Language translation

Staff users can configure the translation mode used by iMIS Translation. The selected translation mode controls how iMIS Translation collects and translates new untranslated phrases.

Do the following to set up translation in iMIS:

1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Language translation > General.
2. Select the Translation Mode:
• (None) – Does not collect or attempt to translate untranslated phrases.
• Learn only – Collects new untranslated phrases for an active dictionary but does not attempt to translate the phrases.
• Translate only – Translates phrases using the active dictionary for the selected language but does not collect any new untranslated phrases.
• Learn and translate known phrases – Collects new untranslated phrases and adds them to the active dictionary and translates phrases already contained in the active dictionary for the selected language.
• Learn and translate using Microsoft® Translator – Collects new untranslated phrases and adds them to the active dictionary, and translates phrases already contained in the active dictionary for the selected language. If a translation is not present in the active dictionary, the phrase is translated into the selected language using Microsoft Azure Translator Text application.

Note: Microsoft Azure Translator Text API V2 will be discontinued on April 30, 2019.
You must upgrade iMIS before April 30, 2019 to prevent the Learn and translate using Microsoft® Translator feature from ceasing to function.

If Learn and translate using Microsoft® Translator is selected, you must configure the Microsoft Azure Translator Text application. See Configuring Microsoft Translator Text application for more information.

Note: Using the Microsoft Azure Translator Text application will drastically slow down iMIS. ASI recommends to only use this mode when initially capturing phrases.

If you are using one of the Learn modes to collect new phrases, you must first select the language in which you want to learn from the language translation drop-down. Once the correct language is displayed, navigate to the areas with the new content so the translator can learn these new phrases.

You must activate a dictionary before you can apply the dictionary to your website. See Activating a dictionary version for more information.

You can add a language in iMIS. For example, you can add Dutch to the list of languages in iMIS, and then simply import a translated phrase dictionary. To modify an existing iMIS dictionary, you will first need to export the dictionary.

Spanish, French, German, and Dutch are available in iMIS by default. Do the following to add a new language:

1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Language translation > Translation cultures.
2. Click Add new culture.
3. Enter a Culture ID and a Name for the new language.

Note: The Culture ID must conform to the ISO-639-1 two-letter language-name codes, for example, en (English) or fr (French).

4. Enter a Display name. This is the name that will appear in the translation drop-down. This name will not display in the translation drop-down until there is an active version for the culture.

Note: It is recommended that the Display name be entered in the language the name represents, for example, enter Deutsch for a German culture.

5. Click Save to save your new language. You will need to create a dictionary version and then import the language dictionary.

Versions allow you to tailor your translation for multiple dialects. For example, you can create two different versions of Spanish: one version for Spanish-language speakers in Mexico, and another version for Spanish-language speakers in Spain. However, regardless of the customizations you make to your versions, you can only specify one language for your members. For example, if you make changes to a Spanish version and call it Spanish-Mexico, you will still only be able to display Spanish in the Translation drop-down on your websites.

You can also have only one active dictionary per language. For example, you can activate the new Spanish-Mexico version, but you will not be able to activate any other Spanish versions until you deactivate Spanish-Mexico.

Note: You must be careful when naming custom dictionaries. Any dictionary that is named with the prefix ASI_ will be overwritten on an upgrade. You must rename any dictionary that you do not want overwritten on upgrade.

Do the following to create a new dictionary version:

1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Language translation > Translation cultures.
2. Find the language, then click the Versions link.
3. Click Add new version.
4. Enter a Name and additional information:
When creating subsequent versions, the option Copy from live version is selected by default, if there is an existing dictionary for the initial version. This option is not available when you are creating the initial version. This option will create a new version of your language based on your live websites. If you select Copy from other version, the new version will be based on existing versions for the selected language. This option copies phrases from all existing versions of a language.
5. Click Save. You will need to import the translated dictionary associated with the translated version you created.

Note: As a best practice, when creating a new language culture and a new version of that culture, it is recommended that you edit the phrases in the phrase dictionary that is generated for the new version, rather than exporting an existing version of another culture. For more information about editing phrases, see Editing phrases in a dictionary.

You can easily import a new translated phrase dictionary into iMIS, or create a new dictionary based on an existing one. You can either import a new spreadsheet that contains translated phrases, or you can export an existing version into an Excel spreadsheet, then edit the phrases in that spreadsheet and import the modified spreadsheet to create a new dictionary.

Note: If a phrase dictionary contains a blank Phrase cell, then that row is silently ignored during a dictionary import process.
If the phrase dictionary contains a blank TranslatedPhrase cell, and DoNotLocalize is set to False, then that row is silently ignored during a dictionary import process, as well.

When importing an Excel spreadsheet, note that the file extension must be xls.

Note: You might need to download Access drivers to be able to import the Excel spreadsheet. You can go to the Microsoft Download Center to download the Microsoft Access Database Engine Redistributable that is compatible with the version of Microsoft Windows installed on your system (32- or 64- bit version). Be sure to read all System Requirements before downloading.
You must install the Microsoft Access Database Engine Redistributable on your application server.

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Note: You must ensure the header row is not removed or modified in the spreadsheet before import. If the header row is modified or removed, the import will fail.

You must be careful when naming custom dictionaries. Any dictionary that is named with the prefix ASI_ will be overwritten on an upgrade. You must rename any dictionary that you do not want overwritten on upgrade.

Importing a dictionary spreadsheet

Note: If a phrase dictionary contains a blank Phrase cell, then that row is silently ignored during a dictionary import process.
If the phrase dictionary contains a blank TranslatedPhrase cell, and DoNotLocalize is set to False, then that row is silently ignored during a dictionary import process, as well.

