially when it comes to the more technical aspects, such as settings or installations.
We have three different ones: Zammad User Documentation, Zammad Admin Documentation, and the Zammad System Documentation.
E¶
- Elasticsearch
Zammad offers an Elasticsearch integration (a free and open search engine) that makes the search process within Zammad super fast (even for data sets of several terra bytes!).
Spoiler: Zammad is currently the only helpdesk system with a search function that combs attachments, too!
Note
🤓 This affects hosted environments only!
Via a read-only user in Elasticsearch, you can also integrate your favorite reporting tool (e.g. like Grafana).
- Escalation
An escalation is what happens after the deadline for a ticket has passed and, for example, no update to the customer has been created. The ticket is marked in red in your taskbar and the overviews and everyone else who is involved in its process gets very sad. So don’t let tickets escalate! Also, in order to prevent escalations, you can use our SLAs (see SLAs).
- Exchange Integration
The Exchange integration allows users to sync their contacts from their Exchange address book with Zammad. This way, every time a contact is updated in Exchange, the iteration will be reflected in Zammad, giving you direct access to all your Exchange contacts from within your helpdesk.
Learn more about the exchange integration in our admin documentation.
- External Authentication
External authentication is an easy, one-click option for your users to log into Zammad. It has various benefits: not only is it faster but it also means that your users will have to remember fewer passwords. Zammad currently supports more than ten login providers, such as Facebook, GitHub, GitLab, Google, or Microsoft / Office365.
See our admin documentation for all third party authentication providers.
F¶
- Feature
A feature is what we call the different functionalities of Zammad, such as our integrations, productivity tools, or time-saving aspects. We keep adding new features with every release.
- Feature request
Users can let us know if they are missing a particular feature in Zammad. We collect all of their wishes in our Community in the Feature Request category. If a request comes in regularly and we feel that it would be a great addition, we’ll put it on our roadmap and start working on it.
- Feature sponsoring
If an organization urgently requires one of the features on the list, they can fast-forward the development and put it on top of the list by sponsoring it, which means that they cover the costs for the development.
G¶
- GitHub
GitHub is a service for the version management of software development projects. It uses Git, a software that tracks changes in file sets. Here at Zammad, we use it to maintain our repository.
As Zammad in an open-source project, many developers and tech-lovers from all over the world contribute to it. GitHub is where we coordinate all of this.
You can find the repository here.
Besides our own repo, Zammad also has an integration for GitHub. It creates a data exchange that shows you all relevant information about your issues directly in the helpdesk, such as status or assignees.
Administrators can learn more about GitHub in the admin documentation, if you’re an agent you can learn more about the functionality on this page: GitHub / GitLab Integration.
- GitLab
GitLab is similar to GitHub. Here at Zammad, we use it for our internal development.
There is also an integration that allows users to connect GitLab to Zammad so that all their issues and their corresponding changes are reflected in both systems.
Administrators can learn more about GitLab in the admin documentation, if you’re an agent you can learn more about the functionality on this page: GitHub / GitLab Integration.
- Grafana
Grafana is an open-source reporting tool. Zammad users on the Plus plan can integrate it into their instance and receive detailed analytics on their performance.
Hint
🤓 Self Hosted users
Hooking up Grafana to Elasticsearch is an possibility you can do on your own as well.
Learn more on how to add Grafana dashboards for Zammad in our documentation.
- Groups
Groups are a synonym for departments or processing groups. The incoming tickets are assigned to them. The corresponding group is responsible for the processing. Within the group, an owner can be defined, who is then responsible for this ticket. Access rights to tickets are also controlled via the groups. The possible permissions are “full access”, “read-only” and “no access”.
If you have worked with the OTRS system in the past, you might remember the principle of “queues”. The groups in Zammad are the same as the queues in OTRS.
You can learn more on our group landing page.
H¶
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I¶
- Icinga
Icinga is a monitoring system that supervises the availability of an organization’s entire system infrastructure. It can be integrated into Zammad so that it triggers a ticket in case of a warning situation.
You can learn more on our Icinga landing page.
- Issue-tracking system
Issue trackers are usually systems that track processes on a technical level. Two of the best-known examples are GitHub and GitLab.
Zammad is also often referred to as an issue-tracking system. However, as a helpdesk, it focuses on communication at the customer level rather than the technical level.
- i-doit
i-doit is a CMDB (Configuration Management Data Base). It helps you to keep an eye on every piece of the physical and digital infrastructure. A corresponding integration makes it possible to connect it to Zammad, where it adds a new tab to Zammad’s ticket sidebar so you can link to existing i-doit objects for easy reference. It also allows you to create Zammad tickets in i-doit.
Administrators can learn more about i-doit in the admin documentation, if you’re an agent you can learn more about the functionality on this page: i-doit: Track Company Property.
J¶
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K¶
- Kibana
Kibana is a browser-based, open-source reporting tool that focuses on data evaluation. It was developed by Elastic, which is why it is not a surprise that it uses data from Elasticsearch for its analytics.
Kibana can be integrated with Zammad, allowing for helpdesk data to be mapped in the reporting tool.
Hint
🤓 This does not apply to SaaS Zammad instances.
You can learn more on our Kibana landing page.
- Knowledge Base
Think of a very extensive set of FAQs - that’s exactly what the Zammad knowledge base is. It collects all important information: definitions, processes, how-to’s, organigrams, etc.
Knowledge base articles can be either internal or external, so you can either show them to the world (good for information on your product or service, for example) or keep them for your team (e.g. for internal processes or team info).
Administrators can learn more about the Knowledge Base in the admin documentation, if you’re an agent you can learn more about the functionality on this page: Knowledge Base.
L¶
- LDAP
A Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) helps provide information about your users within Zammad. Authentication of users against the LDAP and LDAP role mapping to Zammad roles are also possible.
Learn more about LDAP integration in the admin documentation.
M¶
- Macro
A macro is a series of actions. By starting the macro, the actions are also triggered (like a domino effect), so users don’t have to work through each individual step separately. It saves an enormous amount of time and ensures that no step is forgotten.
An example of this is declaring a ticket as “spam”. The manual way here would be to assign an owner, set a status, and add the tag “spam”. Using a macro, all this can be done in just one action. Macros can be used in the ticket zoom or within an overview (using multiple selection).
Administrators can learn more about Macros in the admin documentation, if you’re an agent you can learn more about the functionality on this page: Macros.
- Mentions
Mentions are a Zammad feature that allows you to tag another agent in a ticket. Just type
@@and the name. The selected person will be notified and will be watching the ticket from now on.Learn more on this page: @mentions & the Subscribe Button.
- Merging Tickets
If you have two (or more) tickets about the same issue, you can merge one of them into the other. By default, Zammad performs checks if a message from an external party belongs to an existing ticket. However, if your customer for example writes a completely new email instead of answering the auto response, Zammad can’t assign the message to the existing ticket but creates a new one.
See Ticket Actions for further information.
- Migrator / Migration Wizard
If a company wants to switch from another helpdesk software to Zammad, they often have one concern: What about their existing data? That’s why we have built our migration wizards that help with migrating all data at the touch of a button.
- Monit
Monit is an open-source monitoring tool that relies on a simple setup and a strong community. You can integrate it with Zammad - this way, a ticket is created every time you receive an email in Monit.
You can learn more on our Monit landing page.
N¶
- Nagios
Nagios is another monitoring tool that alerts IT teams when, for example, a server is no longer accessible or a hard disk is about to be exhausted. Nagios can be integrated with Zammad so that a ticket is created in case of an alert.
You can learn more on our Nagios landing page.
- Notifications
To avoid overlooking new messages (e.g. from a customer) Zammad notifies you about every relevant change by default. You can adjust your general notification settings in your user profile. You can even mention other users or subscribe to a specific ticket if you are interested how it proceeds.
See Profile & Settings for more information.
O¶
- Organization
An organization identifies a grouping of customers that operate under the same roof or within the same customer group. If a customer whose organization is “sharing” logs in to the customer interface, this user has access to all tickets of his organization.
- Overview
Overviews are your starting point to work on tickets. You can think of overviews as a kind of filter for existing tickets. Some basic overviews are shipped with Zammad by default. If you want to have a custom overview, ask your admin to create it.
For more information please have a look in Browse for Tickets.
- Owner
The owner of a ticket is the person responsible for it and ensures that it is processed in the best possible way. Of course, ownership can be transferred to another agent. In this case, it is recommended to leave a handover note on the ticket so that the new owner knows what is expected of them.
Learn more about ticket owners on this page: Ticket Settings
P¶
- Parent/Child Relationship
If one ticket results in other subtasks (or additional correspondences), you can split it into several tickets. The main one will then be the parent ticket and the tickets with related subtopics are children. By the way: in the same way, you can also merge two tickets into one.
Learn more about this function on this page: Linking Tickets.
- Placetel
Placetel is a Cloud Telephone System that allows users to make phone calls via VoIP. Use your regular phone number and call someone directly on their mobile or landline while still having all communication in one place (aka Zammad).
Integrating a Placetel account with Zammad provides users with a call log, making the history of their correspondences even more accurate. Callers are identified directly by their caller ID - a key function that saves agents a lot of time when assigning callers.
Administrators can learn more on the placetel CTI integration page. Agents can learn more about this function on this page: Caller Log
- Priority
Every ticket gets assigned a priority. By default, the priority is 2 (normal). But it can be changed to either 1 (low) or 3 (high).
