TechNow Ep 70 | Translating your instance

[Chuck Tomasi]

As your organization grows, it's common that you will need to address multiple languages on your instance. Activating plugins is only part of the solution - there are tables to be aware of, properties to learn, and scripting practices to follow. Join the TechNow team as they guide you through everything you need to know to support a multi-lingual instance.

Quick tip: Dynamic Filter Options (Jeremy Duncan)

Originally aired: November 26, 2019 8:00 AM PT

Featured Experts

Kreg Steppe is a Training and Certification Program Manager within ServiceNow developing and supporting cloud training infrastructure. He specializes in developing integration solutions, automating repeatable processes and Cloud Management in ITOM. Kreg's prior experience includes operating his own ISP, developing web applications in PHP, network integration, managing network support, Application Development on cloud based networks, DNS and email server maintenance. He is a Linux enthusiast and enjoys Photography.

Jeremy Duncan is a Platform Architect on the Innovation team at ServiceNow. Jeremy is an Enterprise Architect with over 16 years of IT and Service Management experience. His experience and certifications span across retail and manufacturing with focuses on hardware, software, and information security specialties. He has done many implementations in both the Enterprise Federal and Commercial spaces since 2011 and brings a breadth of platform knowledge that aids him in sound architectural decisions. He achieved his B.B.A. at MTSU and majored in Information Systems. He spends his free time fighting crime as a volunteer certified police officer in North Nashville since 2012 and enjoys family time, camping, with his wife and kids!

Chuck Tomasi Chuck Tomasi is a Sr. TPMM for ServiceNow. He has over 35 years of IT experience. Chuck was a ServiceNow customer from 2008-2010 and honored to be the recipient of the first Innovation of the Year Award at Knowledge 10. Since joining ServiceNow in 2010 as a Technical Consultant, he has held several technical roles in professional services, pre-sales, and marketing. He's well known for his signature bow ties and creative solutions on the Now Platform. Chuck is the top contributor in the ServiceNow Community, has produced hundreds of ServiceNow videos, and co-authored "No-Code Apps for Dummies" to enable and excite everyone interested in building on the Now Platform.

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Questions and Answers

Will these slides be available after the webinar? -- Mark Gefrom
Yes. I will have them available from episode 70 on the episode list at http://bit.ly/servicenow-technow -- Chuck Tomasi

does that debugging works on a portal? -- Steven Chaparro
Haven't checked. Good question. I'll have to get back to you. F12 will open up a browser-level "debugging" tool, but does not work/look the same as UI16 debugging. -- Jeremy Duncan

Can you have a different background image, and/or a different banner logo based on the language in the portals? -- Steven Chaparro
Out of the box, the portals don't do that, but you could easily make one. -- Chuck Tomasi

Does ServiceNow integrates with Google Translate in any way? -- Michael Pearse
Great question! Thanks for asking. Answering Live! -- Jeremy Duncan

Hi team, thank you for the session. My query goes as follows, Does translating the portal must be done using gs.getMessage on every widget and component manually, or, any other alternatives to apply on to the portal directly ? Is there any such configuration specifically for Portals? -- Rajalakshmi Rathinasabhapathy
We were planning to show Service Portal translation, but didn't have the chance. If you enclose your HTML text to be translated in ${msg_key} format, it will do the translation from sys_ui_message automatically. -- Chuck Tomasi

Im using a code in a portal to change the language for a guest user, but I dont want to make that language change permanent because I expect a lot of user visiting the portal with multiple language selection at the same time. -- Steven Chaparro
We were planning to show Service Portal translation, but didn't have the chance. If you enclose your HTML text to be translated in ${msg_key} format, it will do the translation from sys_ui_message automatically. -- Chuck Tomasi

Maybe an addition, you can use the sys_ui_message not only for translation, though also to overwrite out-of-the-box english messages instead of editing widgets/ui pages/etc -- Mark Roethof
Great point Mark, and yes this is something i've done in lieu of cracking open OOB widgets. -- Jeremy Duncan

