How to set up knowledge bases in multiple languages

[Olivier Pathy]

Hi,

CONTEXT

• I have setup jira customer service management with a number of articles in English in the knowledge base >
  
  • When English-speaking customers with a browser set to English access the service desk portal, they see:
    • The service desk portal in English
    • The knowledge base articles in English
• I need to set this up for French customers too, so that:
  • The portal appears automatically in French:
    • This is done by translating all the portal strings via Projects>Customer portal>Project settings>Language support 

However, the knowledge  base and all the articles are still in English. Therefore:

QUESTION:

• How do I setup (another?) knowledge base with French-only articles which will appear only when the enduser browser is in French?

Thanks in advance for your help!
OP

[Pauline AWAD]

Hi @Olivier Pathy 

As a fellow french JSM user needing to provide both French & English for our clients, I'm curious as to how did you eventually end up solving (or not) this situation ?

Thank you

[Georg Christoph Rauch]

Would be really interesting. 

As I see it there are 3 main ways to archive it:

You set up a separate Jira Service Desk project, Portal and Knowledge base for each language. (This might be the best option if you have man customers and agents who are only fluent in one language but you´ll need double the administration and most likely they´ll sooner or later start to differ a bit) 

You set up one project / portal and either a own Knowledge base for each language or separate sections for them - (If most Agents are dual-Lingual and nobody is bothered to maybe get shown the wrong language etc. main drawback is that you still need to double-maintain the KB and it´s very possible people will get shown the same article in both language versions ) 

Or Option 3 which I´m currently going with is just one project and KB but try to have every article in both languages. I think that's the least maintenance overall and you´ll have better search results. (also in my use case most people on both ends are at least somewhat bi-lingual) 

Just wondering if there are people dealing with 3 or more languages. 

best Regards

[Alessandro Distefano]

Hi @Olivier Pathy 

If you need automatic translation on Jira Service Management articles, take a look at our app: Lango Translator.

With Lango, you can set a multilingual Knowledge Base on JSM. You can also automatically translate your articles with your preferred translation provider.

I'll leave you with a couple of links that may help you decide if this might be the solution for you:

• Lango Overview
• Using Lango on Jira Service Management Knowledge Base 

Best,
Alessandro

[Olivier Pathy]

Hi @Alessandro Distefano,

With your app, is it possible to:

1. Translate the Knowledge Base Articles AND the Article Categories in Jira, so that
2. The entire content appears in the target language on the JSM portal?

Attached below is an example of what the user experience is at present, a very unsatisfactory jumbled mess... 

Thanks,

Oli

[Alessandro Distefano]

Hi @Olivier Pathy

Unfortunately, as others have also said, what you are trying to achieve is not currently feasible due to several technical limitations.

The best solution in your case is probably to create a separate portal for each language you wish to support.

[Mattia _bitvoodoo ag_]

Hello @Olivier Pathy

Instead of the mentioned workaround, another option is to work with an app that allows setting up translations and is also compatible with Jira Service Management. Here is a selection of cloud apps.

[Olivier Pathy]

Hi @Mattia _bitvoodoo ag_ and @G subramanyam , thanks for your reponses, however, unfortunately these solutions do not seem to generate or assist with the generation of localised articles based on the enduser's browser language preferences...

I installed issue translator which boasts that it does this but unfortunately it does not seem to, unless I'm missing something...

Translating is not the issue, providing articles based on the user's browser's language preference is... hence, associating a knowledge base space to a language would do it, any idea how to achieve this?

Thanks,

Oli

[Mattia _bitvoodoo ag_]

Hey Oli,

In the case of our app "Translations for Confluence", the output of the knowledge base articles follows these rules. Basically, the articles will be displayed in the language based on the user's preference or browser setting depending on the user's account type.

I hope this information helps.

Best regards

Mattia 

[Olivier Pathy]

Ok so thanks @Mattia _bitvoodoo ag_ and @G subramanyam 

So I have now installed "Translations for Confluence" as suggested, could you please tell me:

1. How do I translate my Knowledge base Articles and
2. How do I translate my knowledge base Article Categories

So that when French customers access the Service Management portal, they can see this in French?

Thanks in advance!

Oli

[Mattia _bitvoodoo ag_]

Hello Oli,

Our app's solution is to enter all text and their translations on the same page, by using language macros.

In your use case this means on the existing English knowledge base articles you open the editor, place the existing English text in an "English" macro and place beneath it a "French" macro, in whose macro body you insert the french text. In the app documentation, you see an example. 

The current disadvantage of our app, Atlassian is not allowing the translation of the page titles. The knowledge base articles will in your example appear with their English titles. And it is not possible to translate the article categories. But you can add several categories to an article.

If this is not a viable option for you, you will probably have to set up a dedicated article per language. The JSM portal visitor must then simply select the article in the desired language during the search. Check the other translation apps mentioned before, maybe they have a different solution.

Should you need further assistance regarding our app, please don't hesitate to contact our support help desk https://support.bitvoodoo.ch/

Best regards

Mattia

[Olivier Pathy]

SO, to be clear, you are saying:

1. It is NOT possible to localise the categories?
   • Please note that the categories is how the knowledge base is displayed and sorted on the JSM portal, hence non-English speakers will not understand this content
2. It is NOT possible to display ONLY the translated articles?
   • Hence the content will be displayed in a jumbled mix of languages for ALL users how access the JSM portal?

Regards,

Oli

[Mattia _bitvoodoo ag_]

1) Our app does not offer the option to localise categories in JSM as it is a Confluence app.

2) In the case of our app, the content of the article is automatically displayed in the prefered language of the visitor. So it is localised. But the title of the article can't be translated and therefore will keep the original title.

Atlassian does not provide this localization. Therefore, as I said, check if for your use case one of the other app vendors, where one article is created per language, can automatically output the article in the desired language based on the user browser or account preference.

[Olivier Pathy]

Ok thanks for the clarification and for your help.

Regards,

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Olivier Pathy welcome to the Atlassian community.

May I request you to check this workaround for your query.