Sitecore Connector Configure Translations on Field Level

This article is for users of the Sitecore Connector.

Apply Translations to Target Language Version

Below are steps for how the Sitecore connector handles field values when new translations are applied from Smartling:

1. Add a new version for the target language. (The connector never edits the existing version.)
   
   • The connector parses the XML file and gets a list of fields and their translations.
2. Update all fields sequentially from the list above. The connector uses "field key" to look up a field in an item. (Two fields can have the same name in the same item.)
3. Copy other fields (that were not submitted to Smartling) from source to target language versions.
   • This step allows synchronizing changes from a source language. For example, you have the field, "Webinar Date", and you translated your item. Later on, you updated the webinar description and changed the date. When new translations are applied, the "Webinar Date" field will update as well.
   • The connector doesn't copy "system" fields (field name starts from "__").
   • If some fields are configured as “Ignore value” (see next section) then these fields will be also ignored.
4. The connector copies the field, "__Final Renderings" from the source only if the first version of a target language is created. For all subsequent versions, you could modify the final renderings of the target language, and they should just be copied from version to version. (Out-of-the-box Sitecore functionality.)

Configure Translation Behavior on Field Level

The connector automatically handles all non-shared item fields. However, there are a couple of different strategies for how it processes field values:

• The default strategy: Copy a value from the source to target language version.
• If a field type is configured in Translatable Field Types, then the value will be ingested into Smartling, and the translation will be applied later.
• Also, 4 additional strategies are available for explicit configuration
  

  Strategy	Behavior
  Ignore value	Don’t copy the field value from the source to the target language version.
  Copy value	Always copy the field value from the source to the target language version even if the field is configured to send content to Smartling. The latest version of the source is always delivered as a new version of the target.
  Translate value as HTML	Adds a hint to the Smartling parser on how to parse a field value.
  Translate value as plain text	Adds a hint to the Smartling parser on how to parse a field value. It’s useful when a string contains HTML entities (such as <, >, &, etc), but Smartling should not escape them.

  
  You can find these strategies in the new Field Handling (Localization) field of your template fields.

Below is an example of how you can fine tune the connector's behavior. For example, you have two Single-Line Text fields: email; css class. You may not want to translate those type of values, but you may still want to translate other fields that are Single-Line Text. In this case, you can tell the connector how to handle each particular field.

Use case example: We want to have different values for different languages for all fields.

• “User name” should be translated by Smartling.
• “email” should be copied by the connector (from the source to the target language).
• “css class” should not be copied (ignored). If required, you will manually add the value for the target language.

Steps:

1. No action is required for "User name". It will automatically be sent to Smartling.
2. Click “email” and scroll down to the “Smartling” section. Here you will find a dropdown with different options. Select “Copy value”.
   
3. Click on “css class” and select “Ignore value”.