Zammad Has Improved Our Communication Significantly

Why Zammad?

Surely this sounds familiar to you: A teacher would like to show a presentation or a video in class. He connects to a projector - but it doesn't work. "Who's in charge of this stuff?" he wonders. He pokes his head into the neighboring class and asks his colleague. "Not me, anyway," he says. So he asks the computer science teacher - who, after all, knows about technology. "Me neither," he says. "Ask the janitor." The janitor finally takes care of it by putting it on his ever-growing to-do list, where it eventually moves further and further down. The result? The teacher missed half of his lesson, and the projector is still broken. Johannes Schlosser, a teacher of electrical and information technology at the school, knows of cases where such defects were not fixed even after months.

So yes, even in a trade school there is a lot of correspondence. To avoid situations like the one described above and to better master collaboration, the Lörrach Trade School has been using Zammad since the end of 2019. For them, it serves as a kind of to-do list that is also transparent for customers (who, in their case, are primarily teachers and school management). Tasks can be delegated in a prioritized manner. In addition, everything is documented, which takes a lot of work off the staff.

Although the main users of the system are the students, teachers, and school IT, Zammad also helps with communication and collaboration with external IT service providers, all of whom have been given an agent role. "Thanks to the helpdesk, we can hand off tasks to them with one click and still keep track of who is currently taking care of what and what the processing status is," explains Schlosser.

To return to the example with the projector: With Zammad, the teacher can write an email to the helpdesk. A ticket is then created and assigned to an agent. The teacher is automatically informed who will now take care of it. All further steps are now documented in the ticket and the progress is transparent for everyone involved: error analysis, repair, replacement, how long it will take for the replacement to be available, etc. Most people find it relieving to be regularly informed about progress.

But why did the school choose Zammad of all companies? "We wanted a system that had a simple and intuitive operation. It shouldn't have any "overhead," such as accounting functions, because our school wouldn't use that," says Schlosser.

The Switch

Before switching to Zammad, all requests were received by mail by Johannes Schlosser, who collected them in an Excel spreadsheet and assigned them to his colleagues in a weekly meeting. The result? It was cumbersome, time-consuming, led to long response times, and sometimes requests were even lost. In addition, it was difficult for Schlosser, as the person in charge, to keep track of the status and arrangements of individual tasks.

The switch to a helpdesk was therefore a big step, and a huge relief: "Before, we didn't have a software solution at all. That's why we were initially concerned that, as with other ticketing systems, there would be a high level of complexity and a long learning curve. But it all worked out well."

Schlosser took part in one of Zammad's workshops for beginners. "I was then able to pass on the knowledge to my colleagues, so we were able to get started immediately."

There were no concerns about making the wrong decision. "Before Zammad, we handled everything only by informal email communication or by phone. So the change was not a problem - it could only get better," Schlosser says. And so it was. "But what's excellent above all is that all solved problems can be documented in the tickets."

But it's not just the automatic storage of all processes that pays off - the administrative effort has also been greatly reduced. "We opted for a hosted plan with Zammad. As a result, we have no maintenance effort at all," says Schlosser. The team is completely satisfied with the decision, which is also confirmed by a survey among the employees.

Everyday life with Zammad

Since the switch, we have processed about 1500 tickets with our seven agents, five of whom are teachers at our school" Schlosser says. "The tickets vary greatly in scope. For example, we have four grant applications with complex processing that involve IT. Here, we can easily create individual tasks with Zammad and simply distribute them to the agents. All decisions and agreements are logged in the ticket and the school management, as the customer, is automatically informed about the progress. Thanks to Zammad, it has become much easier to manage such 'large projects'."

But Zammad is also great for keeping an overview of what's going on at the school. "We create tickets for the renewal of licenses or CarePacks," Schlosser explains. "With the 'pending reminder' function, we receive an annual heads-up when the renewal is due." And just like that, no contract expires anymore.

But are there smaller requests and cases? "Yes, for example, when students or teachers forget a password. Teachers can also delegate technical problems to the helpdesk during online classes and receive support. And for recurring problems, the solutions are documented in the ticket or written down in the knowledge base, so you don't have to explain them over and over again."

The bottom line

Schlosser and his colleagues are very satisfied with their helpdesk.

It has had a very positive effect on our internal communication. Structure is created automatically.

Zammad is transparent, fast, and efficient. We were thrilled with how quickly you understand the basic functions - it requires literally no training time at all. We really like using it, and certain functions are particularly helpful for us, such as merging tickets. But we also get a lot of use out of the "pending close" function and the knowledge base.

Zammad will continue to play a role at the Lörrach Trade School in the future. "In theory, it could also be used in the janitorial or multimedia area at some point," Schlosser reflects. So it's definitely a good choice, even for a trade school.