While the Government of Canada functions in Canada’s two official languages (English and French), the people we serve span across continents and languages. That’s why having tools that enable multilingual flexibility is crucial.

We sat down with Immigration Refugee and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) Global Network Optimization and Modernization (GNOM) team to discuss how GC Notify has been a useful tool for when they need to communicate with clients across the globe in their local languages.

Meet IRCC’s Global Network Optimization and Modernization (GNOM) team

The Global Network Optimization and Modernization (GNOM) team, within the International Platform Branch (IPB) at IRCC, supports all of the department’s overseas migration offices. They ensure that the IPB is equipped with the right skills and innovative processes to provide excellent client services and improve employee experiences by accessing the best tools to do their work. They do this by implementing, reporting on, and monitoring innovation tools and processes. One of the tools that they use is the Advanced Client Enquiry Triage Solution (ACETS), which is a cloud-based tool developed by the Advanced Analytics Solution Center (A2SC) at IRCC, that helps overseas migration offices sort and prioritize messages sent by clients.

ACETS is used by 55 of IRCC’s overseas offices across 42 countries and 6 continents. While IRCC offices will normally only correspond in Canada’s official languages when it comes to case-specific enquiries, they may provide generic instructions and important information in other languages. For example, during a crisis situation they may produce written content in local languages in GC Notify auto-response messages so their clients have a better understanding of IRCC’s procedures.

Automated replies save time and money

Using local languages to communicate with clients helps create positive experiences. The GNOM team wanted to ensure that people can find and understand important messaging about programs in both official languages, as well as local languages in some contexts. Using GC Notify to send clients timely information has resulted in fewer follow-up enquiries. This helps IRCC employees focus on more high-impact tasks to improve how services are delivered.

About 18% of the enquiries overseas migration offices receive are of a general nature, meaning they don’t pertain to a case-specific application. Each overseas migration office has set up a customized auto-reply via GC Notify that functions as an acknowledgement of receipt, as well as directs them to IRCC’s webpage where they can find general information. This has eliminated the need to send a manual response, and led to considerable time savings.

Using local languages when communicating with clients signals to them that IRCC understands they are people with unique cultures, languages, and lived experiences, and not just application numbers. While case-specific interactions with clients are conducted in Canada’s official languages (English and French), there are times where it is effective to provide a translation of information in another language. The GNOM team were looking for a way to send helpful information to clients in multiple languages, while reducing time spent on individual general correspondence. The goal was to free up time for more complex correspondence, and get information out to clients more quickly.

Enter GC Notify

This is where GC Notify came in to help. GC Notify is a free messaging solution for government teams, built and maintained by the Canadian Digital Service (CDS). It allows public servants to create reusable templates, and easily send personalized email and text message updates to the public.

One of the employees on the ACETS project came across GC Notify while researching what resources were available to meet their unique needs. The GNOM team were searching for an option that would allow them to fully automate sending response messages to each client enquiry received, while at the same time allowing for easy modification of those messages. They also needed a platform that would accommodate multiple overseas migration offices, so that each could have its own customizable templates. The team was originally interested in GC Notify because it was an ideal means to overcome auto-reply message file size/length limits, but they soon realized that the tool had many additional features which met their needs.

Helpful features and future growth

GC Notify’s features and usability are above and beyond what other available options could offer, as well as much simpler for use by multiple users.

Helpful features:

Setting up new templates, as well as alternative ones, and editing them is simple.
Organizing work in separate folders for various global offices helps the team easily find relevant templates.
Adding or removing user access is easy, helping the team manage account security. They also like that control permissions can be managed by folder.
Monitoring real-time statistics for their different offices, using the GC Notify Dashboard, helps them see if people are engaging with the content.
Sending multilingual messages allows the team to communicate in the various languages of their recipients.

The GC Notify team uses feedback from public servants to prioritize updates to the product. The GNOM team mentioned that they ran into some formatting issues for right-to-left languages, which is a priority that the GC Notify team will be addressing in the future. Feedback such as the ability to add jump links in emails are also being considered along with other client requests. The GNOM team found that the client service team at GC Notify are excellent with timely responses and providing technical assistance on how to use the product and its features effectively.

Notifying globally

GC Notify has been integrated with ACETS to send an automatic response to every client enquiry received at an overseas migration office (about 1.5 million messages each year). These replies are currently being sent in 11 languages in addition to English and French. They are: Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Tigrinya, Chinese, Sinhala, Tamil, Mongolian, and Vietnamese.

While not all overseas migration offices are currently using multiple languages in their auto response templates, this may change given how straight-forward it is to use multiple languages in GC Notify and as the use of ACETS within IRCC’s network of offices continues to grow.

Example of IRCC notification in English, French, and Portuguese

Do not reply to this message / Ne pas répondre a ce message / Não responda a esta mensagem

This is an automated response to acknowledge receipt of your email by the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) office at the Consulate General of Canada in São Paulo.

Les versions en français et en portugais suivent

Versões em Francês e Português a seguir

ENGLISH

If this email answers your enquiry, this is the only email response you will receive.

For all other case-specific enquiries, due to the high volume of emails received by our office, please allow up to 15 days for a response to your email. Sending duplicate enquiries may delay processing and response times.

