Where do all the cool features come from? And who comes up with all this stuff? It's simple: We don't do it all by ourselves. Zammad is open-source and we are backed by the most amazing and dedicated community ever! Every day we receive new ideas from them (and yes, every now and then a hint about an issue ...).
This year our GitHub was more alive than ever. We are super proud of:
Four new releases (Zammad 3.3 - 3.6)
These brought us eight strong features:
- the calendar trigger
- the S/MIME integration
- the Google-OAuth integration
- the ServiceNow integration
- stronger data security
- a simpler user deletion process
- the ability for users to be both customers and agents
- WebHooks
- the mail archive
Three of these features were sponsored by customers (thanks again for that!) and one was even developed and contributed by a community member. We are very excited about this! All of this is topped off by two security audits.
Reduced consumption - better performance
Through various adjustments, we have managed to make Zammad work more economically. RAM consumption has been reduced by 20% and CPU consumption by as much as 40%! This allows us to offer our users a more resource-efficient experience.
Commits, Pull Requests, and Issues
Our community always makes sure that we don't get bored. And that's how it should be! In 2020, with 457 commits (as of early December), we could close 204 issues (including 150 bugs, 43 enhancements, and 11 feature backlogs). In addition, you have enriched Zammad with 50 Pull Requests and Community Contributions (keep it up!). And we’re sure there will be even more next year!
Let it rain GitHub stars for us
In 2020, we received a lot of new GitHub stars again! We are very happy about that because it confirms that we are on the right track. We have now reached a total of 2361 GitHub stars. Wow!
To further promote the Zammad product and make it accessible to more and more companies, we started offering migration workshops this year. They make the switch to Zammad easier than ever and have been really well received!
The new feature sponsorship offer has also been very successful. We were able to implement as many as seven new features thanks to the support of our sponsors!
Half-day and full-day workshops and troubleshooting projects have also increased this year. We are very happy about this and enjoy the work in close contact with our customers and users.
Now that a solid Zammad framework is in place, it's time to build on it. So in the last quarter of the year, we thought, "Let's give people more content!" And we did!
New blog
We not exactly newbies in our field. On the contrary: our founder Martin Edenhofer already created the helpdesk tool OTRS. His experience of almost two decades has flowed into Zammad. And from there it flows directly into our new blog.
In numerous exciting articles, everything revolves around the topics of helpdesk, open data, and new work. We talk about trends, provide interesting insights, and talk from the horse's mouth. Because we think that (in addition to your code) you should also share your knowledge!
New newsletter
For quite some time now, we've been getting requests for a newsletter. No problem - we're happy to do it! Since November the Zammad newsletter flutters into the inbox of all subscribers once a month. It bundles up everything that's new in the Zammad world: releases, blog posts, events, contests ... our subscribers won't miss anything!
New website
All of this is topped off by a chic new website. With its design, built on trendy dark modes, it reflects us far better than the previous online presence. Not only is it the place that brings all the new content together, but it also presents plenty of exciting content itself: In our User Stories, users talk about how Zammad is working for them, and in the Feature Browser, there's lots of info about how our features work. In addition, visitors can learn a lot about the company, its history, and its employees.
Of course, all this doesn't happen by itself. Over the course of this year, we were able to find great team members and have grown in Support, Development, and Marketing. Now our team is almost twice as big as it was at the beginning of the year. More power, more knowledge, and more ideas ... how exciting!
Who can see into the future? The "Corona Year" has taught us one thing: Life happens while you're busy making other plans (as John Lennon said). That's why we look forward to 2021 with an open mind and remain flexible and adaptable. (Something that is not difficult for us as a completely location-independent company).
Come what may: One goal we will definitely (continue to) pursue is to work on a complete and solid service desk solution with a clear commitment to Open Source. Or: We just continue to do what we’re good at and what is important to us!
Well if this isn’t a good wrap-up, what is? Happy New Year!
