Multi-lingual Chats - Quick Reference

Multi-lingual chats let you author a single chat in multiple languages and distribute each locale version to the right participants. This index covers every aspect of the feature with short explanations and links to the full articles.

Multi-lingual chats allow you to create one chat with a default locale and add secondary locales. Each locale has its own translated content, branding, and messaging, while the chat structure, logic, and settings remain shared across all locales. This means you build the chat once and translate it, rather than duplicating chats for each language.

When creating a new chat, you select a default locale. After creation, you can add secondary locales through the Edit chat settings drawer. The default locale acts as the source of truth - new cards and structural changes are made in the default locale first, then translated into secondary locales.

Full guide: How to Create a Chat

You can add secondary locales to a chat at any time from the Edit chat settings drawer. Removing a locale is only possible if it has not been published yet - published locale chips do not show an X icon. When you add a new locale, all existing cards are duplicated with empty text fields ready for translation.

Full guide: Managing Locales on an Existing Chat

The chat editor provides a COMPOSE view with a visual chat tree, a chat flow panel, and card editing tools. You can add cards from four categories (Conversation, Advanced, Organizational, Action), edit card content, manage cards via the three-dot menu, organize with sections, preview, and publish. For multi-lingual chats, authoring extends with a locale selector, translation warnings, and the ability to populate empty fields across locales.

Full guide: How to Author a Chat

Some elements in a chat are global (shared across all locales) and some are locale-specific (translated independently per locale). Global elements include card structure, display logic rules, piping configuration, and masking rules. Locale-specific elements include question text, choice text, button labels, and media. Global elements are marked with a globe icon in the editor.

Full guide: Global vs Locale-specific Elements

The bulk edit feature lets you download all editable chat text into a CSV, make changes offline, and upload the file to apply updates in bulk. For multi-lingual chats, the CSV includes a separate text column for each locale, making it easy to share with translators - each translator fills in their locale column and leaves others blank.

Full guide: How to Bulk Edit Chat Values

Choice cards in multi-lingual chats have locale-specific choice text and optional media, while the choice structure, randomization settings, and masking rules remain global. Empty translations trigger warning icons on the card and in the locale selector.

Full guide: Choice Cards

Grid cards follow the same pattern: row and column labels are locale-specific, while the grid structure is global. Ensure all row and column labels are translated for each locale to avoid validation warnings.

Full guide: Grid Cards

Message card text and media are locale-specific. You can use different images or videos per locale, allowing you to tailor visual content to each audience while keeping the card's position and display logic global.

Full guide: Message Cards

The question text and placeholder text on open-ended cards are locale-specific. Response validation rules and character limits are global, ensuring consistent data quality across all locales.

Full guide: Open Ended Cards

Display logic rules are global - the same rule applies across all locales. You can use Engagement Locale (chat system variable) and PreferredLocale (profile attribute) as conditions to show or hide cards based on the participant's language. When viewing a specific locale in the editor, the display logic builder shows choice values in that locale's language for easy verification.

Full guide: Display Logic

Piping is locale-specific - you must insert pipe references into each locale's question text separately. They do not carry over from the default locale automatically. When a piped value resolves, it uses the participant's engagement locale, so a French participant who selected a choice sees the French choice text piped into subsequent questions.

Full guide: Piping

Masking rules are global - the same masking logic applies across all locales. When viewing a specific locale in the editor, the masking configuration shows choice values in that locale's language, making it easy to verify which choices are masked.

Full guide: Masking Choices

When previewing a multi-lingual chat, you can select which locale to preview. The preview renders all content, branding, and messaging in the selected locale so you can verify the participant experience for each language.

Full guide: Chat Preview

Engagement Locale is a system variable that determines which locale version of a chat a participant receives. It also controls the locale-specific branding applied to emails and the chat experience. It is set when creating an invitation, reminder, or link.

PreferredLocale is a profile attribute stored on each participant that represents their language preference. It can be set via CSV import, the API, or automatically when a participant completes a recontact card. It is used with the Preferred Locale toggle in invitation targeting to automatically match participants to the right locale.

PreferredLocale is a built-in system profile attribute available on all participants automatically. You can view it in the community members list and use it as a filter when targeting invitations. You can also import PreferredLocale values in bulk using the participant import tool.

Related articles:

The Distribution section now includes a Locale column in both the Invitations and Reminders tables, showing the engagement locale for each entry at a glance.

When creating an invitation, you select an Engagement Locale that determines which locale version of the chat participants receive and which branding is applied to the invitation email. For single-locale chats this is prefilled. For multi-lingual chats, you choose from the dropdown. The Target field only becomes selectable after choosing an engagement locale.

Full guide: What is an Invitation?

Smart invitations are now enhanced with engagement locale support and custom targeting. You can target specific segments (not just all participants), and the system shows the message "All Eligible participants will be sent an invitation when the Smart Condition is met" instead of a participant count, since real-time event-driven delivery cannot be predicted in advance.

Full guide: Smart Invitations

When targeting participants for invitations, the "Only target members with the same preferred locale as the chat locale" toggle inside the Target dropdown lets you automatically filter participants by their PreferredLocale. When enabled, only participants whose PreferredLocale matches the selected Engagement Locale receive the invitation. This works with all targeting methods: all participants, filtered lists, and specific ID lists. When using specific IDs with the toggle enabled, IDs whose PreferredLocale does not match are marked as invalid during validation.

Related articles:

When creating a reminder, the Engagement Locale selects which group of participants the reminder targets based on the locale they were originally invited for. A participant who was invited to the English (Canada) version automatically receives the English (Canada) reminder with matching branding. There is no Preferred Locale toggle for reminders because the locale matching is handled automatically.

Related articles:

Chat links include an Engagement Locale field with two options for multi-lingual chats: select a specific locale (the link always opens that locale), or select "All locales (Multilingual link)" to generate a single link where you append the locale code as a URL parameter during distribution.

Full guide: How to Create a Chat Link for Respondents