When using SAP Cloud Identity Services as an identity and access management tool for SuccessFactors, communication with end users often happens through automatically generated emails. For example, SAP Cloud Identity Services sends account activation emails to newly added users or onboardees in SuccessFactors. In global organisations, users may come from multiple regions and speak different languages. Thus, to ensure clear and user-friendly communication, SAP Cloud Identity Services allows you to configure email templates in multiple languages. In this blog post, we will explore how the configuration of email templates in multiple languages works and how the system selects the language for emails.

Email template configuration

Email template sets

To configure the email templates, you need to log in to the Administration Console of SAP Cloud Identity Services. Afterwards, you can access your email templates either via the menu under Applications & Resources or via the tile on the homepage.

Here, you can find different sets of email templates. Each set represents a collection of email templates for a specific email type. You can define for each application that uses SAP Cloud Identity Services which email template set should be used when sending emails to users.

You can create templates in multiple languages for each email type.

When editing or creating templates, select the desired language from the available options. Additionally, enter a subject for the template. Lastly, upload your prepared Plain Text and HTML template files. Please note that the default email template set provided by SAP contains templates only in English.

Language parameters in IPS sync

If you synchronise user data via the Identity Provisioning Service (IPS) sync from SuccessFactors to Identity Authentication Service (IAS) in SAP Cloud Identity Services, make sure that the sync takes the user’s language into account. This ensures that SAP Cloud Identity Services can select the correct language template when sending emails to the user.

Accordingly, check the transformation rules for both your source and target systems under Identity Provisioning in the administration console. Here, SuccessFactors is the source system and IAS the target system.

Please ensure that the language mapping is active for both the source and target systems.

For example, a new onboardee is added to SuccessFactors with German as the specified language. Consequently, the onboardee gets provisioned to IAS in SAP Cloud Identity Services, and the IPS sync considers the language attribute. Subsequently, SAP Cloud Identity Services will automatically send the German version of the account activation email to the onboardee.

Supported languages for email templates in SAP Cloud Identity Services

SAP Cloud Identity Services supports a broad set of languages for email templates, currently including:
Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (PRC), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (United Kingdom), English (United States), Estonian, Finnish, French (Standard), French (Canada), German (Standard), Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Mexico), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and Welsh.
Please check the SAP Help Portal for the latest list of supported languages.

Process for selecting the email template language by SAP Cloud Identity Services

The language used in an email sent by SAP Cloud Identity Services depends on how the email was triggered. The process for sending an email can either be triggered by the users themselves or by the system.

User-initiated actions

When a user interacts directly with SAP Cloud Identity Services, the email is sent in the user’s browser language. For example, a user could request a password reset on the SuccessFactors login screen.

If the user’s browser language is supported but there is no email template in that language, the email will be sent in English instead. The system also uses English templates if the user’s browser language is not supported by SAP.

System-initiated actions

For system-triggered messages, SAP Cloud Identity Services uses the language maintained in the user’s profile. System-triggered messages could be account activation emails or notifications due to too many failed password login attempts.

For example, if an onboardee is created in SuccessFactors and the Locale for New Hire is set to German, SAP Cloud Identity Services will send the account activation email in German to that onboardee.

Emails are sent in English if the user’s language is supported but there is no email template in that language. Similarly, if the user’s language is not supported by SAP, the emails will be sent in English.

Need support? Contact us!

In case you need assistance with configuring email templates or any other related topic, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Also, if you are interested in reading about topics similar to this, check out our other blog posts here.