Case-specific enquiries:

Please complete the IRCC webform at https://ircc.canada.ca/english/contacts/web-form.asp. If you do not include the following information, we will not be able to respond:

If you do not include the following information, we will not be able to respond:

Full name;
File number (starts with a letter plus a series of numbers, for example: F000123456); and/or
Your unique client identifier (UCI).

Additional resources:Help Centre: Find answers to frequently asked questions, including technical questions about your online application at https://ircc.canada.ca/english/helpcentre/index-featured-can.asp

General Information: If you are looking for information about IRCC’s programs, please visit http://www.Canada.ca/Immigration

Regards,

Migration Section

Consulate General of Canada, São Paulo/SP, Brazil

________________________________________________________

FRANÇAIS

Ceci est une réponse automatisée pour accuser réception de votre courriel par le bureau d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC) au consulat général du Canada à São Paulo.

Si ce courriel répond à votre requête, ce sera la seule réponse que vous recevrez.

Pour toutes les autres demandes de renseignements spécifiques à des cas, veuillez prévoir jusqu’à de15 jours afin de recevoir une réponse, étant donné le volume élevé de courriels que nous recevons. L’envoi de requêtes en double ne fera que retarder le traitement et les délais de réponse.

Demandes de renseignements spécifiques à des cas :

Veuillez remplir le formulaire Web d’IRCC au https://www.canada.ca/fr/immigration-refugies-citoyennete/organisation/contactez-ircc/formulaire-web2.html. Si les informations ici-bas ne sont pas inclues, nous ne pourrons pas répondre à votre requête:

Nom complet ;
Numéro de demande (commençant avec une lettre et suivi de numéros, par exemple : F000123456) ; et/ou
Votre numéro d’identificateur unique de client (IUC).

Ressources additionnelles :

Centre d’aide : Vous pouvez trouver les réponses aux questions fréquemment posées, y compris les questions techniques sur votre demande en ligne à https://ircc.canada.ca/francais/centre-aide/index-en-vedette-can.asp

Informations générales : Si vous recherchez des informations sur les programmes d’IRCC, veuillez visiter https://www.canada.ca/fr/services/immigration-citoyennete.html.

Salutations,

Section de la migration

Consulat général du Canada, São Paulo/SP, Brésil

________________________________________________________

PORTUGUÊS

Esta é uma resposta automática para confirmar o recebimento do e-mail enviado para o escritório de Imigração, Refugiados e Cidadania do Canadá (IRCC) do Consulado Geral do Canadá em São Paulo.

Se este e-mail responder à sua pergunta, esta será a única resposta por e-mail que você receberá.

Para todas as outras dúvidas específicas, devido ao grande volume de e-mails recebidos no nosso escritório, aguarde até 15 dias para receber sua resposta. O envio de consultas duplicadas pode atrasar o processamento e os tempos de resposta.

Consulta de casos específicos:

Por favor complete o formulário do IRCC na internet https://ircc.canada.ca/english/contacts/web-form.asp. Se você não incluir as seguintes informações, não conseguiremos atender a sua questão:

Nome completo;
Número do pedido de visto (uma letra seguida de uma série de dígitos, por exemplo: F000123456; e/ou
Seu número UCI (unique client identifier).

Informações adicionais:

Central de ajuda: Encontre as perguntas frequentes, incluindo questões técnicas sobre sua inscrição on-line em https://ircc.canada.ca/english/helpcentre/index-featured-can.asp

Informações gerais: Se você estiver procurando informações sobre os programas do IRCC, por favor visite http://www.Canada.ca/Immigration

Cordialmente,

Seção de Imigração

Consulado Geral do Canadá, Brasil, São Paulo/SP, Brazil

Integrating GC Notify in a multilingual context

When a client enquiry is received by ACETS, it triggers a unique GC Notify automatic response template, based on the location of the office, to be sent to that client as a confirmation that their enquiry was received. The template also provides useful information such as frequently asked questions (FAQs).

The process for setting up a GC Notify service was quite simple. Once the IRCC staff have drafted and translated the template, a new folder and template can then be created in GC Notify, with the content formatted per the GC Notify guide.

The team found that the simplicity of GC Notify’s platform, and the product’s ability to accommodate multiple languages in its templates were extremely useful features. From the ACETS’ developers point of view, it saved them from having to re-invent an auto-reply system, including managing templates, permissions, usernames, etc. This means that with the background work to connect GC Notify and ACETS already set up, the team can create a new template and input the auto-response message in roughly 30 minutes. However, if the template is already formatted accordingly, then the new auto-response template can be ready in under 5 minutes.

Based on data gathered from the ACETS dashboard, between April 1-30, 2024, approximately 30,000 notifications were sent in one of the 11 languages, in addition to English and French.

Try out GC notify today!

GC Notify is a simple tool to learn that is also user friendly. Give it a try, play around with testing features and seeing what the output looks like. You may just find that it meets your needs.

Are you or your team looking for a tool to send emails in a multitude of languages? Try GC Notify today!

Language selection

Using GC Notify to send multilingual updates to diverse communities