Setting up a Multi-Lingual Knowledge Base and Support Center

A multi-lingual knowledge base can cater to the self-service requirements of customers from different geographies. With HappyFox, the creation and maintenance of a multi-lingual knowledge base is easy. HappyFox's centralized KB module is equipped with powerful translation capabilities.

Pricing Plans: Fantastic and above.

External Support Centers are also multi-lingual ready, with provisions to translate every customizable text present in them. HappyFox supports over 38 different languages. This article covers how to set up and maintain a multi-lingual knowledge base.

Note:
This article applies to those customers who have access to version 2.0 of the Support Center. If you're still using the classic support center, refer to this article.
Kindly note that translations are not automated. You will need to manually enter all content in the translated versions.

Steps to configure a Multi-Lingual Knowledge Base:

Step 1: Enable Multi-Lingual Capabilities:

Before we start setting up your Multilingual knowledge base, you will have to first enable multilingual capabilities in your HappyFox account.

Log in to HappyFox as an agent.
Navigate to Manage >> Languages.
Set the primary language of your help desk, if not already set. Learn how to Manage Languages.
Under additional supported languages, choose to add the different languages you would like to have multi-lingual support.
- By default, each language you select is hidden from the support center. You can change its visibility by enabling the "Visible in Support Center" toggle.
- Ideally, you would not want to display articles that are in work-in-progress to your customers. So, you can turn on the "Visible in Support Center" toggle when your articles are ready for the customer view.

If the base language that you will be writing your articles is in English, but you would like to add Portuguese (Brazillian) and French multi-lingual capabilities, set primary language as "English" and add Portuguese and French as additional supported languages.

Heads up: You can add a maximum of 15 additional supported languages.

Step 2: Create Sections and Articles in your Primary Language.

Before we add any articles or sections in other languages, it is essential that we set up articles in the primary language first. Articles in the primary language act as the primary key for translations. You can ignore the below steps if you already have a fully functioning knowledge base in your primary language.

Navigate to Knowledge base >> Sections from the module switcher.
Make sure the language dropdown (On the top right) is set to your primary language.
Create your section architecture in your primary language.
Navigate to Knowledge base >> Articles from the module switcher.
Create different solution articles in your primary language.

Note: You can translate articles in your additional supported languages (Say, French, Italian, Spanish) only after you have created its primary version in the primary language

Step 3: Translate Articles and Sections for additional supported languages:

Now that all the relevant articles are created in the primary language, you can proceed to translate the articles into other languages.

Go to Knowledge base >> Sections, click three dots on the desired sections' row and click "Translate". You will be prompted to specify the destination translation language.
- In the subsequent window, you can translate the section and its description to the destination language.

Go to Knowledge base >> Articles, click three dots on the desired article's row and click "Translate". You will be prompted to specify the destination translation language.
- In the subsequent page, enter the translated version of the article content, slug text, and title to the destination language.
- While compiling the translations, you can use primary language content for quick reference. This information is shown on the right inside the article translations page.
- You can also edit visibility for the translated article. You can choose to specify whether the translated article will be external or internal.

Note: If you try to translate an article with un-translated sections, you will be prompted to translate the corresponding sections first. This logic applies to parent sections too.

Step 4: Maintaining Article and Section Translations:

To choose the language you will be working on, you can select the language from the Global Language Switcher present on the top right inside articles and section list pages. Selecting a language from this dropdown will list all the corresponding sections/articles in that particular language. This will give you a better picture of the list of articles/sections translated in a desired language.

Modifying existing article translations is also easy. Navigate to the desired article details page. Switch the language using the Global Language Switcher. Click "Edit Translation". Modify the contents of the translated article and hit publish.

Note: Deleting the primary language article will also delete its corresponding translations.

Switching languages in External Article details pages (Demo):

Steps to configure a multi-lingual Support Center:

All the languages which are marked "Visible in Support Center" in Manage >> Languages can be seen inside the profile dropdown of the External Support Center. Selecting a language in this dropdown will load the support center in that language.

Permission Alert: 🔐 You would require Manage translations in Support Center Pages managerial permission to perform Support Center Translations.

As an agent, you can configure the translations for the relevant texts present inside your support center pages, just like you would translate articles and sections.

List of translatable support center pages:

Home Page.
Article Details Page.
Login Page.
New Ticket Page.

Other Support Center pages like section details pages, contact register page, etc. are automatically translated by HappyFox.

To translate a support center page,

Go to Support Center >> Translations. If you have multi-brands enabled, Choose the brand you would like to customize on the top right.
Specify the page you would like to translate.
Click "Translate" on the top right, specify the destination language and click "Start".
In the subsequent modal, you can specify the corresponding translation texts. The primary language texts are present in the left for reference.
Once all texts are translated, click "Create Translations".
The preview will automatically show with the destination language pre-selected for your reference.

Language Parameters in External Support Center:

To load the support center in a particular language, you can use language parameters in the URL. This method works only if the language entered as URL parameters is one of the languages enabled for view in the external support center.

To do this, append ?language=lang_code to any support center URL. For example, if you want to load the Support Center Home Page in "French", hit the following URL:

www.yourcompany.happyfox.com/home?language=fr

Note: If you have zero external articles in your support center, the Login page will act as your Home page.