Priorities can even be adjusted or extended to fit your needs. Your administrator can find more information here.
Q¶
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R¶
- Release
Every few months, we bring a new version of Zammad into the world, which is called a release. It all started with Zammad 1.0.
Every release adds new features to our software. There are major and minor releases: major releases (such as Zammad 1.0, 2.0, etc.) bring major changes. Minor releases are installed on top of them (such as 1.1, 2.1, etc.) and bring smaller updates.
- Reporting
The reporting helps keeping an overview over stats and numbers (e.g. created tickets per month). There are two types of reporting: the reporting functionality integrated in Zammad and the reporting with external tools.
Admins can find further information here.
- Role
Everyone who logs into Zammad has a predefined role. There are three types: admin, agent, and customer.
Admins have the most rights: they can define roles, permissions, and settings for the entire team and instance.
Agents can view and edit tickets, but not change any settings other than those of their own profiles.
Customers can view their tickets’ processing status in their individual Customer Interface.
S¶
- Scheduler
The scheduler is one of Zammad’s automation features. An admin can define specific conditions and actions which are applied to tickets with matching conditions in a time based manner. More information in the admin documentation in the scheduler section.
- Sidebar
The sidebar on the left side contains all relevant places and object you might need. Depending on the configured channels and your permissions, it might not include all sections which are listed below:
Search bar
Notification section
Dashboard
Overviews
Knowledge Base
Customer Chat
Phone
One or more open tickets
Bottom section:
Avatar
Reporting
Admin settings
Button for ticket creation
- Signature
The signature is your footer in an outgoing message. Your customers may find contact details and the name of your company/department there. It can even contain your avatar image.
It can be customized by your admin. Further information can be found here.
- Sipgate
Sipgate is a SaaS solution for internet telephony. The Zammad integration for Sipgate provides users with a detailed call overview. If you have a customer that wants to get connected to a certain agent, the caller log will tell you if this colleague is currently available.
Administrators can learn more on the sipgate CTI integration page. Agents can learn more about this function on this page: Caller Log
- SLA
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a contract between an end-user and a company that defines the minimum expected service requirements including quality, availability, and punctuality. They are used to set expectations and hold companies accountable for keeping their promises.
You can easily set up SLAs in Zammad and define parameters such as the time for the first response, an update, and a solution. Once the deadline has been reached, the ticket will escalate.
You can learn more on our SLA landing page.
- Splitting tickets
In case a ticket contains more than one issue and you want to handle it in a separate ticket, you can split the ticket. Zammad creates a new ticket then based on the selected article for splitting. See Ticket Actions for more information.
- SSO
Single-sign-on (SSO) allows you to access all your systems and devices with just one login. There are various providers that make this process easy and secure. Zammad currently supports SSO via SAML and Shibboleth.
Hint
🤓 Self Hosted users can also use Kerberos authentication.
You can learn more on our SSO landing page.
- State
Every ticket has a state. You can change it once you’ve updated the ticket. There are four types of states, and they are all color-coded.
Learn more about states and their color coding on this page: State
The available states can be changed or extended. Your admin can find further information here.
- S/MIME
S/MIME is the most widely-supported method for secure email communication. By activating it in Zammad, all messages sent from Zammad will be signed and encrypted.
Administrators can learn more about S/MIME in the admin documentation, if you’re an agent you can learn more about the functionality on this page: Secure Email.
T¶
- Tags
Tags help you to categorize tickets. You can define them based on your use case. For example, if you’re a retail business, your tags could be based on your product categories to help you organize tickets by the type of product they refer to. But they could also be based on the type of request, e.g. refund, delivery issue, missing…
Administrators can learn more about tags here. Agents can learn more about this function on this page: Tags
- Text module
If you find that you send the same answers / text bits over and over again, you can save yourself a bunch of work and create a text module. This way, you just need to type
::shortcut and the pre-defined paragraph will automatically appear in your article.For example, here at Zammad, we have a text module with the shortcut
::ilff, which turns intoI look forward to your feedback.Administrators can learn more about text modules here. Agents can learn more about this function on this page: Working with Text Modules
- (Ticket) Template
If you create many similar tickets or write many similar texts, you can create a template for them. This is helpful for introductions to your product/service or for drawing up an offer. It’s a real time-saver!
You can learn more on this page: Ticket Templates.
- Title
The title of a ticket is different based on the channel it came in. You can find the title in the sidebar and in the top area in the ticket view. If the title is not very meaningful, you can change it by clicking on the title in a ticket view.
- Ticket hook
The ticket hook is the identifier of a ticket. By default, it is
Ticket#with an appended number (e.g.Ticket#904627). It can be changed by an admin. See here for further information.- Trigger
Triggers are one of Zammad’s automation features. An admin can define specific conditions and actions which are applied to tickets with matching conditions. More information in the admin documentation in the trigger section.
U¶
- User
A user is any user of the ticket system. Each user is assigned certain permissions, which allow them to access certain areas and information. Users can have various roles, with the standard options being agent, admin, and customer.
V¶
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W¶
- Webhooks
In a nutshell, webhooks are an easy way for systems to communicate with each other and allow you to send real-time data to any other application. We use them to allow our users to inform a third-party system about new information in Zammad.
Learn more about webhooks on this page.
X¶
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Y¶
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Z¶
- Zammad
Zammad is the greatest helpdesk in the world. Period.
What is a Ticket?¶
In Zammad, tickets are used to track customer service requests. The first time a customer emails you (or the company) about something, Zammad creates a new ticket. Each message sent between you and the customer is added to that ticket until the issue is resolved, the customer is happy, and the ticket is finally closed.
So in a basic sense, a ticket is a thread of messages between you and a customer about a single issue.
A ticket is a thread of messages between a customer and an agent.¶
Hint
You know you’re doing a great job when you 1) respond to tickets quickly and 2) get them closed in a timely manner.
👀 Keep an eye on your dashboard to see how well you’re keeping up.
Ticket Settings¶
Tickets also have metadata attached to them to make them easier to manage. For instance, tickets have a customer and (optionally) an agent; they can be open or closed (or even be scheduled for later); they can be organized into groups; and they can even be flagged for high or low priority.
For the sake of simplicity, we’ll refer to this metadata as the settings of a ticket. All of these settings can be changed at any time. Each setting is explained in detail here, but for the time being, let’s go over the two most important ones:
- Owner (optional)
The agent currently assigned to (i.e., responsible for) the ticket.
- State
Is the customer still waiting on an answer (open), or has the ticket been resolved (closed)?
Finding Tickets¶
If you plan to work on tickets, you’d better know how to find them first.
Read on to learn how to check for new tickets, and dig up old ones.
Browse for Tickets¶
Looking for a ticket to work on? Check the overviews menu.
Click Overviews in the main menu to browse tickets.¶
Think of overviews as inboxes, each with a different filter for the tickets it displays.
There are six built-in overviews (Zammad admin may create more with custom-defined filters):
My assigned tickets (open/pending only)
Unassigned & Open
My pending reached tickets (previously marked pending and currently due)
Open (system-wide)
Pending reached (system-wide, previously marked pending and currently due)
Escalated (system-wide, failing to meet a service-level agreement)
Tip
🖱️ UI Protip
Click on column headings to change the display order.
Click-and-drag column dividers to adjust their width.
Ticket states are color-coded:
Closed
Merged
Postponed (Marked as pending; no immediate action required.)
New / Open (Ready for action.)
Escalated (Requires urgent attention.)
Ticket priorities are color-coded:
Zammad’s 3 default priorities allow you to see the importance of your tickets better.¶
Search for Tickets¶
Looking for an a specific ticket? Use the search bar:
Results appear immediately under the search bar as you type.¶
It’s not just for tickets! Results cover 💬 chat logs, 👨 customers, and 🏢 organizations, too.
🔍 Here are just a few of the places the search engine will look:
📝 message subject/content
👩 recipient names & email addresses
📎 text in file attachments (really!)
🏷️ user/organization metadata (e.g., notes stored on customer profiles)
You can find a detailed search document in our Advanced Search page.
For detailed results, click the Show Search Details → link just above the autocomplete list.¶
Tip
🖱️ UI Protip
Click on column headings to change the display order.
Servicing Tickets¶
This is where you’ll spend the vast majority of your time in Zammad.
Once you get the hang of the tasks below, there’s really not much more to it.
Creating a Ticket¶
Zammad does its best to create tickets automatically when new customer issues come your way. But sometimes, there’s just no way for Zammad to know when an issue arrives – like when a customer calls on the phone.
In these cases, Zammad needs your help to create a new ticket.
Click the ➕ button to create a new ticket. The default ticket type is Received Call.¶
An agent can create three types of tickets:
- Received Call
for issues initiated by a customer over the phone.
- Outbound Call
for issues initiated by an agent over the phone.
- Send Email
for issues initiated by an agent over email.
Filling Out the Form¶
Here’s a quick run-down of each input field in the New Ticket form:
- Title
The title of the ticket will be used as the subject line for all email correspondences.
- Customer
When entering a customer, the autocomplete menu searches for email addresses only. You must select an option from the autocomplete menu, or else create a new customer.
You may not assign a ticket to more than one customer.
Autocomplete can’t find customers by name.¶
Tip
🖱️ UI Protip
Once a customer has been selected, her profile will be accessible from the ticket pane.
