Table of Contents
Introduction
Simplify the management of your Intercom Online Help articles with Locale. Unleash the power of simplicity in translation with designed to optimize project managers' efforts, this connector synchronizes published Intercom Online Help Articles and your dedicated translation systems seamlessly. Watch as your articles can automatically undergo automated localization steps to either MT engines, TMS systems, or directly to your LSP or translation agency, freeing your team to focus on strategy and growth.
What you’ll need to get started
The Login link for Locale (https://app.locale.to/en/)
The login link for your Intercom instance.
Note: This is provided to you by your Intercom account manager, support team, or contact person. If you are unsure of this information, please contact your system administrator or your Intercom representative.
User login information for both your Locale instance, and your Intercom instance
A trial account of Locale can also be taken for free by going to locale.to and selecting the Get Started button
Supported content types
At the time of this publication (August 2023) the Intercom Help Center Connector supports the following content.
Published content from the articles and collections sections of your Intercom Help Center instance. These can includes published pieces which are part of a collection, or are stand alone articles.
Draft content will not be accessed for translation
More information on this can be found in our articles for Creating an Intercom Help Center localization project
Limitations
At the time of this publication (August 2023) there are the following limitations on the side of Intercom
When adding new languages for multi-lingual support to your Intercom Help Center, it’s necessary to first add these languages in the Settings tab, as well as manually enter a Page Title under Settings > Content > Header Content section.
This content cannot and will not be translated by a Locale project; see below and in our article on Creating an Intercom Help Center localization project
Settings > Content > Welcome Message: This section contains default text provided by Intercom and cannot be accessed by Locale for translation. This means, if the text fields are left empty in your Intercom instance, they will automatically be populated with content such as “Advice and answers from the [Company Name] Team”.
This content is automatically generated by Intercom though the source is not known as this is not done by Locale or Lang Connector.
At the time of this publication (August 2023) there are the following limitations on the side of Locale
To enable content for translation into different languages in your Intercom Help Center, it’s necessary to first add these languages under the Articles > Settings > General section.
As mentioned above, when adding new languages to your Intercom Help Center, the text field under Settings > Content > Header for Page Title must be manually populated with content. Otherwise, this language cannot be successfully added and saved in the Intercom instance, which means Locale cannot process the translation request.
Creating an Intercom Help Center localization project - advanced
After configuring the Intercom connector to your Locale instance, and perhaps you’ve alcreated created a Basic Intercom Help Center localization project now you’re ready to create an Advanced Intercom Help Center localization project. The advanced project creation process contains a bit more information regarding:
Creating an Intercom Help Center localization project
The process starts the same as all Locale projects, including the Intercom Help Center basic project structure. Start by selecting the source and target languages for your project, and select Add Project.
Note: the target languages must also be enabled in the Article settings of your Intercom Help Center instance for the translations to be properly processed. If you haven’t done this already and need some help, see our article on Adding languages to your Intercom Help Center instance or Prerequisites & limitations for the Intercom Help Center Connector
Locale will automatically connect to your Intercom Help Center instance, and perform an analysis on the content that needs to be translated.
Once the content has been analyzed, Locale will display the number of words and segments which require translation.
Selecting specific content pieces for translation
For added functionality, the Intercom Help Center Connector has a Content tab where the user can see the specific articles which have been found by Locale for translation, and using the tick boxes to the left of the content name, can select or deselect those which will be sent for translation.
Once you’ve chosen the content you’d like to localize, select the Settings tab and navigate to the Connection section to locate the Synchronize button. This will reanalyze the word count of the selected content, and update the word count information found on the Languages tab.
Return to the Languages tab to see the updated word counts for your languages, based on the selected content.
This is especially helpful for content which has been partially localized already.
Adding a new language to your project
At this point, it’s also possible to add or remove a language/languages from the Languages tab to be included or excluded from your project.
Note: Adding a language to your project will trigger a reanalysis of content only for the selected language in your Locale project.
Note: When it comes time to push content for translation, the most recent selection criteria of content pieces will be sent to all languages with missing translation content. This means, if there are additional languages which require different quantities of translated content, it must be done in separate translation pushes.
To add a language to your project, select the Add a language button at the top of the languages listed in your project.
Note: When a new language is added to your Locale project, it will show an analysis based on the current selection of the content in the Content tab. For example, if 1 of 4 content pieces is selected, the analysis for this 1 file will apply to your newly added language. If all content pieces are selected, this will be reflected in the analysis of the newly added language. But when content is pushed for translation, the selected content will be pushed to all languages with missing translation content.
Next, type in the language that you’d like to add to your project, and select save
If a language you’ve added has partially localized content, you will also see this reflected in the analysis shown on the Languages tab.
Removing a language from your Locale project
The process of removing a language from your project is also quite simple, and will remove the word count from your active project. However, if content has already been pushed for translation, removing a language from your project will not restore or reverse word count availability in your Locale subscription. Once content has been pushed, this process cannot be reversed.
To remove a language from your Locale project, navigate to the Languages tab and select the 3 dots (…) to the right of the language you’d like to remove.
Select the Remove button and a dialogue window will appear, confirming that you’d like to remove this language from your project. Select Remove from project and it will be deleted.
Sending your project for translation
Once you’re satisfied with the language and content selection of your project, proceed as normal to send your project for translation via the selected translation source.
Choose the Push Content button in the top right corner of the page to choose the translation resource you’d like to use: TMS, Contact Person, or MT engine. (Our example shows translation with MT) and push the content for translation.
Locale will automatically begin the translation process according to the selected resource, and show the In Progress status.
When the translations are complete, Locale will update the status with the Complete status indicator, and place all of the translated content back into your Intercom Help Center articles.
