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Last Updated: 2026-05-01
Set Up Considerations: Suggested Translations

Set Up Considerations: Suggested Translations

The Machine Translations framework (Suggested Translations) provides automatic translations for content in the journeys editor. You can use this topic to reduce manual translation effort and quickly deploy global content across all Workday-delivered languages. It explains: It explains:
  • Why to set it up.
  • How it fits into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

  1. Workday generates machine-translated suggestions for the languages you have enabled.
  2. Reviewers receive a notification in My Tasks to review, modify, or approve the suggested content.
  3. Once approved, the translations are available for workers to view in the journey.
  4. You can also preview translations directly in the Journeys Workspace report.

Business Benefits

You can use this topic to reduce manual translation effort and quickly deploy global content across all Workday-delivered languages.

Use Cases

  • Global Content Deployment: Organizations with a diverse, multilingual workforce can use automatic translations to quickly make Journeys content available in various languages, ensuring all employees receive consistent guidance and information.
  • Efficient Translation Review: Translation approvers can review and modify suggested translations from a single
    My Task
     notification, enhancing efficiency in the translation workflow.
  • Pre-Publishing Verification: Content creators can preview journeys in different languages directly in the Journeys workspace, allowing for verification of translations before distribution.

Questions to Consider

You can create user-based security groups to identify individuals who can access translation approval notifications. For example, you can select groups like Suggested Translations Approvers - Italian for specific languages or Suggested Translations Approvers - All for a broader approach. You’ll be able to assign groups for specific languages by leveraging segment-based security groups on language segments.
Questions
Considerations
Which languages do you want to enable for automatic translations?
You can enable many languages for the tenant in
Tenant Setup - Global
, but you should only enable
Automatic Translation Preferences in Tenant Setup - Journeys
 for the specific languages you intend to support and review.
How will you organize your translation approvers?
You can create user-based security groups to identify individuals who can access translation approval notifications. For example, you can select groups like
Suggested Translations Approvers - Italian
 for specific languages or
Suggested Translations Approvers - All
 for a broader approach. You’ll be able to assign groups for specific languages by leveraging segment-based security groups on language segments.
Will you require a review and approval step for suggested translations?
A review step is included in the
Machine Translation Event Business Process Definition
. If you remove this approval step, suggested translations automatically submit. However, if the translated string exceeds the attribute's character limit, the translation will fail and not submit.
How will changes to translatable attributes impact notifications?
Automatic translations run daily if a translatable attribute is modified. Every time an attribute is edited, a translation notification is sent for all modified instances and each configured language. This can lead to frequent notifications for approvers.

Recommendations

  • Phased Language Rollout: Consider enabling automatic translations for a limited number of critical languages initially and gradually expanding as your team becomes familiar with the review process and notification volume.
  • Clear Approver Responsibilities: Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of your translation approvers, especially if you create segmented groups for specific languages. This helps manage the notification volume and ensures timely reviews.
  • Training for Reviewers: Provide training to your translation approvers on how to effectively review and modify suggested translations from their
    My Task
     notifications. Emphasize the importance of checking for accuracy and adherence to brand voice.

Requirements

You might need to take additional steps to enable this feature depending on your organization's subscription service agreement. For more information, see this Community article.
To utilize this feature, opt in to the
Innovation Services Opt-In
 task.
  • Select
    Available Services > Cross Application Services > Globalization Services
    .
  • Select
    Available Services > People Experience > Journeys
    .

Limitations

  • Translations do not include product-specific reviews.
  • Translations are generated automatically but aren't specifically vetted for product terminology beyond the general translation service.
  • Translations run daily if only you modify a translatable attribute. This generates 1 notification per language for you to review and submit.
  • Translations configured for every single language send a notification each time you edit an attribute.
  • Translations fail if the translated string exceeds the attribute's character limit.

Tenant Setup

To configure tenant -wide configurations for Journeys Machine Translations, you must:
  • Enable Machine Translation toggle under
    Languages
     in the
    Edit Tenant Setup - Global
     to activate the entire framework.
  • Enable the corresponding toggle in the
    Edit Tenant Setup -Global
     for each of the languages you want to support machine translations.
  • On
    Edit Tenant Setup - Journeys
    , select all the languages you want to automatically translate under the
    Automatic Translation Preferences
    . This list depends on your choices from the
    Edit Tenant Setup -Global
     task.
    • You may select a subset of the
      Machine Translation Supported Languages
       to be enabled for translation for journeys.

Security

You can use:
  • Workday-delivered security groups to provide users access machine translations content.
  • A user-based security group to provide journeys administrators with access to all machine translations content.
  • A segment based security group to provide access to machine translations content for different types of users.
To view the different security domains for Journeys Machine Translations, access the
Domain Security Policies for Functional Area
 report.
Functional Area
Considerations
Set Up: Tenant Setup - Global
Users can enable the overall Machine Translation framework and select languages for support.
Set Up: Journey Administration
Users can configure automatic translations for journeys.
Set Up: Security Segments
Users with access to
Set Up: Security Segments
 domain can create segment-based security groups. Users belonging to these groups can then review translations for specific languages.

Business Processes

You must configure the
Machine Translation Event Business Process Definition
 to manage the review and approval of suggested translations.

Reporting

You can:
  • Enable automatic translations for selected languages to review suggested translations through the
    My Tasks
     notifications.
  • Preview translations in the journeys editor.

Integrations

No impact.

Connections and Touchpoints

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.

Other Impacts

None.