How to use Unbabel for Intercom

Handling a chat conversation

In a usual chat conversation, the translation flow will start with Unbabel picking the first message in the chat conversation and running language identification. If the language is supported, an internal note will be posted containing the translation into the Organization's default language. Otherwise, you'll see a message stating that the language is not subscribed.

Having the ticket translate right away or waiting for an agent to be assigned are two different translation modes. Reach out to Unbabel in order to set your preference.

This process is called conversation initialization and it means that Unbabel is recognizing and representing the conversation in our systems. In order for any translations to take place, a conversation must be initialized.

Tip: if a conversation is not translating, try checking if a translation already exists. If it doesn't, try changing the conversation language to the intended one.

The internal note will contain the information that it constitutes a translation and its respective language pair. Below the header on the note, the translated text will be available for the agent.

If more that one inbound message is present at the time the conversation is translated by Unbabel for the first time, we fetch all messages and post a compound thread translation note.

To follow up with a translated outbound message, the agent needs to create an internal note starting with the command $unbabel and type the reply in the default language. Once the translation is complete, it populates the conversation as a public reply and is sent to the customer.

Besides the command $unbabel, #unbabel and %unbabel are also available to request translations. Regardless of the command in use, please refrain from formatting them whatsoever. This may lead the translation request to fail.

Note that if the command is written within a public reply as opposed to a private note, the message will be sent containing the command as part of the text.

Changing a conversation language

It is possible to change a conversation's language at any time and thus begin to generate translations to a different language. To change the language, simply use the command $language XX, where XX is the language code for the language you wish to change to.

When you change into a new language, all previous inbound messages are translated via thread translation.

See all available codes and other language settings on the article dedicated to language settings.

For any questions reach out to customer.happiness@unbabel.com.