- Text
📞 For phone calls, record the details of your conversation. These notes will not be sent to the customer (though he may be able to see them if he has a Zammad account).
📧 For emails, this is the body of your outgoing message.
Tip
🖱️ UI Protip
The message editor supports 📋 copying-and-pasting (or dragging-and-dropping) of 🔤 rich text, 🌄 images and 📎 file attachments.
Use the built-in keyboard shortcuts to apply rich text formatting.
Use the 🗊 icon next to the ticket title to copy the ticket number to your clipboard (including ticket hook; e.g.
Ticket#50071).
- Ticket Settings
Following Up¶
Generally, “working on existing tickets” means keeping up with a customer correspondence in the thread view. You can do this by:
📧 responding to an individual message, or
📝 adding a message/note to the whole ticket.
Read on to learn more, or skip ahead to find out about managing ticket settings (which is the other half of “working on existing tickets”).
Tickets are threads of messages & notes about a customer service issue. ⚙️ Manage ticket settings in the ticket pane on the right.¶
Any time you open a ticket, a new entry will appear in your tab list in the main menu.
Zammad automatically backs up your unsaved changes in all open tabs.
Responding to Individual Messages¶
Use the ⮪ reply button under a message to reply to it directly.
An additional ⮪ reply all option will appear for email messages with multiple recipients.¶
Like with new messages, your response will appear at the end of the thread. Under the hood, responses are sent via the same channel as the original message (i.e., if the message you replied to was originally a tweet, the customer will receive your response in a Twitter DM).
You can also forward messages, just as you would in any email client (attachments are included automatically). This way, you can share correspondences with people who don’t have Zammad (like a third-party supplier).
Do you want to see detailed information of a message? Just click on it:
Adding New Messages/Notes¶
Click on the text field at the end of the thread to add a follow-up:
The default follow-up type is “note”. Click the 📝 to select another type.¶
There are three types of follow-ups:
- 📝 Note
Jot down a reminder for yourself and other agents when new information comes in (hidden from the customer by default).
- 📞 Call
Record a summary of a phone call you had with the customer.
Send an email to anyone about the ticket. The name of the ticket will be used for the subject line (click on the title to rename it).
You can change the visibility of an article by clicking the 🔒 button:
“Internal” messages are outlined with a salmon border, and can only be viewed by other agents.¶
What about the deletion of articles? In Zammad, you can only delete articles that you have created yourself and which are not older than 10 minutes. To see the “delete” button in articles of the type “communication” (emails, calls), their visibility has to be switched to internal first.
Tip
🖱️ UI Protip
The message editor supports 📋 copying-and-pasting (or dragging-and-dropping) of 🔤 rich text, 🌄 images and 📎 file attachments.
Use the built-in keyboard shortcuts to apply rich text formatting.
Use the 🗊 icon next to the ticket title to copy the ticket number to your clipboard (including ticket hook; e.g.
Ticket#50071).
Using quotation¶
In many cases you’ll want to quote earlier text of your customer. This is important because especially on long conversations your opponent will easily loose track.
Referencing on earlier written text helps greatly to keep context and track of things. By default Zammad adds no whole quote body (this can be changed by your administrator).
No matter if the whole quotation is active or not, you can always mark the text you want to reference and press reply or reply all after. This will cause Zammad to add the marked text as quote to the editor. You can break up quotations by using enter.
Note
This function is limited to one article per operation. The article has to be of type communication (thus have a reply button) to function.
Mark, press reply and work with quoted text!¶
🔥 Keeping an eye on escalations¶
SLAs are optional and require configuration by your instance administrator. Administrators can learn more about SLAs in our admin documentation. If you can’t see escalation timestamps, it is not configured by your admin.
On the top of every ticket being applicable for SLA escalations, you’ll find two dates next to the ticket number. By hovering the escalation date, Zammad will display all upcoming escalation times based on the SLA configuration.
Simultaneous processing of a ticket¶
Every once in a while, two agents may have the same ticket open at the same time. When this happens, things can get messy fast: customers may receive conflicting responses on the same issue from both agents; or, changes made by one agent may be accidentally undone by the other.
To keep things under control, Zammad will alert you to potential conflicts by displaying an avatar in the lower-lefthand corner for every agent that has that ticket open.
Be sure to communicate with your colleagues to prevent these problems before they arise.
A ✏️ icon will appear if the agent has made any unsaved changes to the ticket.¶
Ticket Settings¶
Use the ticket pane to manage a ticket’s settings:
Group¶
Groups are a form of access control that allows you to dictate which agents are allowed to do what to a given ticket.
What?¶
Suppose your organization uses Zammad for both sales and customer support. You’ve got ten different agents spread across two teams, handling dozens of tickets a day.
Without groups, all ten agents can see (and respond to) every single ticket that comes in, regardless of which department it’s for. This isn’t problematic per se, but it does lead to a lot of unnecessary clutter in the overviews menu. (It can be much worse when, for example, a customer service rep sees tickets meant for your HR department, and finds out how much their colleagues in sales are making! 💸💸💸)
If, instead, each agent were assigned to an appropriate group, then they’d only ever see the tickets that belong to their own group.
Managing groups¶
So how do I manage which team I’m on? You don’t - that’s the administrator’s job.
However, you can check which teams you’re on in the Notifications section of your user settings:
This user belongs to only one group (“Users”).¶
So where do I come in?¶
If you belong to more than one group, you may re-assign a ticket from one of your groups to another. In general, though, you won’t need to do this unless you’re an admin, or an admin has discussed the procedure with you beforehand.
Owner¶
A ticket’s owner is simply the agent that is currently responsible for it.
Whose job is it to assign tickets?¶
It depends on your organization’s workflow, but in most cases, you will assign tickets to yourself when you choose an issue to work on from the pool of new tickets.
In principle, any agent may assign a ticket to any other, as long as both have the required privileges for the ticket’s group.
Why would I want to re-assign a ticket to someone else?¶
Sometimes, complicated issues will require a ticket to be passed back and forth between multiple agents before it can be closed. In such cases, a colleague may assign a ticket to you (or vice versa) after it has been partially resolved.
State¶
The state of a ticket refers to its progress toward completion, and may be one of the following:
new
open
closed
merged (this Ticket has been merged into another Ticket. Check either the linked tickets or the ticket history to learn more)
pending close (i.e., scheduled to automatically close at a later date)
pending reminder (i.e., hidden, but scheduled to reappear at a later date)
State colors¶
Zammad states are color-coded. This helps you to understanding the state of the ticket much faster in general - without having a look into details.
Closed |
|
Merged |
|
Postponed (Marked as pending; no immediate action required.) |
|
New / Open (Ready for action.) |
|
Escalated (Requires urgent attention.) |
What’s the difference between “new” and “open”?¶
States do more than just indicate progress: Zammad has a fine-grained time tracking feature (so-called “service-level agreements”, or SLAs) that uses state information to measure how long it takes for customers to get a response on a new ticket or get their issues resolved entirely.
On a new ticket, the customer still hasn’t received her first response on the issue.
On an open ticket, the customer has received an initial response, but the issue still hasn’t been resolved.
Note
⏱️ Tickets in a pending state do not accumulate time toward their SLA limits.
So, for instance, a ticket may be marked pending reminder if it’s waiting on feedback from a third-party supplier who’s out of town until next week.
Priority¶
A ticket’s priority is simply a ranking (from 1 to 3) of how urgent or important it is.
Zammad’s 3 default priorities allow you to see the importance of your tickets better.¶
But what does it do, and how should I use it?¶
Out of the box, ticket priority doesn’t actually do anything. However, Zammad administrators can set up all sorts of automated hooks that fire off based on this value, like:
Priority can also be used as a ticket filter when creating custom overviews.
In other words, consult your administrator for details on how he’d like you to use it.
Tags¶
Tags are custom-defined labels that can be applied to tickets to make it easier to find them in the future.
Click on a tag name to view other tickets with the same tag.¶
Hint
Search for tickets with a given tag
with the tags: search filter.
For instance, find all tickets with the order tag
by searching for tags: order.
Click the → button in the corner to hide the ticket pane. Click the 💬 tab to bring it back.¶
The available options depend on your privileges and the configuration of your system.
Highlighting Ticket Text¶
Use the highlighter tool in the upper-righthand corner to mark up important text. (Your highlights are visible to other agents.)
Highlight by selecting text, then clicking the highlighter. Click again to undo.¶
Further ticket actions¶
Click the Ticket ▾ heading to access additional actions.¶
- History
See a comprehensive list of updates to the ticket, performed by any user, since its creation.
- Merge
Migrate all messages/notes to another ticket (see Merging Tickets for details).
- Change Customer
Reassign the ticket to another customer.
Ticket Actions¶
In the servicing tickets section you learned the base handling of tickets. However, there are additional actions you can perform:
Merging Tickets¶
If you have two or more tickets about the same issue, you may want to merge those tickets into one.
This might be the case if a customer sends you a new email which can’t be assigned to the existing ticket (e.g. the ticket reference is missing because the customer sends you a completely new email instead of answering in the existing thread).
- What is merged where?
Merging a ticket migrates all messages and notes of the ticket from where you select the merging into the selected one.
Let’s assume you already worked on a ticket and you get another ticket about the same issue and want to merge them. Let’s call the ticket you already worked on the original one and the new one duplicate. Then the way to go is to open the duplicate ticket and execute the merging from there so it will be merged into the original.
