Setting Up Your Akeneo Connector

This article takes Account Owner and Project Manager users through the process of setting up the Akeneo Connector.

Please note that this Connector is a paid product. For pricing information, please reach out to your Smartling Customer Success Manager.

STEP ONE: Set up Languages in Akeneo

Each language you are translating into must be mapped from Akeneo to Smartling. Consult Akeneo's documentation to learn more on how to set up languages in Akeneo.

STEP TWO: Create an Akeneo Project in Smartling

1. Log into Smartling
2. Create an Akeneo Connector project type in your Smartling Account
3. Ensure all required target languages that have been set up in Akeneo are also added to this project

STEP THREE: Connect Akeneo to Smartling

The Manage App permission is required in your Akeneo user role.

1. In your Akeneo instance, click Connect > App Store
   
   
2. Search "Smartling"
3. In the Smartling Akeneo App, click Connect
   
   
4. Select your Akeneo Connector Smartling project
5. Next, authenticate Smartling by clicking ALLOW AND NEXT on the top right of the page
6. The next page lists all permissions required to connect to Smartling. Click ALLOW AND NEXT on the top right of the page
7. Next, grant Smartling edit and view permissions for Category content
   • This is the content that will be sync'd in Smartling once the connector is fully set up
   • Edit and View should list the same categories
   • If you select All for edit, ensure to select All for view
   • Smartling does not require any "Own" permissions; therefore, this field can be left blank
     
8. Next, grant Smartling ALL edit and view permissions for Locales
   • We recommend selecting All for both
   • Edit is required to deliver translated files with the translated locale name appended to the asset
   • View is required to map languages from Akeneo to Smartling
9. Next, grant Smartling ALL edit and view permissions for Attribute Groups
   • We recommend selecting All for both
10. Click NEXT on the top right of the page
11. Review and click CONFIRM on the top right of the page
    • You can always modify permissions later by clicking Connect > Connected Apps > Smartling Akeneo App in your Akeneo instance
12. Select the Akeneo source locale (the language you are translated from in Akeneo)
    • This is a list of all the locales you have set up in Akeneo
    • This must match the source locale of the project
13. Click Save

Tip: Your Akeneo account is now connected to Smartling.

STEP FOUR: Configure the Akeneo Connector

When you have successfully completed connecting Akeneo to Smartling, the Akeneo Setting page has the following configurations

• General
• Language Configuration

General

You can configure the behavior of the connector when updates are made to your previously translated content.

1. From within your Smartling Akeneo Project, click on Project Settings > Akeneo Settings.
2. Click the "Automation of Prior Requests for Translation" dropdown to select your desired behavior.
3. Click Save.

Automation of Prior Requests for Translation

This setting controls how you want Smartling to monitor changes to content that has already been translated in Smartling. Smartling will not detect net new content, only updates to content that have been submitted for translation in the past.

Options include:

• Auto: The Akeneo Connector will detect changes to source content every 3 hours.
  • Any changes detected to the source content will be submitted to Smartling for translation, batched into a Job and sit in awaiting authorization. However, if auto-authorize is enabled under Smartling Settings, the updated content will be batched into a Job and automatically authorized for translation.
• Manual: The Akeneo Connector will detect changes to source content every 3 hours, but will not automatically submit content changes for translation.
  • Changed content can be filtered for in the Akeneo Asset list by selecting the Out of Sync checkbox. A user can then manually select the assets that should be re-translated, and Request Translation from the Actions dropdown.
• Disabled (default): The Akeneo Connector will not detect changes to source content or automatically submit new changes.

3 hours is the recommended shortest time duration between checks. Talk to your Solutions Architect about changing the frequency to longer wave periods using cron.

 

Language Mapping 

In the Language Configuration section, you will see the number of target languages in your Smartling project. The first time you open this page, you will find a blank field to the left of each of the Smartling target languages. You must insert a name for each target language in each field and save to complete language mapping. 

Any language left blank will not appear in the dropdown list of target languages, when you Request Translation of content.

Each time you add a new language to the project, you must map that language in the connector settings.

1. From within your Smartling Akeneo Project, click on Project Settings > Akeneo Settings.
2. Select the name of the target language from the dropdown menu of target languages in Akeneo
3. Each language in Akeneo (left) should match the languages in Smartling (right)
4. Click Save to save each mapping
   

Content Parsing

When Smartling captures content from Akeneo it can process the content based on this configuration setting and break down the individual fields into even smaller strings for translation. This process makes it easier to produce higher quality translations faster.

Parsing Option	Description
Copy source	Copies the source content to the target field. This happens automatically when Connector delivers a translated file to Akeneo - no action required. Simply map the required field as "Copy source" and the Connector will deliver as upon the Job delivery. The latest version of the source is always delivered as the target.
Do not translate	Use this if the content type shouldn't be translated using Smartling.
HTML	Parses content's HTML tags for the best experience by translators and maximum Translation Memory leverage.  Use this when your content is likely to have HTML markup in it
Plain Text	All text and characters treated as plain text. Use this for content that you expect to only have plain text with no markup or formatting.

 

1. From your Akeneo project, click the gear icon and select Project Settings. Then, on the left side, click Akeneo Settings.  
2. Under Content Parsing, select your Akeneo space. A list of the localizable fields appears.
3. For each field, decide whether it requires translation, and if so, which parser should be used for that field.
4. Click Save.

All the content from the fields that are enabled will be captured in Smartling. However, you will still be able to select specific strings when Requesting Translations.

Ensure that these steps are done for each content type.

Smartling Settings

Talk to your Customer Success Manager or Solutions Architect about options on auto-authorization, file retrievable formats, and file versioning.