This article was published in November 20 and last updated in November 21.
Connecting Jira Service Management JSM (formerly Jira Service Desk) to a Confluence knowledge base has many advantages: If a user enters a search on the JSM portal or opens a new ticket and starts typing, articles from Confluence’s knowledge base will be presented. This self-service approach can reduce the number of tickets created. Atlassian has written an excellent article on how to set up a knowledge base.
Note: This article is about Confluence/JSM for Server/Data Center. The approach for Cloud is slightly different (read at the very bottom).
We make the following assumptions about your configuration:
* If this is not the case for you, we have an overview of all combinations in our app documentation.
If you use both Confluence and Jira Service Management, you should absolutely make use of this powerful integration. However, there is one important question to keep in mind: Are your users searching for help in JSM in one language only?
Short answer: Hell, no! International companies know from experience that customers want to (and will) use Jira Service Management in multiple languages. Let’s say your data suggests that users are looking for content in English and German mainly. And why shouldn’t they? Since most companies’ websites are available in more than one language, users are right to assume they can use their preferred language in a support portal as well. Only this will give them a seamless experience.
Yes, you have the option to present Jira Service Management’s interface in English, German or other languages. But if your users start looking for help articles in German, what will happen? That depends on the structure of your knowledge base.
If no German translation exists, there are two outcomes:
If your knowledge base contains German translations as separate pages, what could happen is:
Wouldn’t it be great if only the language relevant for that user would be considered for search results? Well, using Translations for Confluence, this is possible!
The main difference to other solutions is that in our app, all translations of a page’s content are on one single page only. Depending on the user’s profile settings, only the language relevant to them will be displayed when they access a page. You can use this logic to create a multilingual experience in Jira Service Management.
We’ve created a blog post on how to create multilingual Confluence pages in more detail.
Now you can watch the fruits of your work in your newly multilingual Jira Service Management. Here’s how:
Check the following pictures to see how this could look in practice.
Both Confluence and Jira Service Management (formerly Jira Service Desk) are powerful tools. Their knowledge base integration makes them even more versatile. However, it currently leaves users speaking a language different from the Confluence default out of the picture. As stated before, these users are entitled to look for content in their native language.
Will you have to invest time and work to create a multilingual knowledge base in the first place? Certainly.
Is it worth it? Absolutely. Providing international users with an intuitive workflow will not only decrease the number of new tickets created but also improve customer satisfaction.
In the long run, your knowledge base will also be much easier to maintain since all language versions are on the same page.
Translations for Confluence is the only server/data center app on the Atlassian Marketplace that allows for this fluid integration.
Update: The app “Translations for Confluence” is available for Cloud since April 2021. These are the main differences to the description above:
Ready to create a multilingual knowledge base connecting Confluence and Jira Service Management?