- How to merge tickets?
To merge a ticket, access the Ticket ▾ submenu in the ticket pane.
- Merge dialog
You can either enter the ticket number of the ticket you want to merge the current one into (see 1). Alternatively, you can choose from the list below (see 2).
If the customer has an existing ticket, it will show up under “Recent customer tickets”. You can see your last viewed tickets under “Recently viewed tickets” anyway.
After entering a ticket number or choosing one of the offered tickets from the list, click on the submit button and the tickets will be merged.
- Result after merging
The articles are moved into the chosen tickets. The ticket in which you executed the merging still exists with the following changes:
The articles have been replaced by a “merged” label
The state has changed to “merged”
The ticket is linked to its “parent” ticket
Splitting Tickets¶
If you have a ticket which is about more than one issue, you might want to split it in two or more separate tickets. For example this might be the case if a customer has a technical question and wants to place an order.
To split a ticket, simply click on the “split” button under the article you want to split off:
After clicking on the “split” button, a dialog for creating a new ticket is presented to you:
It is prefilled with the content of the existing article. Remember to select the type (call/email).
The original ticket is linked to the new one, as you can see in the ticket side panel:
Linking Tickets¶
When tickets about related issues arise, they can be linked to each other for easier reference. For example this could be useful if you have multiple customer complaints about the same shipment. Merged and split tickets are automatically linked.
- Link types
There are different types of links between tickets as you might have already seen in Merging Tickets or Splitting Tickets: parent/child links and normal links. The first pair is used for split and merged tickets. The normal link is useful when there is no logical hierarchy between tickets.
However, if you have a main issue and want to create sub tasks, you could link to the main one as a parent of the sub tickets.
- How to link
Make sure to have the ticket side panel open. Under the “Tags” section you can find the “Links” section:
Click the ➕ Add Link button to access the link dialog.
- Link dialog
You can enter the ticket number of the ticket you want to link to (see 1). Alternatively, you can choose from the list below (see 2).
If the customer has an existing ticket, it will show up under “Recent customer tickets”. You can see your last viewed tickets under “Recently viewed tickets” anyway.
Additionally, you can choose the link type from the drop down menu. You can link to one or more tickets for each type.
After entering a ticket number or choosing one of the offered tickets from the list, click on the submit button and the tickets will be linked.
Tabs¶
As you click through Zammad, you will see a list of entries appear in the main menu area. These are your open tabs.
You can freely switch between open tabs without losing your work - all unsaved changes are automatically backed up to the server.
Tabs appear in the main menu as you visit different parts of the application.¶
What items open in a new “tab”?
Existing tickets
New tickets
Users
Organizations
Omnisearch
Tip
🖱️ UI Protip
Ticket states are color-coded:
Closed
Merged
Postponed (Marked as pending; no immediate action required.)
New / Open (Ready for action.)
Escalated (Requires urgent attention.)
A pulsing dot means that a ticket has new activity since you last viewed it.
Drag and drop tabs to rearrange them.
Tab behavior in ticket zooms¶
You may have noticed the “Stay on tab” button next to “Update” on the lower right already. This behavior of a tab can be configured by your administrator globally. You can overrule this setting based on your personal preference.
To overrule your administrator’s settings, simply choose the action you prefer. Zammad will remember this preference until you change its setting.
- Close tab
Upon updating the ticket, Zammad will automatically close the tab. You’ll be returned to the last view that was open.
- Close tab on ticket close
Ticket tabs will be closed only if you change the state to “closed” upon ticket update.
This does not apply for pending states that end in closed states.
- Next in overview
If you opened a ticket from any overview, Zammad will jump to the next ticket in said overview. Zammad recycles the open tab.
This option is only available if you open the ticket from an overview. Zammad will ignore the setting if you opened the ticket directly and fall back to
Stay on tab.- Stay on tab
Updating the ticket doesn’t have any effect on the tab.
This is the default setting in Zammad installations.
Working with Text Modules¶
Zammad offers so-called text modules. Text modules will help you to improve your workflow, as you don’t have to type your answer on every ticket by hand. You can simply choose a fitting text module and insert it into the e-mail.
To access available text modules, simply type :: within an article body.
If you found the right text module, just press enter or click with your left
mouse and Zammad will insert the modules Text at the place your cursor is.
You can either scroll through all modules (mouse or direction keys), type the module name or enter a keyword (if keywords are set).
Text modules missing?¶
You noticed that some text modules don’t always appear?
Text modules can be tied to groups: that is, they only become active once the ticket you’re working on has been assigned to the appropriate group.
Text modules are updated immediately when a new group has been selected—no need to click Update.¶
How do you know which groups go with which text modules? Ask your administrator!
Text modules on ticket creation¶
You can use text modules on ticket creation as well. On ticket creation, our Ticket Templates might get handy too.
Ticket Templates¶
If you find yourself creating lots of tickets with the same basic attributes, use ticket templates to fill them in with a single click next time.
Use the ticket pane to load ticket templates.¶
On any new ticket dialogue use the 🗒️ tab on the right to display the Templates column. If Zammad has any templates for you to apply, you’ll be provided with a drop down list to choose from.
Select a fitting template and press Apply. The configured ticket fields will be populated with the data from the template.
- Field collisions
Starting with version 5.3, Zammad is able to detect “field collisions”. This means: If you previously filled in data in a field that’s supposed to be filled by the template, Zammad will not overwrite the field with the template data.
Instead it will keep your version of the field. This allows you to e.g. fill in the customer before applying the template. 🎉
- Can’t add or adjust templates?
Managing templates requires additional permissions. Please ask your administrator to provide you with the needed permission.
Learn more about ticket templates in the admin documentation.
This permission was introduced with Zammad 5.3.
Advanced Search¶
With Zammad, you can limit your search to specific attributes. This allows you to find e.g. tickets with specific key words and states. Below information will help you to improve your search results.
For instance you can search for a specific customer
by using customer.attribute:
customer.firstname: John
or:
customer.lastname: Doe
If you want to run a more complex search, you can use conditions
with () and AND/OR options:
state.name: open AND (article.from:me OR article.from:somebody)
Available attributes¶
Hint
For a more detailed list of available attributes please take a look into our Zammad System Documentation.
Attribute |
possible Values |
Example |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
number |
1118566 |
number:1118566 |
Search for a Ticketnumber |
title |
some title |
title:”some title” |
If you need to use spacings in the search phrase, use quotes. Zammad will do a AND-Search over the given words. You can also use a single keyword without quotation. |
created_at |
2018-11-18 |
created_at:2018-11-18 |
You can either use a simple date, a date-range or >now-xh. Please note that the date format needs to be YYYY-MM-DD |
state.name |
new |
state.name: new |
You can filter for specific ticket states (and even combine them with an OR). Please note that you need to use the english namings for states, unless you have custom ticket states defined in your instance. |
article_count |
5 |
article_count:5 |
You can search for Tickets with a specific number of articles (you can even search for everything with 5 or more articles or even up to 5 articles, if needed). |
article.from |
*bob* |
article.from:*bob* |
Show all tickets that contain articles from “Bob” |
article.body |
heat |
article.body:heat |
First example shows every ticket containing the word “heat” - you can also use the fuzzy operator “~” to search for similar words like e.g. like “head”. Zammad will also allow you to use regular expressions, where ever the attributes allows it. |
Combining search phrases¶
You can combine search phrases by using AND, OR and TO,
depending on the situation and phrases you use. If needed, you can parts of
your search phrase for complex searches with (). This allows you to
combine several phrases with different dependencies (AND/OR). In case you
receive search results that you want to exclude, you can use negation !.
Below are some examples that you could use with this:
Search phrase |
Description |
|---|---|
state.name:(closed OR open) AND (priority.name:”2 normal” OR tags:feedback) |
Show every ticket that state is either closed or open and has priority normal or the tag feedback. |
state.name:(closed OR open) AND (priority.name:”2 normal” OR tags:feedback) AND !(Zammad) |
This gets the same result as above, expect that we don’t want the ticket to contain anything matching to “Zammad” |
owner.email:bob@example.net AND state.name:(open OR new) |
Show Tickets from bob@example.net that are either open or new |
state.name:pending* AND article_count:[1 TO 5] |
Show everything with any pending state and an article count of 1 to 5. |
Some Ticket attributes and their type¶
Below you can find the most important attributes sorted by ticket and article.
Ticket attributes¶
number: string
title: string
group: object (group.name, …)
priority: object (priority.name, …)
state: object (state.name, …)
organization: object (organization.name, …)
owner: object (owner.firstname, owner.lastname, owner.email, …)
customer: object (customer.firstname, customer.lastname, customer.email, …)
first_response_at: timestamp
first_response_in_min: integer (business min till first response)
close_at: timestamp
close_in_min: integer (business min till close)
last_contact_at: timestamp (last contact by customer or agent)
last_contact_agent_at: timestamp (last contact by agent)
last_contact_customer_at: timestamp (last contact by customer)
create_article_type: string (email|phone|web|…)
create_article_sender: string (Customer|Agent|System)
article_count: integer
escalation_at: timestamp
pending_time: timestamp
Article attributes¶
article.from: string
article.to: string
article.cc: string
article.subject: string
article.body: string
article.attachment.title: string (filename of attachment)
article.attachment.content: string (content of attachment)
article.attachment.content_type: string (File type e.g. PDF)
Macros¶
Macros are 🖱️ one-click shortcuts for applying changes to a ticket.
