Contentful lets you create, manage, and distribute content to any platform. Finding an easy and scalable solution to enable localization for everything you create becomes crucial. As a result, new and existing Contentful customers have become increasingly interested in a seamless way of translating both content and media asset types, while ensuring consistency and cost-savings. The Smartling Contentful Connector gives you the ability to do just that.
There are two types of Contentful integrations with Smartling:
- Contentful (Fields) for field-level localization
- Contentful (Entries) for entry-level localization (entries created in Compose only)
For more information on the difference between the two, read the Contentful documentation.
Smartling’s Contentful Connector automatically ingests your Contentful content into Smartling, allowing you to authorize this content for translation from within the Smartling platform. Translations are automatically sent back to Contentful once complete.
Simplified, dynamic HTML Visual Context is supported by default. You can also configure Visual Context preferences in your Smartling Project Settings.
Supported Content Types
Smartling’s Contentful Connector currently ingests all assets and related assets* within the following Contentful content types:
- Content entry
- Media Assets (mime titles and descriptions)
*Related assets or linked entries are ingested 10 levels deep. You can view and manage which related assets are sent for translation, see Translating with the Contentful Connector.
Each content type consists of a set of fields that you define, each of which has specific character limits. If any field exceeds the character limit, the connector cannot deliver translations. For more information on fields and character limits, read Contentful's documentation.
Enable Localization of Contentful
Before using the Smartling Contentful Connector, you will need to make a couple of minor configuration changes to your Contentful account. For more information, read Enabling Localization of Contentful.
Language Mapping
It is important to ensure the source and target languages configured in Contentful match the source and target languages in your Smartling project.
By default, the source languages of each Contentful instance is en-US. If en-US is not the source language of your Smartling project, ensure to let your Solutions Architect know, so they can reconfigure the Contentful Connector accordingly.
A Smartling project can have only one source language, meaning a Contentful Connector can integrate with just one source site. If your Contentful has multiple source sites, e.g. en-US, and en-GB, you should create a Smartling project with a Contentful Connector for each source site.
Tip: If you decide to adjust the language configuration after the initial language mapping, please contact support for assistance.
Contentful Asset List
Once you have connected your Contentful account, you will find Contentful content in the Contentful tab in your Smartling project.
Here you will see a flat list of your Contentful assets, filtered by a specific content type. Each content type has a unique icon and are managed separately from within the Smartling platform, allowing greater visibility and control over the translation management of each. Every time you toggle between each of the Contentful content types within the Smartling platform, Smartling will check Contentful for new content. Entries are the default content filter selection.
The Asset List will include the following columns:
- Name: the title of the asset in Contentful.
- Content Type: the content type as listed in Contentful
- Smartling Status: the asset's translation status in Smartling.
- Contentful Status: Archived, Changed, Draft, or Published.
- Last Modified: is the date the asset was last modified in Contentful.
- App Link: brings you directly to the asset in Contentful.
Asset Details
Click the information icon beside the asset name, to access the Asset Details page. Here you can see further information on that asset, including the translation status for each language, and view any linked entries. From here, you can also Request Translations or Export Translations for that specific asset.
If the asset has linked entries, you'll be able to view them under Linked Entries.
Sort
You can sort the asset list by Contentful structure (default) or last updated.
Asset Types
Content entry
When Content entry is the content selection, you can refine your search by using the Content Type filter to list all assets within a specific content type in Contentful. You can further refine your search by filtering for content in a specific Workflow Stage in Contentful.
Media Asset
When Media is the content selection, you can refine your search by using the Mime Type filter to list all media assets with translatable titles and descriptions.
You can choose to exclude Media Assets from your Contentful project settings.
Search & Filters
Content Type
The Content Type filter is a dropdown menu of all the content types listed in your Contentful instance.
Contentful Status
The Contentful Status filter is a dropdown menu of the Contentful Status. Use this filter to refine your search for an asset in a specific state in Contentful. Contentful Statuses include:
- Archived
- Changed
- Draft
- Published
Date Modified
Use the Date Modified filter to search for assets that have been updated in Contentful with a specific date range. This filter is particularly useful if your Automation of Prior Requests for Translation configuration is set to Manual. By pairing this with the Out of Sync checkbox, you can locate assets that have been modified in Contentful but not yet re-translated. When you locate the assets, simply select it and Request Translation.
Tags
Select from the dropdown list of your Contentful tags and click MATCH ANY to quickly find any or all assets that include those tags in your Contentful instance. Alternatively, you can make a selection of tags from the dropdown list to find any or all assets that exclude those tags in your Contentful instance.
Select the No tags checkbox to quickly find assets that do not have any tags in your Contentful instance.
Entry ID
This search box in the Asset List works allows you to search by a Contentful Entry ID.
You can only search for one asset at a time; comma-separated search is not supported.
Search
The search box in the Asset List works allows you to search by asset title.
You can only search for one asset at a time; comma-separated search is not supported.
Smartling Status
Completed: Translations were successfully delivered from Smartling to Contentful.
Failed: The asset submission failed, or the translation delivery failed. A number of reasons can result in a failed status, but some of the most common are due to invalid regex causing placeholder issues, or the target languages are disabled in Contentful.
In Progress: The asset has been successfully sent to Smartling from Contentful, and the translation process has commenced but is not yet completed. If there is a case where translations are complete, but a network issue occurs, the translations will remain in progress until the Contentful Connector delivers the translations to Contentful on a successful retry.
New: The asset is in the process of being sent for a new translation request. For example, if changes were made to the source content and your Contentful Connector is configured to send the new content automatically for translation. The asset could be sitting in submission queue or sitting in Awaiting Authorization
Not Translated: The asset has never been submitted for translation.
Out of Sync
This checkbox works together with the Automation of Prior Requests for Translation configuration in your Contentful Settings. When this setting is set to Manual, the Contentful Connector will detect changes to source content every 3 hours, but will not automatically submit new content for translation. Instead, changed content can be filtered for in the Contentful 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.
Language Filter
Filter by the dropdown list of target languages configured in Smartling for the Contentful project. Target Languages must also be configured identically in Contentful and mapped in the Contentful Connector Language Configuration found in your Smartling Project Settings.