The Smartling App for Contentstack allows you and your team to seamlessly submit entry content for translation. This allows your content writers to continue to create spectacular new content in Contentstack, and instantly submit it to Smartling for translation, without ever leaving Contentstack.
The Smartling Widget also allows you to track each language's translation progress from within Contentstack. Completed translations can be easily viewed and published from the Contentstack languages switcher.
Prerequisites
- You must have a connected Contentstack Connector project in Smartling
- Ensure the Contentstack Connector is connected to the correct stack in Contentstack.
- The Contentstack Connector project requires authentication to a specific stack in Contentstack. This is the stack that the Smartling App is integrated with. You can find the Smartling App in the widget page of that stack.
- A Contentstack Admin user must install the Smartling widget in Contentstack
- An Account Manager or Project Manager Smartling user must connect the Smartling App to the correct Smartling project
Installation
The following steps must be completed by a Contentstack Admin user:
- The Smartling App can be found in the Contentstack Marketplace. Search Smartling in the Apps and click install.
- Next, you need to choose the same stack that is already integrated with Smartling to install the widget, and accept the T&C's before clicking Install.
Once installed, you must click Save (on the bottom-right side of the page).
A green notifier will appear once this has been successfully installed.
Next, let's find the Smartling App in your widgets, and connect the Smartling App to your Contentstack Connector project in Smartling.
Connect the Smartling App to Smartling
The following steps must be completed by a Smartling Account Owner or Project Manager user:
- Go to the stack you selected to install the Smartling App to
- On the left navigation, click Entries
- Click on any entry you want to translate
- On the right navigation, click Widgets
- From your installed app list, select the Smartling App
- If it's your first time using the Smartling App, you will need to connect to your Contentstack Connector project in Smartling, by clicking configuration page
- This will open a new tab in your browser where you can log into Smartling using your Smartling credentials. Once logged in, you will see the following page:
- Simply close this tab and return to Contentstack, where you must choose which Smartling project to submit content to. Ensure this project is a live Contentstack Connector project, with correct language mapping
- Once you have selected a project from the dropdown, click Save
Now you're ready to translate entries from Contentstack!
Submit Content for Translation
The following steps can be completed by any Contentstack user who has access to the specific stack:
- Go to the stack you selected to install the Smartling App to
- On the left navigation, click Entries
- Click on any entry you want to translate
- On the right navigation, click Widgets
- From your installed app list, select the Smartling App
- Click Request Translation to create a Job in Smartling
- The Request Translation two-step wizard will appear for you to enter the Job details. You can choose to create a New Job or add the asset to an Existing Job.
- Insert the Job Name - the title for the translation task in Smartling.
- Ensure the asset selection is correct. Click the X to remove any asset listed.
- Choose to include Related Assets. For more information, see the links guide.
- Insert a description for the linguists, if desired.
- Select the Target Languages.
- Click Save Job and Continue to create the Job in Smartling.
- The next step will display the Job Processing.
- Once the processing is complete, the Job details will appear. This means that the content has been successfully submitted to Smartling. To start the translation process, the Job now needs to be authorized.
Authorize the Job
In a second step, the Job needs to be authorized to kick off the translation process.
Jobs can be authorized directly in Contentstack, or from your Jobs Dashboard in Smartling.
Option 1: Authorizing the Job in Contentstack
When creating a Job, you can either save it for later, or authorize it directly from within Contentstack:
- Before authorizing the Job, we would recommend specifying the Overall Due Date, which is the deadline for the Job completion.
Select the date and time when the Job should be completed. - Unless specified otherwise, the Job will be authorized into the default workflow for each target language, as per the Settings > Languages in your Smartling project. If you would like to use a different workflow, select the desired workflow from the drop-down menu.
For a more granular view of the workflow for each target language in your Job, click Show Details.
You can now select the desired workflow for each target language. - To start the translation process straight away, click "Authorize Job".
Once a Job has been authorized, you can monitor the translation progress for each language directly from the Smartling App in Contentstack. - Alternatively, if you select "Save for Later", the Job gets created but is "Awaiting Authorization". To begin the translation process, the Job then needs to be authorized in Smartling.
Option 2: Authorizing the Job in Smartling
Alternatively, if a Job is saved for later, it can be authorized at a later point from the Smartling dashboard.
- Once your content has been submitted to Smartling, an Account Owner or Project Manager user can find the Job in Awaiting Authorization in their Jobs Dashboard.
- To start the translation process, click Authorize.
- Select the desired workflow and confirm.
Monitor Translation Progress from Contentstack
The following steps can be completed by any Contentstack user who has access to the specific stack:
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Once authorized, you can monitor the translation progress for each language in the Job, directly from the Smartling App in Contentstack.
- If you want to add another language to the Job for that entry, simply click Request Translation and add the content to the existing Job.
- Once translations are complete, the Smartling Status will indicate a green COMPLETED.
Locking Completed Translations
Once the translations for a target language have been completed, they can be locked to prevent this language from receiving subsequent translation updates.
This feature can be used if the translations for a given language are adapted to an alternative version that does not need to stay in sync with the original source language. This allows you to significantly modify the locked language without risking to lose those customizations with subsequent translation updates of the source asset.
Tip: To use the "Lock language" setting, the translations for the relevant target language need to be published and delivered back to Contentstack.
Please note that unlocking a language does not initiate an immediate re-delivery. It simply unblocks any future deliveries for this language.
View & Publish Translations in Contentstack
The following steps can be completed by any Contentstack user who has access to the specific stack:
- To view the translated entry, click the language dropdown and select a language
- Choose to Publish this translated entry in Contentstack when it's ready
Unpublish Translations in Contentstack
The following steps can be completed by any Contentstack user who has access to the specific stack:
Unlocalizing the entry will prevent the translations being applied to the entry, and revert the copy to the source language. To undo this action, simply click Save and the entry will localize in the target language. unpublish trans