If you find yourself making the same changes to lots of tickets (e.g., close-and-tag-as-spam or reassign-to-another-group), macros can make the job a whole lot easier.
Macros can be created by your administrator. If you have an idea for a macro you’d like to use, your Zammad admin can probably make it happen.
Macros can be applied in two ways: on a single ticket, or in bulk.
On a Single Ticket¶
The simplest way to apply a macro is to select it from the Update ^ submenu in the Ticket View:
Tip
💾 Macro = Update
If you’ve made changes to any other settings on the ticket (including typing up a reply to the customer), applying a macro will save them, too.
⚠️ But beware: in the event of a conflict, the macro’s actions override any manual changes - including messages to the customer! When in doubt, apply your macro and your manual changes separately.
If the selected macro adds a note to the ticket, any text entered in the message composer will be lost.¶
In Bulk¶
To apply a macro to many tickets at the same time:
open a ticket overview;
select your desired tickets;
click-and-drag to open the “Run Macro” drawer; and
drop the tickets on your target macro.
Note
☝️ There’s just one difference… When running a macro from the ticket view, Zammad may automatically open the next ticket (or close the current one, or just stay on it), depending on how the macro was set up.
When running it from the overviews page, Zammad will always stay on the overviews page.
Suggested Workflows¶
Sharing Work on a Ticket¶
Some tickets require attention from more than one agent (or even more than one department!). In these cases, there are three ways to assign the work to the right people:
If a ticket is really about two different problems, you can split it in two, then assign each ticket to its respective “group” (department).
If you’ve done all you can on a ticket and it’s now another agent’s (or department’s) responsibility, reassign it to a new owner (or group).
If you just need another agent’s input on something, you can @mention them. (And if you want to get notifications for someone else’s ticket, use the subscribe button.)
Reassigning tickets¶
Reassign a ticket (via the Group and Owner settings) to let colleagues know you’re done with your part.¶
Suppose a call comes into the sales department. A sales rep takes the call, creates a ticket, and looks up some prices for the customer. After recording his notes, the rep then decides that this ticket needs to be passed onto customer service.
Our sales rep can simply un-assign himself as the owner of the ticket and re-assign the ticket to the Customer Service group. All customer service agents will be notified of the incoming ticket, and the first available agent can assign herself to pick up where the sales rep left off.
Tip
Be sure to leave notes with as much information as possible for the next agent!
@mentions & the Subscribe Button¶
Now suppose you’ve reassigned the ticket to customer service. You won’t receive notifications for this ticket anymore, but maybe this is a really important contract, and you want to make sure they have an A+ experience from start to finish.
To enable notifications for a ticket that doesn’t belong to you, simply click the Subscribe button at the bottom of the ticket pane:
A list of all tickets you’re subscribed to can be found in the My mentioned Tickets overview.¶
Or, suppose you don’t want to reassign the ticket to customer service—you just have one quick question for them, and then you can take it from there.
To start sending someone else notifications for your own ticket,
type @@ in the message composer and select their name from the pop-up menu:
@mentioning a colleague in a message will automatically subscribe them to your ticket.¶
Hint
⚙️ Notification settings
Check your Profile & Settings to customize how you receive notifications.
Can’t see a ticket, in which a colleague @mentioned you?
Is the ticket assigned to a group that you don’t belong to? @mentions and subscriptions only work for tickets that you already have access to.
Quickly assign in ticket listings¶
Within overviews and detailed searches you can run bulk operations on tickets. This means you can adjust the following ticket information:
group
owner
state (with pending time if applicable)
priority
After pressing “Confirm”, Zammad also allows you to provide an internal or public note of why you adjusted the settings.
Zammad will not ask for time accounting values in bulk actions.
- Bulk action via drop-downs:
Use the check boxes in ticket listings to select a bunch of tickets. Now use below drop-downs to change ticket settings, press confirm and provide a note if you’d like.¶
- Bulk action via drag and drop:
🤓 You can change owners and groups even faster 🚀
Instead of using the drop-downs on the bottom of Zammad, you can also drag tickets. A new modal will appear and allow you to drop your selection on either just a group or agents. This operation allows you to quickly change the group and owner without further hassle!
This functionality is only available in ticket overviews.
Time Accounting¶
Zammad supports detailed time accounting to help administrators keep track of how much time you spend on any given ticket, customer or client organization.
If the time accounting is enabled, this dialog will appear each time you update a ticket. Enter how much time you spent on it.
This feature is optional; if you don’t see it whenever you update a ticket, that means your administrator hasn’t enabled it yet. Administrators can learn more here.
Units¶
The Accounted time is always recorded as unitless numbers. However, your administrator may decide to show an optional label next to the field to hint you and your colleagues which unit is assumed.
Activity Types¶
Activity Types are used for grouping accounted time entries together. This is an optional feature which shows a list of activities as a selectable list.
Simply choose the closest type of the activity you are recording the time for, noting that one of the choices may be pre-selected. You can always remove the selection for general accounted time that is not supposed to be grouped together.
Keyboard Shortcuts¶
Zammad supports a wide array of keyboard shortcuts to expedite your workflow as an expert user. But don’t be afraid, you don’t have to remember all of them.
Where to find them?¶
Click on your avatar at the bottom of the main menu to access the keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet.
Alternatively, open it with one of the shortcuts below:
ctrl+shift+h(on Linux and Windows)
cmd+ctrl+shift+h(on macOS)
This will open an overview of available keyboard-shortcuts as in the following screenshot:
The keyboard shortcut cheat sheet.¶
List of Available Keyboard Shortcuts¶
Translations¶
Note: you need to have admin permissions to use this.
Key / key combination |
Function |
|---|---|
|
Enable or disable the inline translation |
Appearance¶
Key / key combination |
Function |
|---|---|
|
Switch between dark and light mode |
Tickets¶
Key / key combination |
Function |
|---|---|
|
Create a new note article |
|
Reply to the last article |
|
Switch the visibility of the article between internal and public |
|
Set state of the ticket to “closed” |
|
Navigate through article |
|
Insert text module (while composing an article) |
|
Insert knowledge base article (while composing an article) |
|
Mention a user (while composing an article) |
Text Editing¶
- How
You can apply a text format before typing or after typing. Example:
Before typing:
Press
cmd+ito enter italics mode,enter your desired text, and
press
cmd+iagain to return to normal text mode.
After typing:
Enter your desired text,
click-and-drag with the mouse to select it, and
press
cmd+ito set the text in italics.
- Key Combinations
Key / key combination
Function
ctrl+uFormat text underlined
ctrl+bFormat text in bold
ctrl+iFormat text in italics
ctrl+sFormat text as ̶s̶t̶r̶i̶k̶e̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶
ctrl+vPaste text from clipboard
ctrl+shift+vPaste text from clipboard (as plain text)
shift+ctrl+fRemove formatting of text
shift+ctrl+yRemove formatting of the whole text
shift+ctrl+zInsert a horizontal line
shift+ctrl+lFormat as unordered list
shift+ctrl+kFormat as ordered list
shift+ctrl+1Format as h1 heading
shift+ctrl+2Format as h2 heading
shift+ctrl+3Format as h3 heading
shift+ctrl+xRemove any hyperlink
Customers¶
Use the ticket pane to view and manage customer profiles.
Overview¶
Click the 👨 tab in the ticket pane to see the customer’s profile.¶
If the customer has other tickets too, you can see a summary when you hover over the open/closed labels:
Hover over the open/closed labels to see a summary of the customer’s other tickets.¶
Editing a Customer¶
To edit the customer’s profile, use the customer submenu and select “Edit Customer”:
- Customer submenu
Click the Customer ▾ heading to access additional actions.¶
- Customer edit dialog
The edit customer dialog.¶
Most customer attributes are self-explanatory, but here are a couple that might confuse you:
- Organization
Customers may (optionally) belong to organizations – skip ahead to learn more.
- Secondary Organizations
Unlike organizations, you can add several organizations here that are not as highlighted. Still, the same behavior applies.
- VIP
Like ticket priority, VIP status doesn’t actually do anything out-of-the-box, but an admin can set up automated system hooks based on this value, or use it as a filter for custom overviews.
Ask your administrator about how she’d like you to use this attribute (or just leave it alone).
Organizations¶
Tickets track communication between individuals, but often your company’s real client is another company (or organization). Customers can be grouped into organizations to monitor their activity as a whole.
Organization Profiles¶
Use the ticket pane to view and manage organization profiles.
Click the 👪 tab in the ticket pane to see the organization’s profile.¶
To edit the organization’s profile, use the organization submenu:
Organization Stats¶
With organizations, you can answer questions like:
“How many tickets has this company had to file in the last 12 months?”
“How many tickets does this company have open right now?”
“How old is the oldest open ticket from this company?”
Click the 🏢 button in the ticket pane to see a detailed breakdown of the organization’s stats.¶
Checking Your Stats¶
The dashboard is the first thing you’ll see after logging in. Monitor your productivity at a glance, compare your stats to the company average (in gray below your own), and see what everyone else is up to.
