Variables¶

Note

Please note that this is just an overview of available variables. It might be incomplete or variables might not be available within some functions. If you’re missing variables or are not sure if something is not working as expected, feel free to ask over at the Community.

Variables can be called by typing :: (just like text modules in the frontend), as long as you’re in a supported text field within the backend. Zammad will display all variables being available within this context and replace it to the variable as soon as you selected an entry.

Hint

You have an empty field which you referenced and it appears as -? That’s currently working as designed - you might want to ensure that these fields always have a value.

Variable Categories¶

Wait, What About Custom Objects?¶

Good point! Of course, we can’t predict what objects you might create, but we can give you a hint on how to put the puzzle together to get your custom values.

For this, we’ll talk about the inner part of the variable (so everything within #{}), please put the outer part around to have a valid variable. The first part of the variable name consist of the object type. Currently these are:

Ticket (ticket)
User (user)
Organization (organization)
Group (group)

The second part is the name of the object. This is the name you define during object creation and can be found within the object menu at any time. The first and second part of a variable is divided by a point, e.g.: ticket.number which will in total be #{ticket.number}.

Now, in some situations it’s possible that you’ll need to use a third part. The best example for such a situation would be a select or tree-select field which will by default return the key value, not it’s display name. For this, just extend your variable with .value. This will result in #{ticket.select.value}.

Using Translated Variables¶

If you want to use a translated variable in triggers or schedulers, you can extend the placeholder like this: #{t(ticket.state.name)}. The t tells Zammad to search for fitting translated strings. The used output language is based on the system language of Zammad which you can set in the admin panel under Branding or based on the selected locale in the trigger/scheduler edit dialog.

A possible use-case: you want to send your customers updates on tickets via trigger or scheduler which should include the state of the ticket. Using the default #{ticket.state.name} (without the translation flag t()) would lead to the output of the original (english) name of the state.

Date and Time Formatting¶

The system (trigger/scheduler selected) locale and timezone predefines a default format of date and timestamp. This format is customizable by using the dt() method.

The method arguments are as follows:

The date or timestamp variable you want to format.
The output format string.
The timezone to apply (optional).

Example:

#{dt(ticket.updated_at, "%A %Y-%m-%d %H:%M in the office", "Europe/Berlin")}

Monday, 2024-03-18 15:31 in the office

Hint

If you want to use our example, make sure to paste the string above without formatting (CTRL+Shift+v), otherwise it won’t work.

The following table lists available format directives:

Parameter	Description	Note
`%Y`	Year with 4 digits	Use `%y` for year with 2 digits
`%m`	Month of year (as number with zero-padding)	Use `%-m` for month without zero-padding
`%d`	Day of month (as number with zero-padding)	Use `%e` for day without zero-padding
`%H`	Hour of day in 24h notation with zero-padding	Use `%k` for hour without zero-padding
`%I`	Hour of day in 12h notation with zero-padding	Use `%l` for hour without zero-padding and `%p` / `%P` for meridian indicator
`%M`	Minute of hour
`%S`	Second of Minute
`%A`	Weekday name	Use `%a` for abbreviated name or `%^A` for uppercase name
`%B`	Month name	Use `%b` for abbreviated name
`%U`	Week number of current year	Use `%W` for a different calculation method

Tip

We support the known format directives for the Ruby built-in method strftime of the DateTime class. For more information, see here.