The Smartling Zendesk Connector allows you to streamline and centralize the translation of your Zendesk content. Translations are requested from within the Smartling platform, and translated content is automatically sent to your Zendesk instance.
It is important to remember that the Zendesk Connector syncs content from Zendesk to Smartling, however any changes to Zendesk content, such as copy, arrangement or state changes (draft, published or archived), must be actioned in Zendesk, as normal.
What is translatable?
The Zendesk Connector supports translation of the following content types:
| Zendesk Product | Content Type | Example Asset |
| Zendesk Guide | Articles | Create a Project |
| Sections | Projects | |
| Categories | Getting Started | |
| Zendesk Support | Dynamic Content | thank_you_response |
The Zendesk Connector does not support the translation of Zendesk Support Macros, but a common workaround is to translate Dynamic Content, which can be used to populate Macros.
You can translate Zendesk Support tickets by using our Zendesk Support Plugin.
While it is not a natively supported content type, it is possible to translate your Zendesk Theme content. You can also hide your translated Help Center while the translation process is ongoing.
You can also use the Zendesk Connector to translate multiple brands by setting up a separate Smartling Zendesk Connector project for each brand. Depending on the nature of the brands, you can choose to share linguistic assets and resources or completely separate them. For more information about linguistic assets and strategies, see Linguistic Asset Management.
Zendesk Language Configuration
The Zendesk Connector does not require the use of both Zendesk Products - you can use the Zendesk Connector for the translation of just Zendesk Guide content, or Zendesk Support dynamic content.
Zendesk Guide >< Support
Both Zendesk Guide and Zendesk Support have separate language configurations within Zendesk. The languages listed in both products are not identical, e.g. German vs German (Germany). If you want to use the Zendesk Connector to translate both Zendesk Guide content and Zendesk Support dynamic content, you must consider your language selection strategy.
It is important to ensure that the languages you configure in the Zendesk Help Center are the same as the ones you configure in Zendesk Support. Once the languages are unified, you can successfully map these into Smartling via the Zendesk Connector.
can be helpful for planning both your Zendesk configuration and your Smartling Zendesk Connector's project configuration, especially if you will use Dynamic Content in Articles and want to translate the Dynamic Content for that purpose.
Zendesk >< Smartling
Similarly, it is important to ensure the source and target languages configured in Zendesk match the source and target languages in your Smartling project.
By default, the source languages of each Zendesk Guide instance is en-US. If en-US is not the source language of your Smartling project, ensure to let your Solutions Architect know, so they can reconfigure the Zendesk Connector accordingly.
A Smartling project can have only one source language, meaning a Zendesk Connector can integrate with just one source site. If your Zendesk Guide has multiple source sites, e.g. en-US, and en-GB, you should create a Smartling project with a Zendesk Connector for each source site.
More on this and steps to setting up your Zendesk Connector in our documentation on how to Connect a Zendesk Account.
Zendesk Asset List
Once you have connected your Zendesk account, you will find all content that is present in Zendesk in the Zendesk tab in your Smartling project.
Here you will see a flat list of your Zendesk assets, filtered by a specific content type. Each content type has a unique icon and are managed separately from within the Smartling platform, allowing greater visibility and control over the translation management of each. Every time you toggle between each of the Zendesk content types within the Smartling platform, Smartling will check Zendesk for new content. Articles is the default content filter selection.
The columns are dynamic and will change depending on your content filter selection and configuration. In any content selection, you can view the Asset Name, the Smartling translation status, and the Last-Modified date. The last-modified date in Smartling is synced with the last-modified date in Zendesk.
If your Zendesk Connector is configured to manually check for changes to source content, an Outdated column will be present in the Asset List. Each time source content has been updated in Zendesk, a tick will be seen under the Outdated column, beside the asset.
Article
When Article is the filtered Content Type, the Asset List will include an additional Section column where you can view what section the article is in within your Help Center.
Article also activates a Draft column. If the article is in a draft state in Zendesk, a tick will appear under the Draft column. If the article is published in Zendesk, no tick will be present.
Only Draft articles that have not been published is listed in Zendesk Asset List.
You can further refine your search by filtering for a specific Category from the dropdown.
Article is the only content type that provide automatic Visual Context, if the article is published and has its visibility set to everyone.
Category
When Category is the filtered Content Type, the Asset List will include an additional Description column including the description of the Category set in your Help Center.
Dynamic Content
When Dynamic Content is the filtered Content Type, the Asset List will just include the Smartling translations status and Last Modified date.
Section
When Section is the filtered Content Type, the Asset List will include the addition of both a Description and Category column, with details as set in your Help Center.
You can further refine your search by filtering for a specific Category from the dropdown.
Sort
You can sort the asset list by Zendesk structure (default) or asset name (descending/ascending), created (descending/ascending), and last modified (descending/ascending).
Search
The search box in the Asset List works in the same way the search works in Zendesk. If you search for a word for Articles, Categories, or Sections content types, the search will return all assets containing the word in the asset name, and within the asset itself. Meaning, if you search for "Getting Started" in Articles, the search will return any article with "Getting Started" in the title and in the article body.
Searching for Dynamic Content assets will return a list of assets with the search term(s) in the asset name only.
You can only search for one asset at a time; comma-separated search is not supported.
Smartling Status
Completed: Translations were successfully delivered from Smartling to Zendesk.
Failed: The asset submission failed, or the translation delivery failed. A number of reasons can result in a failed status, but some of the most common are due to invalid regex causing placeholder issues, the article has since been archived, the title translation is too long or the target languages are disabled in Zendesk.
In Progress: The asset has been successfully sent to Smartling from Zendesk, and the translation process has commenced but is not yet completed. If there is a case where translations are complete but a network issue occurs, the translations will remain in progress until the Zendesk Connector delivers the translations to Zendesk on a successful retry.
New: The asset is in the process of being sent for a new translation request. For example, if changes were made to the source content and your Zendesk Connector is configured to automatically send the new content for translation. The asset could be sitting in submission queue or sitting in Awaiting Authorization
Not Translated: The asset has never been submitted for translation.
Language Filter
Filter by the dropdown list of target languages configured in Smartling's for the Zendesk project. Target Languages must also be configured identically in Zendesk Guide and Zendesk Support and mapped in the Zendesk Connector Language Configuration found in your Smartling Project Settings.
Asset Details
Click the information icon beside the asset name, to access the Asset Details page. Here you can see further information on that asset, including the translation status for each language. From here, you can also Request Translations or Export Translations for that specific asset.