Zammad is a free helpdesk or issue tracking system. It offers the connection of various channels like email, chat, telephone, Twitter, or Facebook. Zammad is developed in the programming languages Ruby and JavaScript. The name Zammad comes from the Bavarian language and means "together".
General
Zammad was founded by Martin Edenhofer, who was formerly involved in the development of OTRS.
The project asks for active participation in the development. The source code is free software according to the AGPL-3.0-only license and available via git. For this purpose, the Zammad Foundation was founded to ensure the freedom of the software. Inspiration for the Zammad Foundation are the WordPress Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, and the Mozilla Foundation.
User Interface
The user interface is described as modern and attractive. It has been redesigned from scratch and can be used by occasional users without training without any problems. Technologically, the user interface is implemented as a web application with CSS, JavaScript, and HTML5 (including WebSockets), which means that the application runs in the browser – only data is exchanged over the network (in REST). Thus the WebApp feels like a native application and is capable of real-time (information is updated in all clients immediately after creation/change without reloading the application/web page). The design of the interface was developed with Zeughaus Design GmbH.
In version 3.0 Zammad was extended by a knowledge base.
Backend
The backend is realized in Ruby on Rails and communicates with the user interface via REST. Zammad relies on Elasticsearch to speed up search queries.
MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL are supported as database servers up to Zammad version 6. Zammad version 7 and above will be PostgreSQL only. Nginx or Apache can be used as a web server or reverse proxy.
Version history
The planned release cycle was 4 weeks, on the 14th of the month.
Version Published Significant changes 14 October 2016Sources: First Version 14 November 2016Source: Release of REST API v1 Ruby API Lib https://github.com/zammad/zammad-api-client-ruby PHP API Lib https://github.com/zammad/zammad-api-client-php Integration of Sipgate.io Automatic assignment of the organization based on the email domain 14 December 2016Bugfix release16 January 2017Feature and Bugfix release15 February 2017Feature, Security, and Bugfix release16 March 2017Feature and Bugfix release21 April 2017Feature and Bugfix release11 September 2017Major Release and Maintenance
LDAP Integration Absence management assistant Exchange integration Role management25 October 2017Minor and Feature release
Reporting Function check_mk Integration6 December 2017Minor and Feature release
i-doit Integration as CMDB Emails can be forwarded incl. attachments31 January 2018Minor and Feature release
Chat Integration was improved29 March 2018Feature release
Auto-completion for email addresses REST API Breaking Change: Changes in the authorization management6 June 2018Feature release
Automation of ticket assignment CSV Import10 August 2018Minor, Feature and Bugfix release
CTI Integration better filter function for emails improved search function in the REST-API25 October 2018Minor and Bugfix release
SMS Integration Print layout Changes to the date format3 December 2018Minor and Bugfix release
Integration of Placetel as CTI interface Twitter API14 February 2019Minor and Bugfix release
Attachment preview realized Timestamp over time zones improved6 June 2019Major release
more languages added external authentication sources (Microsoft account, Azure AD, or OAuth2) Zammad Knowledge Base11 July 2019Minor and Bugfix release
additional CTI providers integrated realized text modules for groups3 December 2019Minor and Bugfix release
SAML authentication Chat module was extended3 March 2020Minor and Bugfix release
Security updates Automation improved: with Triggers and depending on the calendar15 June 2020Minor and Bugfix release S/MIME Integration Google OAuth Integration Zammad + ServiceNow Integration improved21 September 2020Minor and Bugfix release Easier process to delete a user (for better privacy) Agents can now also be customers (and vice versa)16 November 2020Minor, Security and Bugfix release Webhooks Mailbox Archive25. March 2021Major release integration of Grafana, Kibana, GitLab und GitHub better design at mobile devices8. June 2021Minor release session Timeout Freshdesk import possibility5. October 2021Major release Integration MessageBird Core Workflows-Function Integration with Jira better User Experience8. October 2021Minor release only security update28. October 2021Minor release only security update7. December 2021Minor release only security update14. March 2022Minor release 12h time format possible breaking Changes
Awards
Bronze OSBAR (Open Source Business Award 2016), on 7 December 2016, awarded by the Open Source Business Alliance 1st place in the Thomas Krenn Award 2017, on 12 March 2017 DINACon Award in Category 1: Best Open Source Project, on 18 October 2019, which means that Zammad was also nominated for the Digital Economy Award
References
External links