Translation

Sendbird Desk supports translation for messages in tickets. This feature allows agents to translate messages into different languages, making it easier to communicate with customers who speak different languages than their own.

Once enabled, agents can translate the following messages:

• Customer messages into the agent's language
• Agent messages into the customer's language

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You can turn this feature on and off under Settings > Desk > AI features > Translation in Sendbird Dashboard.

Note: This feature is powered by Sendbird AI agent. To learn more, contact us.

1. Go to Settings > Desk > AI features > Translation in Sendbird Dashboard.

2. Toggle on the Translation switch.

3. Configure the following settings:

• Enable translation preview: When enabled, agents can see both the original and translated messages in the ticket view. If disabled, only the translated message is shown.
• Update customer language and country: Choose who can update the language preference for customers. You can select either All agents and admins, Admins only, or No one.
• Agent access: Choose who can use the translation feature among agents. You can select either All agents or Selected agents.

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4. Once enabled, agents can start translating messages in tickets. Using the translation option in the message input area, agents can choose a language to translate their messages into and even preview the translation before sending it.

To use the translation feature effectively, both agents and customers need to have their language and country preferences set. The AI translation engine uses these preferences to determine the target language for translations and localization.

• Agents

When the Translation feature is enabled and agents have the proper access, each agent can select up to five preferred languages in their profile.

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• Customers

Agent messages will be translated into the customer’s preferred language. A customer’s preferred language can be set through:

• Sendbird Dashboard
• Platform API. Refer to the Platform API documentation for more details.
• Sendbird Desk SDK. Refer to our SDK documentation for more details.
  • Android
  • iOS
  • JavaScript

Note: Updating a customer’s language in Sendbird Dashboard is permitted only for agents with the required permissions as defined in the feature settings. See the How to enable section above.

Take the AI-powered translation one step further with glossary-based localization. To support glossary-based localization, a Country field is added to customer fields and works together with Language. This combination enables localized glossary terms during translation. First, set a country preference for customers through:

• Sendbird Dashboard
• Platform API. Refer to the Platform API documentation for more details.

Once the locale information is set for a customer, create a glossary with localized terms for specific language–country pairs. During translation, the AI engine references the glossary to apply localization based on the customer's language and country preferences.

• Language:

• If the agent and customer have different language preferences, AI translation is applied.

• If the customer's language preference matches one of the agent's, no translation is applied.

• Country

If both the language and country preferences are set for a customer and glossary is provided, localization can be applied during translation based on the terms defined for that specific language–country pair.

You can also set who can update these settings under Settings > Desk > AI features > Translation in Sendbird Dashboard. Depending on this configuration, only the agents with the appropriate permissions can update the Language and Country preference for customers.

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Each business has its own set of terms and phrases that are unique to its industry or operations. To ensure accurate translations, you can create a glossary of these terms and their corresponding localizations. This helps maintain consistency and clarity in communication with customers.

AI translation and localization work based on two inputs: your glossary and your customer’s language and country preferences.

First, create a CSV glossary that defines terms and their localized values. Each localization column should be labeled with a language–country code pair (for example, en_US, fr_FR). You can also specify whether each term should be localized or remain unchanged.

After your glossary is shared with us, the AI translation engine applies the glossary alongside the customer’s language and country settings. Localization behavior follows the values defined in the DNT(Do Not Translate) and target_language_code columns:

1. Create a glossary file in CSV format. Each row should contain a term and its corresponding localizations. Refer to the sample format below for column order and content:

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2. Send the file to your Sendbird support contact to upload the glossary to your Sendbird Desk application.

3. Once uploaded, the AI translation engine will reference the glossary when translating messages, ensuring that the specified terms are translated according to your preferences.

The following list shows the language codes supported by Sendbird Desk at this moment.

AVAILABLE_TRANSLATION_LANGUAGE_SET = (
    "ar",     # Arabic
    "az",     # Azerbaijani
    "cs",     # Czech
    "da",     # Danish
    "de",     # German
    "el",     # Greek
    "en",     # English
    "es",     # Spanish
    "fi",     # Finnish
    "fil",    # Filipino
    "fr",     # French
    "he",     # Hebrew
    "hi",     # Hindi
    "hr",     # Croatian
    "hu",     # Hungarian
    "id",     # Indonesian
    "it",     # Italian
    "ja",     # Japanese
    "ko",     # Korean
    "ms",     # Malay
    "nb",     # Norwegian Bokmål
    "nl",     # Dutch
    "pl",     # Polish
    "pt",     # Portuguese
    "ro",     # Romanian
    "ru",     # Russian
    "sv",     # Swedish
    "th",     # Thai
    "tr",     # Turkish
    "uk",     # Ukrainian
    "vi",     # Vietnamese
    "zh-cn",  # Chinese (Simplified)
    "zh-tw",  # Chinese (Traditional)
)

When the Enable translation preview setting is turned on, agents can see both the original and translated messages in the message input area. This allows agents to verify the accuracy of translations before responding to customers.

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Note: Agents can't directly edit the translated message in the preview. To modify the message, agents need to edit the original message and then generate a new translation.

For readability and clarity, the visibility of original and translated messages differs between agents and customers:

• Agents: can see both original and translated messages for customer messages, as well as their own messages.
• Customers: can only see the translated messages sent by agents.

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