Multilingual capabilities

Language shouldn't be a barrier to connect people with what they need to know, when they need to know it. At xMatters, we understand the importance of seamless communications between users who speak different languages. The multilingual capabilities of our workflows save time and prevent miscommunication, so you don’t have to worry about critical events or notifications being lost in translation.

How it works

Companies configured with more than one official language can assign users their preferred language for communication. Translations for default language content can be specified during the development of messages and responses. The version of the message and response options received by each user will vary according to their specified language preference.

The user chooses a response in their language, xMatters manages the translation back to the language of origin that the incident is being managed in, and all logging and callbacks of messages and responses are in the default language.

Defining multilingual content

When multiple languages are configured for a company, you can use the email, text, and voice message editors for a workflow form to define message content for each available language:

Similarly, the response builder to gives you the option to add translations for each response option:

For more information about defining content for your communication plan forms, see the Define message content and Define response options topics in the xMatters Online Help.

Language presentation logic

When you define messages and responses in languages other than the company's default language, they will be presented to a user using the following logical order (based on availability):

1. Recipient's preferred language (as defined on their User Profile)
2. Site language
3. English
4. Any language

For example, if a message sender defines content in English and alternative content in French and German, message recipients whose preferred language is French or German will receive content in those languages. Users that have not specified their preferred language will receive the message in their site's default language, if available. If content is not available in the site's default language, the user will receive the message in English.

Text message example

As shown in the following screenshot, a text message in Hindi includes a combination of translated phrases and information fields (Priority, Incident Number, Incident Title, and Business/Customer Impact). The names of the fields appear in the default language.

The resulting text message displays the entered Hindi text, and populates the specified fields with their values. Since translations were not provided for field values or responses, they appear throughout the message in the English default:

SMS responses template

xMatters has a template around the response choices presented with SMS messages that prompts the recipient to choose a number matching their response. If the recipient needs to send their response to a separate number, the template also inserts a prompt for that. The template looks like this:

Reply {#} for {responseOne}, {#} for {responseTwo}, {#} for {responseThree} 
Send reply to {phoneNumber} *

* (only if required)

The template is translated into English (en), French (fr), Spanish (es), Russian (ru), German (de), and simplified Chinese (zh). So, for example, if your message sender defines French content and response options, and sends a message to a French user, the recipient will see the entire message in French.

However, this can also lead to messages being received in a mix of languages. For example, if a message sender defines Italian content and response options and sends a message to an Italian user, the recipient will see the message and options in Italian, but the words within the template will still be in the English because that content is not available in Italian.

Also, if the message and response options are only available in English, and the message is sent to a user with a preferred language in which the template is available, the recipient will see the message and response options in English, but the words within the template will be translated into the recipient's preferred language. 

Available languages

There are currently 43 language options for the message and response editors in the web user interface which can be enabled for client use on a per-company basis. This allows you to add your own translated content for email, app, and text messages, for responses, and your own recordings for voice interactions. When users select one of your company's languages as their preferred language for communication, they'll receive any pre-defined messages or responses provided in that language, if available.

Available language options:

Note: We currently translate the xMatters web user interface into English and French.

Text-To-Speech (TTS) support

The xMatters voice message editor includes the option to automatically speak phrases to message recipients using TTS, if no recordings are available. This option is currently supported for a subset of the available language options.

Languages with TTS language support:

For more information about managing languages in the xMatters web user interface, see Languages in the xMatters Online Help.

The caveats

Currently, translation capabilities are available only for pre-defined messages and responses. If you’ve ever used online translation software, you know that it’s not reliable enough in emergency situations where conveying exact messages is critical - that's why only messages and responses with previously provided translations are used. 

Reliance solely on language translation software for developing messages is not recommended. Similarly, for voice communications pre-recorded phrases and messages are also highly recommended (especially for any Unicode, or non-Latin, character sets), rather than relying on text-to-speech translation. 

xMatters internal references:

DTN-4135, DTN-3525, COR-2823