These plans enable you to select multiple languages, which are used to determine the language used in system messages and email notifications that are generated by your business rules.
You first configure your account settings to support multiple languages, as described in this article. You then create and manage translations of all the content that is sent in email notifications and modify your business rules to automatically send that content based on the user's language using dynamic content.
This article describes the account language settings and how to create a workflow based on language:
Selecting the languages you want to support
To provide support for multiple languages, you must first select those languages from the list of languages that are available in Zendesk Support.
To change your language settings
- In Admin
Center, click the Account icon
(
) in the sidebar, then
select Appearance >
Localization. - In the Languages section, click Additional
languages.
- Select the languages from the list that you want to support.
- Click Save tab.
Your language settings are used throughout Support to help you manage your workflow. For example, you can create automations or triggers that route tickets through your workflow based on the language setting of the requester. Creating a multiple language workflow is described in Using a requester's language in your business rules below.
(Requires Guide Professional) You can also enable languages in your help center and set up your knowledge base to deliver content in your supported languages so that end users can choose the language they want in help center.
Setting and detecting a user's language
You can set a user's language preference in their user profile, (this includes both your staff and your end users).
If present, this setting can be used in your business rules to, for example, determine which dynamic content language variant is used or to route tickets to specific groups or agents.
The list of available languages is the same as the languages you selected in the Localization settings page. If the user's language is not supported, they cannot select it.
A user's language preference can be set in the following ways:
- Agents can set their own language preference by editing their profile.
- Agents with user management permission can set a user's language preference.
- You can set a user's language with the Set requester's language action, which is available in automations and triggers.
For unregistered end users (those who do not yet have an account), or registered users who are not logged in, the language can be detected in several ways:
- Email: The language used in an end user's email support request is automatically detected. See Detecting an end user's language from an email message.
- Help Center (Requires Guide Professional),If you have enabled your languages in your help center): When an unregistered end user has selected a language in the help center, the support request submit form, like the rest of the help center, is set to that language. Then, when the end user submits a support request, the language is identified and their profile is flagged with the language.
- Web Widget: Zendesk can detect a user's preferred language from their Web browser preference setting. The accept-language header, which is passed via HTTP, contains information about the user's language preference. If that is present, the language can be detected.
Ticket attributes from system fields are automatically translated into the detected language, but if you want the attributes to be displayed in your default language, you can build dynamic content.
Using a requester's language in your business rules
Knowing your user's language means that you can use that information to determine how to respond to your users and how to move tickets through your workflow. As described above in Setting and detecting a user's language, there are a number of ways that a user's language can be set or detected.
Regardless of how the user's language is identified, it is accessible in automations, reports, triggers, and views via the Requester's language condition. Using this condition, you can, for example, assign incoming tickets to specific groups or agents based on language. You can also create views and reports to track tickets by language.
To use the Requester's language condition
- When building a business rule, click the Conditions drop-down selector, then scroll down to the Requester section and select Language.
The Requester's language condition allows you to test for a specific language and then act on that information. You also have the option of explicitly setting the user's language with the Set requester's language to action, which is available in automations and triggers.
Here are some examples that describe how to use the Requester's language condition and Set requester's language to action to build a workflow based on language.
Using dynamic content to communicate in multiple languages
Although it's possible to create a multiple language response within the email body of, for example, a trigger using Liquid markup (described in Using Liquid markup), you should instead use dynamic content. One of the advantages of doing so is that language detection is handled automatically, you don't need to write Liquid markup for each of the languages you support.
As described in Using your dynamic content, dynamic content and its language variants can be referenced in many places in your Zendesk Support using a placeholder. In the example in that article, a message describing how end users can reset their passwords is added to a macro by simply adding the placeholder as the text in a macro action. Based on the user's language, the correct language variant of the dynamic content is used.
All of your content (from the welcome message to automated responses in your business rules), should be managed with dynamic content.
Assigning a ticket to a group or agent based on language
As you receive support tickets in the different languages you support, you can use automations and triggers to automatically route them through your workflow. As an example, imagine that your Zendesk Support includes three languages, (English as the primary and default language and also French and German). You've structured your organization to support this by creating groups of agents that are fluent in French and German. When you receive support requests in either French or German you use a trigger to automatically assign those requests to the appropriate group.
This is easily done using the Requester's language condition, which is available in automations, reports, triggers, and views.
In this example, tickets from French language users are automatically assigned to the French support group.
Creating views and reports based on language
The Requester's language condition can also be used to create reports and views based on language.
You can also make the view visible to agents in a specific group.
In this example, the view is only visible to agents in the Italian Support group.
This works the same way in reports; use the Requester's language condition to select tickets in a particular language.
Setting a user's language preference with an automation or trigger
An end user's language can be set using the Set requester's language to action, which is available in automations and triggers. You may want to use this action to set an end user's language in those cases where the source of the support request is not otherwise identified as originating from a specific language. For example, if you use a separate support email address for each of the languages or locales that you support, you can use a trigger to then set the end user's language based on that email address.
In this example, z3nbugulator uses the aide@bugulator.fr email address for its French language users. This email address is forwarded to french@z3nbugulator.zendesk.com, which is the email address used in this trigger.
When a user's language is set via the Set requester's language to action, that event is added to the ticket's events and notifications.