How to use Unbabel for Zendesk Support

The Unbabel app integrates with Zendesk with the aim of providing a seamless experience when handling tickets. Once the installation of the app is complete, provided you are an authorized user, a widget will appear in Zendesk's Apps panel, allowing you to control some of the ticket's and user's settings. Translations themselves will be posted in the ticket's comment stream.

Inbound translations and ticket initialization

Depending on your translation model, and as long as you meet the authorization and language settings conditions to translate a ticket, Unbabel will detect that a public comment is written in a foreign language and that it requires translation. The widget will launch, calling the Unbabel systems, and once the first translation is ready we will post it as an internal note, containing both the subject and body of the comment translated.

The first translation is a machine-only translation, as it typically constitutes an inbound message coming from the customer. Still, we can translate comments that are originated by the Zendesk user as well, provided they are the first comment on the ticket. Along with the translation, we will add the Unbabel tags to the Tags field (the unbabeled tag and the language tag, as seen in the image).

This step is called the ticket's initialization and it's fundamental to the rest of the workflow. Tickets that are not initialized will not see any other translations come through. Similarly, and by default, the  presence of the unbabeled tag is also necessary for translations to take place, although you can ask us to remove this dependency. Please note though, that merely adding the unbabeled tag will not initialize a ticket: it's the posting of the first automatic translation that guarantees the process has been completed.

If your initial message was translated into the wrong language, you can change the ticket's language. Unbabel will then post a new internal note with the new translation. Please note that the target language for any outbound reply will be the currently selected language for the ticket.

Note: Unbabel won't automatically translate inbound messages that are posted as internal notes (such as messages coming from recipients who are not cc'ed in ticket). Where inbound translations are concerned, we stick to public replies.

Outbound translations

In order to reply to a customer using Unbabel, simply post an internal note starting with #unbabel. This will fire a translation request that will undergo human edition and be posted as a public reply once complete, consequently generating an email response to the customer.

It is possible to create several successive internal notes with #unbabel, and therefore requesting multiple translations. It's not necessary to keep the ticket open after requesting the translation - Unbabel will post the translation even if the ticket is solved (even though it won't if the ticket is closed).

The flow will come full circle once the customer replies and a new inbound automatic translation is then posted.