Current user and department settings in rules and actions

Strange, when I tried {:DEPARTMENT} before, it didn’t work, and now suddenly it does.

For the username, I had to use @JohnS’s method of storing it at login time (Terminal Events).

So now it seems to be working most of the time (including when there’s no ticket):

It is not working all the time though. When you go to the management screen and back both values are gone, and I get this:

Does anybody have any idea why this is and possibly a solution?