Best Practices for Articles in Different Languages

[KS82]

I'm hoping someone can help. I am a new Knowledge Manager in an HRSD kb. We don't have translations turned on yet but have articles translated through a professional company. I am trying to figure out the best practice for articles that have 2-3 different languages. Do I create 2-3 different knowledge articles or 1 long knowledge article?

I don't know when/if we will get any translations turned on. We just went live with this instance in September and no one in my org has translated articles/does translations. From what I understand, we are mostly OOTB, with some customizations. 

Thank you for your help!

[Dave Littlejohn]

Because of the short description field and search results, I would create multiple articles for the different languages and then setting the can read user criteria to users with that language (leveraging OOB location field?). Going with one article and using knowledge blocks for the information with translations may work, but I am worried with the short description not being translated, it makes it harder to recognize the results for users who do not read that language.

[Palash_Sarkar]

Hi @KS82 

Yes, you should create different articles for each language. This will create a parent-child relationship between the source and target language articles. ServiceNow has a Localization Framework (LF) platform application that enables the translation of knowledge articles into multiple languages in three ways:

1. **Manually within the comparison UI in LF**
2. **Machine Translation**
3. **TMS (Translation Management System) configuration**

Through this tool, you can create translation requests, assign translation tasks, approve translations in the workflow, and publish articles.

Request bulk translations for multiple knowledge articles

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-servicenow-platform/page/product/knowledge-managemen...

It is best practice to consider utilizing the platform's out-of-the-box (OOTB) capabilities before making any customizations.

Learn about more Configure the Localization Framework

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-platform-administration/page/administer/localization...

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If you need further guidance on implementing these best practices or have specific questions about your setup, feel free to ask!

[Kim27]

Hello, I suggest you create a separate article for each translation and then leverage the parent field in your translations with the parent being your primary language article. This may also help to set you up for success if you decide to turn on translation management. 

See the documentation here and scroll down to the parent field description. 

Parent: Number of the article that represents the base language article. This setting keeps translations of the same article related to each other. Consider choosing the same language consistently for the parent article. This field appears only when the I18N:Knowledge Management Internationalization Plugin v2 plugin (com.glideapp.knowledge.i18n2) is activated. For more information, see I18N - Knowledge internationalization.

Note: The Parent field contains the first version of the parent article only. This field is used by the translation management feature to maintain the relationship between the source article and its translations.