Chuck, I would like to know where you got the full-sized dalek behind you 🙂 -- Lisa Jones
Lisa, it came with the house. I bought the house from a friend and he built out this studio. The Dalek was part of the package. 🙂 -- Chuck Tomasi

Are automated on-the-fly machine translations available for incoming/outgoing communications with users? -- Mark Gefrom
Hi Mark, can you provide more detail about what communications you are talking about? -- Chuck Tomasi

Did you say the custom translations are captured in Update Sets? -- Terry Oldham
Yes. Entries in sys_translated, sys_documentation, sys_ui_message, and sys_choice are captured in update sets, source control, and app repo files. -- Chuck Tomasi

Plans to offer in-platform translation for case notes and/or chat? Virtual Agent? -- Jacob Moore
Great question! Thanks for asking. Answering Live! We can follow up. -- Jeremy Duncan

How do you do translations for surveys/assessments? -- Colin Webster
Great question! Thanks for asking. Answering Live! -- Jeremy Duncan

languages that are not available through language packs right now, for example Vietnamese, is there a way to check on roadmap if / when the language may become available? -- Heidi Choy
I'm not aware of any published roadmap, but if you have an idea, post it to the Idea portal on the community at community.servicenow.com -- Chuck Tomasi

I think I missed it, what is the purpose of creating an english key to replace contact_email_required? -- Steven Chaparro
Great question! Thanks for asking. Answering Live! -- Jeremy Duncan

How to show the kb articles just for the language selected in different parts of the portal i.e. Knowledge page, knowledge search, knowledge widgets -- Steven Chaparro
We'll have to check and get back to you. I'm not a Knowledge expert. -- Chuck Tomasi

Add the labels, messages, or choices to the appropriate table in English with an ending of the language code for newly added customizations that are missing translations. (Translate and Learn) Yes | No -- Steven Chaparro
Yes, the translate and learn option is a good one, but it only learns what you've visited. If your testers didn't test it, it won't be "learned". -- Chuck Tomasi

how can I tell if catalog items have been translated? -- Kathy Pitts
Hey Kathy, you would need to test the catalog items to validate whether/not they are being translated. -- Jeremy Duncan

Thank you -- DWIGHT SANDERS
Welcome Dwight! -- Jeremy Duncan

Hi, if you are looking to translate an instance which is not as a language pack.. (such as Romainian) is there an easy way to export tables that you then need to translate.. -- Martin Sanders
Yes. Kreg will cover the basics on that in a little while. -- Chuck Tomasi

Thank you for your service Mr. Police Officer!! -- Lyn Murphy
My pleasure! 🙂 -- Jeremy Duncan

Can you use ATF to test out translations? -- Alle Amos
We will have to follow up on this! Great question! -- Jeremy Duncan

Thanks! -- Steven Chaparro
WElcome! -- Jeremy Duncan

Right now I have created a business rule for the User Preference table that runs only when the user is Guest, and in advance, I am running a script when the condition is !gs.isLoggedIn() and in the script I added the gs.addErrorMessage(gs.getMessage('A user preference cannot be saved for unauthenticateduser') and then I have a current.setAbortAction(true). I was wondering if there is another way to accomplish what I am trying to do? So far I think it is working. -- Steven Chaparro
I'm not sure what the requirement is. It appears you are using gs.getMessage() properly. What is the intended outcome/result? -- Chuck Tomasi

What's the current UNICODE version supported? -- Douglas Hanna
In general, we use native Java APIs for all text handling. We run Java 8, so it would be the version supported by Java 8: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/lang/Character.html "The Java SE 8 Platform uses character information from version 6.2 of the Unicode Standard..." -- Chuck Tomasi

in the system properties there is a system localization property that you can enable for those fields without a translation. -- Steven Chaparro
Localization depends on the field type. If you have a choice, translated_text or translated_html field, it will be translated. String, HTML and most other fields are not. -- Chuck Tomasi