In Zendesk, a macro is a prepared response or action for support tickets.

Translating the macros is recommended if you want to have translated canned responses ready to go for common ticket responses by your support team. Although Zendesk does not directly support the translation of macros, you can essentially achieve this by using dynamic content. 

If the macro is configured in Zendesk to insert content, and that content refers to a dynamic content placeholder, the system will use the language-specific version of the dynamic content, based on the requester's language. Therefore, if you use dynamic content in your macros, and translate those dynamic content items, you will effectively have translated macros.

How it works

A macro on its own is static text, so there's no language variant for Smartling to translate. The workaround relies on Zendesk's own dynamic content feature, which is separate from Smartling. Dynamic content in Zendesk is a placeholder (for example, {{dc.macro_greeting}}) that holds a default version of a string plus one variant per enabled language. When the placeholder is used, Zendesk swaps in the variant that matches the requester's language.

So instead of translating the macro directly, you point the macro at a dynamic content placeholder, and then translate the dynamic content. Because the Smartling Zendesk Connector does support translating dynamic content, your macros end up localized as a side effect. To fully localize a macro you'll typically create two dynamic content items: one for the macro name and one for the macro body.

Before you start

A few things need to be in place for this to work: the languages you want to support must be enabled in Zendesk Support, and Smartling recommends keeping the enabled languages in Support and Guide in sync. Note that the Zendesk Connector does not translate macros directly. Instead, it translates the dynamic content that the macros reference.

Outline of the process

At a high level, localizing a macro looks like this:

1. In Zendesk, create a dynamic content item for the macro name and/or body, with the default language and a variant for each target language.
2. Reference the dynamic content placeholder in the macro (in the macro name and/or the comment/body).
3. Use the Smartling Zendesk Connector to request and complete translation of that dynamic content.
4. Once translated, Zendesk serves the correct variant automatically based on the requester's language.

For the detailed Zendesk-side configuration steps (creating dynamic content, adding variants, and wiring placeholders into macros), see the Zendesk documentation. For the Smartling-side steps to translate dynamic content, see Translating with the Zendesk Connector.