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What is Auto-Translation?

Auto-translation lets agents reply in their own language while customers write in theirs. The customer never sees the translation seam.

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What is Auto-Translation?

Auto-translation lets your team handle conversations in any language without speaking it. An agent in Oslo can answer a customer in São Paulo without either of them noticing the translation seam. The customer writes Portuguese; the agent reads Norwegian; the agent replies Norwegian; the customer reads Portuguese.

It’s a tenant-level toggle (one switch, in Settings → Translation) plus a per-user language preference (in Settings → Language) that decides whose primary language each agent works in.

How a message flows

When auto-translation is on:

  1. Inbound — a customer message arrives. Atender stores the original message text and detects its language.
  2. Agent reads, agent replies — when an agent views the conversation, Atender translates the message on demand into that viewer’s target language. English is the default target language. Agents who want to work in another language can opt in from their personal Settings → Language preferences, then read and compose in their primary language.
  3. Outbound — the agent’s reply is stored in the language they wrote it in, then translated on demand for the customer or any other viewer who needs a different target language.
  4. Original preserved — the original text is preserved on the message. Atender uses messages.content_language to tell whether a row is a legacy English-canonical message or a newer original-language message, so the system knows what language the stored content is in before translating it for a viewer.

Neither side sees the other’s language. Neither side notices translation is happening.

Primary vs secondary languages

Each agent configures two things in Settings → Language:

  • Primary language — the language the agent works in. Inbound messages get translated into this. Outbound replies get composed in this and translated out.
  • Secondary languages — languages the agent reads natively. Messages in these languages are not translated; the agent sees the original.

So a German agent who also reads English would set primary = German and secondary = English. German customers come through in German (no translation, same language). English customers come through in English (untranslated — the agent reads English fine). Spanish customers come through translated to German.

Two translation systems, one product

Atender has two translation systems for two different jobs:

  • Auto-translation — Live customer conversations, in real time, message by message. — Settings → Translation + Settings → Language (per agent).
  • Knowledge Base translation — Full multi-language KB articles, with translation jobs, protected terms, and per-language overrides. — The Knowledge Base module.

This article covers the conversation-side system. The KB system is more comprehensive and has its own controls; see the Knowledge Base documentation for that side.

When the agent wants to see the original

The original message is always preserved, even when the agent sees a translation. A small toggle on each translated message switches between the translated and original text. Use it when:

  • The translation reads strangely and you want to verify
  • A product name or technical term might have been mistranslated
  • You partially read the source language and want to confirm

The toggle is per-message; switching it doesn’t change other messages.

What’s required to use it

That’s all. There are no per-language packs to install, no per-customer settings to configure.

Where to start

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