Export, Translate, and Import New Languages
Before continuing, a system admin must enable the Enable Translations beta feature.
Once the Enable Translations beta feature has been enabled, a new Languages tab will become available in the Administration settings.
Onit can provide some pre-translated files for the following languages:
- Simplified Chinese
- French Canadian
- Japanese
- Spanish
Reach out to your Account Manager to request these files.
Note: These translations are a starting point and will not cover all text in the configuration.
To add a new language click the Add Language button.
In the new dialogue box select the name of the new language you would like to add, then click Save. By default, new languages are disabled.
Click the download arrow next to the language you have just added to download the language translation file.
In the Language Export dialogue box choose what you would like Onit to export for translation.
Once you have chosen which Apps/Suites you would like to translate, click Export As to download the file as a .csv or excel file.
Excel is recommended.
The language export file will have 4 columns as shown below:
- (A) This column is the system key, do not edit this column.
- (B) This column represents the default exported values from Onit in English.
- (C) This column should be used for translated values.
- (D) An optional column for notes. Notes will be retained between downloads, but they are not visible from within Onit.
Once all translations are ready, upload the file into Onit.
Navigate to Administration, then Languages and click the upload arrow next to the corresponding language.
Once the file has been uploaded change the language to Enabled.
User Profiles / User Preferences Set-up
The next step of language set-up involves the User Profiles App and User Preference Provider.
Go to the User Profiles Application Wizard and create a new Field. This Field will store user's language preference.
- Name: language
- Label: Language
- Data Type: Combo
-
Values: Languages should be formatted as follows:
language abbreviation_language name, for examplefr:French.
Navigate to the User Preferences Providers under Global Configuration.
From the Preferred Language dropdown select the Field you created in the previous step (language).
Click Save to keep your changes. Once you refresh the page you should see a language preference dropdown:
Translating Emails and Portal Widgets
In order to translate emails and portal widgets two new Liquid filters can be used: field_translate and translate_key.
field_translate
The field_translate Liquid filter works with strings that have been translated elsewhere in Onit. For example in portal widgets and emails, most of the text will already be translated via language configuration. For string translations that reference existing translated Fields the field_translate Liquid filter should be used.
{{"name" | field_translate: app_id, pref_lang }} or, for Fields in the same App as the email/widget
{{"name" | field_translate: app, pref_lang }}- name – Field name (not the display name) that you are looking to retrieve.
- app_id/app – The id of the App where the Field is located. This can either be a separate App from where you’re using the Liquid or the same App.
- pref_lang – The user’s language setting from their User Profile. This setting can be retrieved using the below liquid as an example:
{% assign pref = current_user.email | email_to_user | user_preferences_for_user %}{{pref | combo_value: "preferred_language"}}translate_key
In other cases the string you want to translate only exists in the email/portal widget and has no corresponding translation to reference. The translate_key filter should be used in this case:
{{ "key" | translate_key: "default text" }}For example:
{{ "ui.action.liquid" | translate_key: "This is a UI action liquid key example" }}- key - Text that will be replaced with the translated string.
- translate_key - The translated string.
If an existing translation is not found by the system when rendering the page, the translate_key string will be used by default, in this case it is “This is a UI action liquid key example”.
Translating Combo Options (Display Value)
To translate a Combo field you'll first need to configure the options to be complex options (value:value).
Now when you export the translation spreadsheet you will see rows for each options.
Note: This will only translate the display value of the option, not the value that is saved to the record.