Check the dashboard for a quick summary of your stats (updated every 30 minutes).¶
1. ∅ Waiting Time Today |
How long has each customer had to wait, on average, to get a response from you today? |
2. Mood |
How many escalated tickets do you have open right now? (Mr. Bubbles gets grumpy if you have too many…) |
3. Channel Distribution |
Where are all your tickets coming from? (Shows tickets created in the last seven days, also sorted by inbound vs. outbound.) |
4. Assigned |
Out of all open tickets (company-wide), how many are currently assigned to you? |
5. My Tickets in Process |
What percentage of your tickets have you responded to or updated in the last 24 hours? |
6. Reopening Rate |
How many of your closed tickets have been re-opened in the last seven days? |
7. Activity Stream |
What’s everyone else on your team up to? |
Secure Email¶
Zammad supports two systems of high-security email communication:
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME).
Use the 🔒 Encrypt and ✅ Sign buttons to turn on encryption and signing of outgoing emails.¶
Prerequisites¶
Both feature are optional; if you don’t see the 🔒 Encrypt and ✅ Sign buttons in the ticket composer, that means your administrator hasn’t activated any of them yet.
Administrators can learn more here:
PGP and S/MIME are only working if the other party is using them too.
Overview¶
PGP and S/MIME are the most widely-supported methods for secure email communication. With each of the systems, you can exchange signed and encrypted messages with others.
Note
In special cases it is possible that both systems are configured in your system and a customer is using both, as well. In this case, you have an additional button to switch between PGP and S/MIME security types. Otherwise, you just see the 🔒 Encrypt and ✅ Sign buttons.
Ticket creation with configured PGP and S/MIME and available certificates/keys.¶
- Signing
is a proof that a message hasn’t been manipulated on its way.
In other words, it guarantees message integrity and authenticity.
- Encryption
scrambles a message so that it can only be unscrambled by the intended recipient.
In other words, it guarantees message privacy and data security.
Your administrator is responsible for adding all the necessary certificates and keys in Zammad’s admin panel.
📬 Incoming¶
The 🔒 and ✅ icons at the top of a message indicate its encryption and signing status.
Click on an incoming message to expand its details. Hover over the security status to show more information.¶
|
This message was encrypted for you. Even if it was intercepted by a third party (hacker, gov’t agency, etc.), they won’t be able to read it. |
|
This message can not be decrypted. |
|
This message’s signature has been successfully verified. You can be confident that it’s authentic and that the content has not been modified. |
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The verification of the signature of this message has failed. You can find more information by hovering over the icon. |
📮 Outgoing¶
Use the 🔒 Encrypt and ✅ Sign buttons to turn on encryption and signing for outgoing emails.
Note
Outgoing emails can only be encrypted for a single recipient.
🔒 Encrypt and ✅ Sign buttons are present on both new tickets and replies. Hover over the buttons to show details.¶
|
This message will be encrypted. Even if it’s intercepted by a third party (hacker, gov’t agency, etc.), they won’t be able to read it. |
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This message will not be encrypted. |
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This message will be signed. Recipients can verify that it came from you and that the content has not been modified. |
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This message will not be signed. |
Troubleshooting¶
📬 Incoming¶
- “Sign: Unable to find certificate for validation”
Without the sender’s certificate, Zammad cannot verify the message signature.
Ask your administrator to add the sender’s certificate to Zammad’s certificate store.
Warning
🕵️ ALWAYS verify certificates in-person or over the phone!
The whole point of signature verification is to alert you when someone is trying to pretend to be someone they’re not. Never accept a certificate from someone online without verifying it first.
- “Encryption: Unable to find private key to decrypt”
This message was encrypted with a certificate that does not match any on file. Without a matching private key, Zammad cannot decrypt the message.
Ask your administrator to verify your organization’s private key in Zammad’s certificate store, and ask the sender to double-check the public key they used to encrypt the message.
Hint
📢 Your public key can be safely shared with anyone.
(But if they’re smart, they’ll take extra precautions to make sure it really belongs to you.)
📮 Outgoing¶
- The 🔒 Encrypt button is disabled
Ask your administrator to add the recipient’s certificate to Zammad’s certificate store.
- The ✅ Sign button is disabled
Ask your administrator to verify your organization’s private key in Zammad’s certificate store.
Shared Drafts¶
Overview¶
Share drafts for new or existing tickets with other agents of your group. Load, modify and safe an existing draft e.g. as QA process with colleagues.
This feature is optional; if you don’t see it in the menu, that means your administrator disabled this function. Administrators can learn more in our admin documentation.
By using ^ next to the “Update” button Zammad will provide you with an option to save your draft (and thus share it) if the option is enabled.¶
Hint
🤓 Let’s be clear up front
Zammad technically has two draft functions:
shared draft (allow others to load the draft), and
user drafts.
Handling drafts¶
Warning
☠️ Overwriting drafts is final
Zammad will warn you in case you’re going to overwrite an existing draft. This also applies to your personal draft in case you’re loading a shared draft.
Loading a shared draft, (adjusting and) updating the ticket with an article will cause Zammad to remove the shared draft.
This also applies if you’re sharing the draft before submitting! Zammad expects that the draft is no longer needed.
- Load a draft
Loading a draft works the same starting from draft previews.
- New Ticket dialogue
If you’re in a new ticket dialogue after selecting the ticket group, the 📝 button will indicate the shared drafts function to be available. The shared drafts tab is always hidden if no group is selected!
- Existing tickets (Ticket zoom)
Within ticket zooms a button “📝 Draft available” will be shown if a draft has been shared by either you or another agent on the ticket.
Hovering over the button will tell you who has changed the draft last.
- Remove draft
You can remove any draft (no matter if for new or existing tickets) from within the draft preview screen. Use the “Delete” link on the lower end of the dialogue. This has no effect on local drafts agents may have loaded already.
- Saving drafts
- New ticket
- Adding new drafts
To save a new shared draft, set the ticket settings, customer, ticket title and article as desired. Make sure to select a group that supports shared drafts.
If you’re ready to save the draft, click on 📝 on the right ticket pane, enter a meaning full name and click on the “Create” button.
- Update existing drafts
In order to update or rename existing shared drafts for new tickets, simply load the draft in question. Change the information (e.g. ticket settings or content) needed and, if needed, update the drafts name on the right hand side of the ticket. This way you can not just update existing drafts, but also use existing drafts to create another copy!
- Existing ticket
Use the ^ button next to the update button. If the group of the ticket (or in your selection) allows shared drafts, Zammad will provide the option “Save Draft”.
All current changes on the ticket (ticket settings, article and it’s attachments) will be saved to the shared draft.
When saving was successful, the button “📝 Draft available” will be shown.
Live Chat¶
Talk to customers in real time from the customer chat panel.
This feature is optional; if you don’t see it in the main menu, that means your administrator hasn’t enabled it yet. Administrators can learn more here.
Overview¶
Chat controls |
|
|---|---|
1. On/Off |
Enable/disable the chat panel. (When enabled, you will receive notifications for incoming chats.) |
2. Waiting Customers |
Lists customers awaiting an agent for chat. Click to answer a pending chat request. |
3. Chatting Customers |
Lists customers currently in an ongoing chat session. |
4. Active Agents |
Lists all agents with chat enabled. |
5. Settings |
Click for chat configuration options (e.g., auto-greetings and maximum number of simultaneous chats). |
6. Count badge |
Displays the number of users in each section. |
7. Info card |
Hover over for detailed information about the users in each section. |
Warning
If all agents have the chat panel disabled, customers will not be able to initiate a chat.
- Usage tips
🔍 Use the search bar to pull up old chats from the archive anytime.
📋 Copy & paste supports 🌄 inline images as well as plain text.
⌨️ Live chat supports text modules.
📝 Chats can be renamed or tagged, and record technical details about the customer’s connection.
Click on the title at the top of the chat window to edit chat details.¶
Caller Log¶
View and manage call logs from the phone panel.
This feature is optional; if you don’t see it in the main menu, that means your administrator hasn’t enabled it yet. Administrators can learn more on our admin documentation.
Enable the Phone panel to receive notifications for incoming calls.¶
Hint
🏢 The caller log shows all incoming and outgoing calls for the entire instance. The number of entries shown depends on the configuration your admin chose.
The caller log offers a lot more than just the last call entries. If your administrator configured “Phone Extension to Agent Mapping”, Zammad will also help you during answering calls.
- New Ticket dialog
Zammad will open a new ticket dialogue if:
it’s able to either guess a single user (see maybe entries)
the callers number belongs to a user known to Zammad
the callers number is yet unknown
If the user is known to Zammad it will automatically set the ticket customer for you. You can correct this at any time if needed.
- User profile
Zammad will open the users profile if your user had a customer ticket that has been updated within the last 30 days. This also applies for calling users that Zammad guesses are a specific user (only if it’s one guessed user).
- Quick dial
You can click on phone numbers (user profiles and caller log) to dial the number in question quickly.
This requires either a soft phone client or CTI client on your computer that supports this action.
Note
😕 What are these “maybe” entries?
During your day by day communication you may also stumble over new customers. Usually business users send their phone numbers in their signature.
Zammad collects and aggregates these information and tries to guess the customer in case it receives a call from an unknown number.
Tip
👤 Click on unrecognized numbers to create a new customer or maybe entries to update an existing customer.
Unrecognized phone numbers cannot be added to existing customers in this way. Copy and pasting is required.
Existing caller log entries are not updated when you update an existing customer.
