Multilingual content and AI translation

Oniva, as an Event management platform, is built to run events and campaign groups in several languages at once. This is especially valuable when you're inviting contacts from different language regions, for example from German-speaking Switzerland, French-speaking Switzerland and English-speaking countries: every person receives the event website, forms and all communications automatically in their preferred language. So that you don't have to maintain this multilingual content by hand, the built-in AI translation translates text into all activated languages at the click of a button. This article explains which languages are available, how you activate them for an event or campaign group, how AI translation works, and how your contacts' language governs all of their communications.

Available languages

Oniva supports the following languages for event websites, forms and automated communications:

• German (CH)
• German (DE) (coming soon)
• French
• English
• Italian
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• Dutch
• Danish
• Swedish
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Czech

German is available in two variants: German (CH) follows the spelling conventions used in Switzerland, without "ß" (so "Strasse" instead of "Straße"), while German (DE) uses the spelling conventions for Germany. Choose the variant that matches the market you communicate with most.

Separate from the languages of the event website are the languages of the Oniva interface itself – the admin you use to configure your events: this is currently available in German, English, French and Italian. That means you, as an organiser, can use the admin in English, for example, and still create events whose event website and communications are delivered in languages such as Polish or Swedish too.

Which languages are available to you at all is controlled via the tenant settings. If a language is missing from the selection, it can be activated there by the tenant admin. Only then does it become available for workspaces, events and campaign groups.

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Language selection when creating events or campaign groups

When creating an event or campaign group, you choose from the languages activated at organisation level those that are relevant for this event or campaign group. You don't have to carry over every language available across the whole organisation – only the ones your target audience actually needs.

You also set a default language. It serves as a fallback in two situations:

• for contacts who don't have a specific language on file, and
• for text fields where no translation has been entered for an activated language.

 👉 Tip: Make sure to choose as your default language the one in which you're most likely to keep complete, proofread content, since it's the one that appears wherever a translation is missing.

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AI translation of text fields

All text fields – such as descriptions, titles or info texts – as well as selected form fields can be translated using AI. Here's how:

1. Enter the text in the main language into the relevant field.
2. As soon as text is present, the "Translate" option appears in the top right of the text field.
3. When you click it, a notice is shown first.
4. The translations are then automatically populated into all languages activated for the event or campaign group.

For the "Translate" option to appear at all, at least two languages must be activated for the event. With only one active language, there is naturally nothing to translate.

⚠️ Important: If text has already been added manually to a field, it will be overwritten by the newly generated translation when you click "Translate" – and this cannot be undone. Before triggering AI translation, check whether a language already contains manually maintained, approved text that you want to keep.

👉 Tip: Even though AI translation is very reliable, it's worth doing a quick proofreading pass before you publish the event. Check in particular:
whether product terms and fixed names (e.g. names of booking options, venue or company names) have been carried over correctly;
whether the form of address (informal/formal, or the equivalent in the target language) matches your usual tone; and
whether placeholders, links and formatting (bold text, bullet points) have been preserved.

Maintaining translations in text fields manually

Every text field offers tabs for all activated languages, into which you can enter translations, regardless of whether you've used AI translation or not. If no translation is entered for a language, the default language is shown there automatically instead.

This allows you to work in two stages: use AI translation to quickly get a usable first version for all languages, and then fine-tune, in the individual language tabs, the spots that need a human touch – wordplay, brand names or industry-specific phrasing, for example. Manual adjustments to individual tabs are kept as long as you don't click "Translate" again.

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Setting a contact's language

For contacts to actually be addressed in their preferred language, Oniva needs to know what that language is. There are three ways to set it:

• Import or manual entry: When importing or entering contacts, you can supply the language directly as its own column in the Excel file, or add it when entering a contact manually.
• Import or capture via accounts: For contacts with an account, the language is instead taken from the account settings.
• Self-registered contacts: If a contact registers themselves by entering their details through public access without an invitation, they're automatically assigned the language in which they used the event website.

If a language is on file for a contact, they receive all notifications and campaigns in that language. Their personal event link is also created directly in that language. If no language is on file for a contact, the default language defined for the event or campaign group applies.

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Personalised communication

A contact's language affects all of their communications: invitations, notifications (e.g. booking confirmation, deregistration or cancellation confirmation) and campaigns are automatically sent in the language on file. The personal event link, through which guests register or authenticate, is also generated directly in that language, so the guest journey stays consistent in one language from the very first click – without you having to set up separate campaigns for each language group.

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Displaying and evaluating contacts' language

A contact's language preference is displayed in the contact list and can be used for reporting. This gives you an at-a-glance view of how your target audience breaks down by language, for example to decide which languages are worth the extra translation effort, or to segment language-specific campaigns (e.g. reminders with local directions) precisely.