Machine translations for Integreat Chat messages

[svenseeberg]

Motivation

We want to enable a bi-directional communication without (or with low) language barriers between Integreat App users and councilors using the Zammad back end for the Integreat Chat.

Proposed Solution

• This feature can/should make use of the existing machine translation functionality, including the budget limitations (for the time being).
• Incoming messages from Integreat App users should be translated into the main language of the region.
• Outgoing messages from Zammad to the Integreat App users should be translated into the selected language of the Integreat App. The CMS has to provide a Webhook endpoint that allows Zammad to inform the Integreat CMS about updated tickets (by Zammad users / counselors). The webhook message from Zammad contains a ticket_id attribute, which can be used by the Integreat CMS to fetch all necessary messages / data from Zammad.
• Translated messages have to be stored along the original messages in Zammad as new articles within the ticket.
• This should not require a change of any Integreat CMS model.

Sequence diagram:

To implement the functionality, we need to add the green marked flows and change the yellow ones. Black is already implemented and blue is out of scope / next milestone.

There is one big issue / caveat: Zammad webhooks are triggered on each ticket update. By default, this does not differentiate between ticket updates by a counselor or "automated" updates by the Integreat CMS (when storing translations). To prevent and endless loop of "update webhook > translation request > ticket update", we need to set the article subject to automatically generated message or some other string we agree upon. This can then be used to set up a filter for webhooks within Zammad.

Alternatives

Zammad users translate the messages manually with DeepL or Google Translate.

User Story

• As a migrant I want to communicate with a counselor in my native language so that I can get necessary information before having learned any German.
• As a counselor I want to answer questions of migrants without speaking their native language to provide answers to important questions.

Additional Context

• See Enable automatic translation for chat messages integreat-chat#17

Design Requirements

None / no GUI impact.