Profile & Settings¶
Click on your avatar or initials at the bottom of the main menu to access your profile and settings.
Find user-specific actions, a list of recently opened items, and useful reference information.¶
User Menu¶
Clicking on your avatar picture provides the following three sections in the user menu:
- Recently viewed
All information you’ve viewed previously (tickets, users, organizations). Helps you to jump back quick and easy without searching or looking in your overviews. Note that this list is limited, old entries will automatically vanish.
- Further actions
- Dark mode
Quickly toggle dark and light mode without using keyboard bindings.
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Profile
This will open your Profile Settings and provide further options for customers and agents. Customers do not have access to all areas, even if you provide them the permissions to those areas.
- Sign out
Finished working with Zammad? Use the sign out button to end your user session.
If you didn’t tick “Remember me” during login or used a third party login, your session will automatically be invalidated if you close and reopen your browser.
Profile Settings¶
Clicking on “Profile” in the user menu opens the profile settings.
- Appearance
Select how Zammad should look. Zammad will remember the setting you choose here.
Dark
Light
Sync with computer
For dark and light you’ll fix the dark or light mode to your taste.
If you choose sync with computer, Zammad will dynamically select the mode depending on what your client prefers at that moment.
Note that this sync option highly depends on your browser. If your browser does not support syncing, this setting basically has no effect. Most common modern Browsers are capable to do so (e.g. Firefox, Google Chrome).
- Language
Set the system display language.
- Avatar
Upload an avatar image.
- Password & Auth
Change your login password and manage your two-factor authentication methods (both may be disabled by system admin).
Hint
Two-Factor Authentication is an optional feature. Administrators can learn more here.
- Notifications
- Notifications
Select where, when, and for which groups you want to receive notifications, or choose a new notification sound. Notifications are available to agents only.
You can always reset your notification settings to system defaults by clicking on the button at the bottom of the screen.
Use the first three columns to choose when to receive internal notifications (below). The rightmost column enables email notification as well.¶
- Limit Groups
By default, you will receive notifications for all tickets in every group you belong to - even for tickets that are assigned to other agents. Use the Limit Groups switch and settings below it to disable such notifications on a per-group basis. You will continue to receive notifications for your own tickets.
If you turn on Limit Groups feature, but disable the notifications from all groups, you may receive the following warning.
In this case, saving your settings will implicitly turn off Limit Groups feature, since no limits will be left in effect.
Hint
The contents of these email notifications can be customized on self-hosted installations. Administrators can learn more here.
- Out of Office
Schedule absence periods in advance, and designate a substitute to handle your tickets while you’re gone.
Your substitute will receive all your ticket notifications during your absence, and have a custom overview created to help keep track of your tickets.
You will reveive notifications while you are absent.
- Overviews
Tired of the overview order your admin decided on? This section allows you to choose an overview order that fits you the best.
You can revert to the default instance ordering at any time by using the upper right button “Reset overview order”.
Hint
This option is only visible to agents by default. It can be completely deactivated by your admin.
If it is activated, the order does not change, even if your admin renames or reorders the overviews. The overview order is stored in your profile and thus applies to any device you use with your account.
- Calendar
Add your ticket deadlines to your own favorite calendar app with the ICAL link listed at this setting’s panel.
- Devices
See a list of all devices logged into your Zammad account (and revoke access, if necessary).
- Token Access
Generate personal access tokens for third party applications to use the Zammad API.
Tip
Always generate a new token for each application you connect to Zammad! (This makes it possible to revoke access one application at a time if a token is ever compromised.)
- Linked Accounts
See a list of third party services (e.g., Facebook or Twitter) linked to your Zammad account.
Two-Factor Authentication¶
Two-factor authentication (2FA) enhances the security of your Zammad account by adding an extra layer of verification beyond a password. It requires you to provide two different types of authentication factors, typically something you know (like a password) and something you possess (like a mobile device or a security token), to ensure that you are an authorized individual who can access the account.
Two-Factor Authentication is an optional feature. Administrators can learn more here.
Set Up Two-Factor Authentication¶
If the system admin has enabled this feature, you can head to “Avatar > Profile > Password & Authentication” to set it up. Depending on the enabled two-factor methods, you may see one or more options in the table.
To set up a two-factor method, use the ⋮ Actions menu next to it and choose Set Up.
In a modal dialog, you will be asked to confirm your current password.
Depending on the chosen two-factor method, you will be guided through the setup process, which includes specific steps.
Security Keys Setup¶
The security keys method is a type of a two-factor authentication that uses Web Authentication API in the browser for verifying your identity. You may register multiple hardware or software security keys with your Zammad account and then they can be used during the sign-in process.
Initially, you will be presented with an empty dialog instructing you to Set Up your first key.
First, enter a descriptive Name for this security key you will be registering with your account, so you could later identify it in the list. Then, click on Next.
Next, depending you your browser, you will be presented with different options. Select one that refers to your chosen security key and follow the instructions on the screen.
You may be asked by the browser to interact with a key or a device so you can prove you are in physical possession of it (e.g. enter its PIN to unlock it).
Warning
You will have limited time (measured in tens of seconds) to register your key. Better to have it ready before you proceed!
If the registration was successful, the modal dialog will close and you are good to go.
In case of errors, you will be able to Retry the registration of the key.
Editing Security Keys¶
Once set up, security keys can be managed by choosing Edit action next to the two-factor authentication method.
You have an option to remove a key or set up additional ones. There is no limit in number of security keys you can set up, but keep in mind you cannot register an already registered key for your account.
Removal of the last security key will effectively remove the complete security keys method for your account.
Authenticator App Setup¶
The authenticator app method is a type of two-factor authentication that uses a mobile application to generate one-time codes for account verification. After setting up the authenticator app on your device, you will link it to your Zammad account.
First, make sure you have installed an authenticator app on your mobile device. Recommended apps are:
Next, open the authenticator app on your device and find a Scan QR Code action, or similar. Point your camera to the Zammad screen and scan the shown QR code in the middle.
Hint
If your device is not able to scan the QR code, first click on it to reveal your secret. Next, add a manual entry to your authenticator app and enter the provided secret when asked.
Your authenticator app should immediately add the new entry for your Zammad account, and a 6-digit code will be displayed next to it together with a timer.
Back in Zammad, enter the provided code to the Security Code field and click on Set Up.
Sign-in with a Two-Factor Method¶
When you set up two-factor authentication for your Zammad account, during the next sign-in you will be asked to provide the same two-factor method after entering correct username and password.
Depending on the chosen two-factor method, this may be a security code, hardware key, etc.
Security Keys Sign-in¶
To sign-in with security keys two-factor method, first enter your username and password and click Sign in.
Then, when asked by the browser, present your security key as instructed.
You may be asked by the browser to interact with a key or a device so you can prove you are in physical possession of it (e.g. enter its PIN to unlock it).
Warning
Providing your security key when asked is a time-sensitive operation! You may be allowed a couple of tens of seconds to present and unlock your key, but if the process time outs, you will have to Retry.
In case of errors, you will be able to Retry the verification of the key.
Authenticator App Sign-in¶
To sign-in with authenticator app two-factor method, first enter your username and password and click Sign in.
Then, open authenticator app on your device, and get the 6-digit code next to your Zammad account.
Back in Zammad, enter the provided code to the Security Code field and click on Sign in.
Warning
Entering security codes from your authenticator app is a time-sensitive operation! Each code is valid for up to 30 seconds, so if you are near the end of the time window (timer will show you this), it is better to wait for it to refresh.
Trying Another Method¶
In case you are having issued during sign-in with your preferred two-factor authentication method, you can switch to another one, provided you have set it up previously.
Look for Try another method link below the sign in box. In case you don’t see this link, you probably have no other available two-factor methods set up, or your admin has disabled this feature.
In the new screen, choose another two-factor authentication method and complete your sign-in.
Alternatively, you can also use one of your recovery codes, which are auto-generated for your account during the initial setup of the two-factor authentication. Click on recovery codes, enter one of your unused recovery codes and click on Sign in.
Warning
You can use a single recovery code only once! In case you exhaust the list of your recovery codes, it is recommended you regenerate them for your account.
Generate Recovery Codes¶
Recovery codes are one-time use security codes that can be used to sign in if you lose access to your other two-factor authentication methods. They can only be used as a backup method.
If the feature is enabled by the admin, recovery codes will be automatically generated for you during the setup of your initial two-factor authentication method.
You will be asked to print out or save the generated recovery codes in a safe place. Once used, a recovery code cannot be reused.
You also have an option to regenerate your recovery codes at any time, which invalidates already existing recovery codes and provides you with a list of fresh codes. You can do this by clicking on Regenerate recovery codes button in “Avatar > Profile > Password & Authentication”.
Set a Two-Factor Method as Default¶
To set an already set up two-factor method as default, use the ⋮ Actions menu next to it in “Avatar > Profile > Password & Authentication” and choose Set as default.
In order to identify your current default two-factor authentication method, look for a small blue badge next to the method name.
A default two-factor authentication method is just your preferred method during the sign-in process. You will always have an option to try signing in using another method.
Edit a Two-Factor Method¶
To edit an already set up two-factor method, use the ⋮ Actions menu next to it in “Avatar > Profile > Password & Authentication” and choose Edit.
In a modal dialog, you will be asked to confirm your current password.