Do the following to import a new translated phrase dictionary into iMIS that contains translated phrases:

1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Language translation > Translation cultures and click Versions for the language for which you want to import a dictionary spreadsheet.
2. If the version into which you want to import is active, click Deactivate. If you do not already have an existing version for this language, create one. See Creating new dictionary versions for a language.
3. Click Phrases for the version into which you want to import a phrase spreadsheet.
4. On the Import/Export tab, click Import Phrases from Excel.
5. Browse to find your Excel file. Click Open to select the Excel file you want to import. When importing an Excel spreadsheet, note that the file extension must be xls.
6. Click Start Importing. A results screen will be displayed when the import is completed.
7. Click Close.
8. Click Back to Versions List.
9. Click Activate to activate your new dictionary. The culture Display Name will display in the language drop-down list. If it does not, refresh or navigate to a different page.

You must activate a dictionary before you can apply the dictionary to your website. Do the following:

1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Language translation > Translation cultures.
2. Select the Versions link in the Actions column for the desired language.
3. Click Activate for the specific dictionary you want to use.

There can only be one active dictionary per culture (language). For example, you can have an active French dictionary and an active Spanish dictionary at the same time, but you cannot have two active French dictionaries (versions).

If a dictionary is not currently available for a language, you can import a translated dictionary. See Importing dictionaries.

Note: As a best practice, when creating a new language culture and a new version of that culture, it is recommended that you edit the phrases in the phrase dictionary that is generated for the new version, rather than exporting an existing version of another culture.

iMIS Translation enables you to edit phrases that you want to refine. There are two methods to choose from for editing phrases:

• Edit directly in the Version Editor.
• Export the dictionary, update the phrases, and re-import the updated dictionary.

Note: If a phrase dictionary contains blank Phrase or TranslatedPhrase cells, then that row is silently ignored during a dictionary import process.

Edit the phrases using the Version Editor

Do the following to directly edit phrases in a dictionary using the Version Editor:

1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Language translation > Translation cultures.
2. Select Versions in the Actions column for the desired language.
3. If the dictionary you want to edit is currently active, select Deactivate.
4. Select Phrases for the dictionary you want to edit. This will open the Version Editor.
5. In the Filter tab, select Show All to see all phrases, or select Show Only New to see new phrases.
6. Search or browse to find a phrase you want to edit. You can search for the original or translated phrase.

Note: If you search for a phrase, click Search. Do not press Enter.

7. Click Edit for a phrase you want to edit. You can click Delete to remove a phrase from the dictionary.
8. Edit the Translated Phrase field.

Note: The other configuration options in this window, for example Status and Is Phrase, currently have no impact on the dictionary phrase.

9. Click Update.
10. You can also click Update from Live Version to update the selected dictionary with additional entries from a live dictionary of the same language.

Note: The ability to edit Phrases is only available if there is a pre-existing dictionary of a culture.

11. Click Back to Versions List and click Activate to view the changes on your website.

Exporting dictionaries

You can export an existing version into an Excel spreadsheet, then edit the phrases in that spreadsheet and re-import the modified spreadsheet to create a new or updated dictionary.

You must be careful when naming custom dictionaries. Any dictionary that is named with the prefix ASI_ will be overwritten on an upgrade. You must rename any dictionary that you do not want overwritten on upgrade.

Exporting a dictionary places the entire library in an Excel spreadsheet. The following are some of the reasons you might want to export an iMIS dictionary:

• Edit a dictionary offline
• Add new untranslated phrases along with the preferred translation
• Alter current translations to make them suit your preference

Warning!
It is critical that you do not change any existing untranslated phrases in the dictionary in any way. This is because the phrases are what is matched in the database both when translating and when importing/exporting.

Do the following to export a dictionary:

1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Language translation > Translation cultures.
2. Click Versions for the culture for which you want to export a dictionary spreadsheet.
3. If the version from which you want to export is currently active, click Deactivate.
4. Click Phrases for the version from which you want to export.
5. On the Import/Export tab, click Export Phrases to Excel.
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6. Modify the exported spreadsheet as you like.
7. Import the modified file to a new dictionary version.

Note: You must ensure the header row is not removed or modified in the spreadsheet before import. If the header row is modified or removed, the import will fail.

If you want to experiment with the look and feel of your websites and how they might behave under different translations, you can use the Microsoft Azure Translator Text application. This tool will allow you to create a basic, temporary dictionary that you can use to experiment with website translation.

Note: ASI does not recommend using dictionaries created by Microsoft Azure Translator Text application or similar machine-translation tools for live websites. It is accepted best practice within the language translation industry to avoid the use of machine translation in software intended for live production use.

Enable the Microsoft Azure Translator Text application service

Note: Microsoft Azure Translator Text API V2 will be discontinued on April 30, 2019.
You must upgrade iMIS before April 30, 2019 to prevent the Learn and translate using Microsoft® Translator feature from ceasing to function.

Enter your Microsoft Azure Translator Text authentication key to enable the Microsoft Azure Translator Text service. To obtain these credentials, you must:

1. Create a Microsoft account if you do not already have one.
2. Sign up for Microsoft Azure Translator Text application at the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
3. Enter your Microsoft Azure Translator Text authentication key in iMIS.

Note: If you select Learn and translate using Microsoft® Translator, you will experience a decrease in performance when interacting with functionality that uses an AJAX control, for example, selecting a different Payment Method in the Cart.