Depending on the chosen two-factor method, you will be guided again through the setup process. Normally, editing a method will simply renew it and replace the older setup, but some methods do support advanced functions (e.g. adding multiple security keys).
Remove a Two-Factor Method¶
To remove an already set up two-factor method, use the ⋮ Actions menu next to it in “Avatar > Profile > Password & Authentication” and choose Remove.
In a modal dialog, you will be asked to confirm the removal with your current password.
Requirement to Set Up a Two-Factor Method¶
Your system admin may choose to require you to set up at least one two-factor method for your account. In this case, if you haven’t already set up a method, you will be asked to do so at your next sign-in or application reload.
Choose a method of your choice, and then follow its setup guide.
Warning
If you are required to set up a two-factor authentication for your account, this will be a mandatory action. You will not be able to use Zammad until you set up at least one method.
Mobile View¶
The need for a dedicated mobile view of Zammad arose from the ever-changing life on the go. Even though the desktop application might be responsive enough for small screens, it proved to be too cluttered and was simply not designed primarily for mobile devices.
By limiting the amount of information to only the most important, the mobile view strives to provide you, the user, with a more focused window into your daily tasks. All packaged in a touch-friendly and modern design with great user experience, of course!
Hint
We intentionally do not provide specific instructions and comprehensive documentation for the mobile view! The overall UX should be intuitive and self-explanatory in most cases.
Features¶
Mobile view provides you with a way to do your common Zammad daily tasks while on the go:
Manage & use your ticket overviews
Search for existing records
Create a new ticket
Reply in an already existing ticket
Modify ticket attributes
Modify customer attributes
Modify organization attributes
Mobile view also has some exclusive features:
Innovative Zammad UX
Next-level accessibility
Ready for multi-device usage
Progressive web app (PWA) support
Limitations¶
Mobile view is also currently missing some features which are provided by the desktop view:
Ticket Article Time Accounting
Ticket Article Split Action
Linked Tickets & Ticket Link Action
Ticket Macros
Ticket History
Ticket Create Templates & Shared Drafts
Additionally, certain features were intentionally omitted in order to improve the focus on important information:
Most Management Features (except ticket user and organization management)
Most Knowledge Base Features (except ticket integration)
Most User Profile Functions (except avatar and language preferences)
Reports
Caller Log
Live Chat
Access¶
Zammad now implements a mobile device detection, which results in automatic redirection to mobile view. Even with this mechanism in place it’s possible to explicitly switch between the views by using app links:
Whenever an app link is used, the choice will be remembered by the user’s device and the next time the automatic redirection will behave accordingly.
Knowledge Base¶
Manage, edit, and reorganize knowledge base articles from the knowledge base panel.
This feature is optional; if you don’t see it in the main menu, that means your administrator hasn’t enabled it yet. Administrators can learn more on our admin documentation.
The knowledge base panel begins in Preview Mode. With some small exceptions, Preview Mode shows what the published knowledge base will look like.¶
Getting Started¶
Use the ↗️ button in the top toolbar to see the published knowledge base.
👆 In Edit Mode, use the righthand menu to navigate through the knowledge base.¶
Use the “Edit” button in the top toolbar to switch into Edit Mode (and back again). If you can’t see the “Edit” button, you should talk to your administrator about granting you the appropriate permissions. By default, agents are not permitted to create, edit, or manage knowledge base articles.
Switching Languages¶
Use the language menu to view or edit translations of the current page.
If you select a language, in which the page hasn’t been translated into yet, the behavior depends on the state of the page:
- in Edit Mode
Untranslated pages are marked with a ⚠️ warning sign:
- in Preview Mode
Untranslated pages are only visible to users with edit permissions:
- in the published knowledge base
Untranslated pages are always hidden:
Using RSS Feeds¶
Zammad allows you to subscribe to either the knowledge base as whole or to specific categories. There’s both a public and an internal option to do so.
By default, RSS feeds are disabled. If you wish to use the RSS function, talk to your administrator about enabling the function.
The RSS button of the public knowledge base page is located at the bottom of each page. If enabled, the button will be available to anybody visiting the page.
The internal RSS button can be found on the upper right next to the edit button. It’s available on every internal knowledge base page you display.
Pressing the the RSS button will provide up to two RSS feeds to subscribe to.
Warning
Keep in mind that internal RSS links contain personal access tokens. Never share these URLs with third parties!
If you want to revoke the access and renew your token, you can do so in the RSS modal.
Editing Categories¶
You can relocate a category using the Parent menu. Doing so, all of its articles and sub-categories will be relocated with it.
You can delete categories by clicking on the 🗑️ Delete button. Categories can only be deleted once all of their articles and sub-categories have been deleted or relocated.
Granular Category Permissions¶
Granular category permissions are great to have individual access levels on a role level. Using the granular permissions of a category deactivates the default visibility behavior and applies the permissions you’ve chosen instead.
This allows you to divide user groups on a e.g. subscription level to reduce the information load for users that don’t need the information.
In general, permissions of a parent category are inherited! If you want to grant edit permissions for a sub-category for a specific role for example, set the upper level to “reader” and the desired sub-category to “editor”. The other way round is not possible (permissions can only be widened, not restricted). If you can’t select permissions in the table, this could be the reason.
The roles require knowledge base reader permission. Your administrator has to provide the relevant groups with reader permissions for the knowledge base. If you’re unsure, please ask your administrator to configure the role permissions accordingly.
Warning
Be aware that public answers are always available!
Knowledge base reader permission means that affected users can see internal answers. This is a potential issue if you’re not dividing carefully!
Editing Answers¶
The knowledge base editor comes equipped with the same rich text editing capabilities available in the Zammad ticket composer. That means you can use the same keyboard shortcuts to insert formatted text, bullet lists, and more. You can even add file attachments and links!
- Different link types
- 🔗 Weblink
URLs pointing to other websites.
- 💡 Link Answer
- Internal references to other knowledge base answers.(Will not break if destination URL changes.)
- 📋 Linked Tickets
- Internal references to Zammad tickets.(Visible only in Preview and Edit Modes.)
- 🏷️ Tags
- Tags can help categorize or spice answers with further words to find.Please note that tags are visible publicly and can be the same like those in your tickets.
- Visibility
Set the visibility of an answer to control who can see an article, or schedule it to be published at a later date. Articles are color-coded according to their visibility:
Public (visible to everyone)
Internal (visible to agents & editors only)
Draft/Scheduled/Archived (visible to editors only)
Using answers in ticket articles¶
As soon as the knowledge base contains one or more answers, you can use these
just like text modules. Instead of :: just use ?? to open the search
modal. The search is done full text on both answer body and title in all
languages available.
If you’ve found what you’ve been looking for, simply hit your ENTER-Key to load the answer into the ticket article. This way you don’t have to throw URLs at your customer and provide the answer right away.
Loading answers into articles does not replace article content.
Use ?? to find and load knowledge base answers into ticket articles¶
i-doit: Track Company Property¶
With i-doit integration, you can list which pieces of your company’s property are related to any given ticket. That includes both physical and digital infrastructure, from servers to meeting rooms to virtual machines to software licenses.
This feature is optional; if you don’t see it in the ticket view, that means your administrator hasn’t enabled it yet. Administrators can learn more here.
If your company is using i-doit, ask your administrator / IT personnel to give you a tour. If your organization isn’t already using i-doit, this guide is not for you.
Use the 🖨 printer tab to view or manage a ticket’s assets from i-doit.¶
Why?¶
i-doit can help you keep track of troublesome equipment and find previous tickets from the last time something went wrong with it.
It’s also a great way to document quirks in the company’s belongings: Why haven’t we upgraded this system from Windows Vista yet? What did we decide to do about that faulty network switch? And why does the coffee maker keep shutting off before it’s finished? 🤬
So How Does It Work?¶
In Zammad: Link i-doit assets to tickets¶
First, add i-doit assets to a ticket in the ticket pane:
Select 🖨 > i-doit > Change Objects, then filter by category and/or name.¶
Once assets have been linked to a ticket, they can be accessed directly from the ticket view:
Click on a linked asset in the ticket pane to open its page in i-doit.¶
In i-doit: List & create tickets for a given asset¶
Your i-doit control panel should contain a list of all the tickets associated with each asset:
Click the 💬 in the toolbar to list an asset’s tickets. Use the 🔗 Open in ticketsystem button to open the ticket in Zammad.¶
You can even launch Zammad’s new ticket dialog directly from i-doit, with the asset already linked for you:
Use the 📄 Create ticket button in the asset ticket list to start a new, pre-linked ticket dialog.¶
GitHub / GitLab Integration¶
With issue tracker integration, you can monitor GitHub / GitLab issues right from within a Zammad ticket.
This feature is optional; if you don’t see it in the ticket pane, that means your administrator hasn’t enabled it yet. Administrators can learn more here.
Use the 
and 
tabs on the ticket pane
for an overview of issues related to the ticket.¶
What can it do?¶
- View related issues
Use the
and tabs on the ticket pane to see linked issues,
along with metadata like status (open/closed), assignee, labels, and more.
Or, simply click the title to view the issue on GitHub / GitLab.A badge on the tab icon indicates how many issues are linked to this ticket.
- Link a new issue
At the top of the ticket pane, select GitHub / GitLab > Link Issue, then enter a valid issue URL. Please note that linking a new issue can be slow sometimes.
- Remove an issue
Click the ✕ button next to an issue title to unlink it.