ChannelEngine: product translations [add-on]

About this article

This article describes ChannelEngine's product translations feature.

Table of contents

Introduction

Prepare for translations

Request a translation via the web interface

Monitor the translation

Verify the translation

Retrieve translations via API

FAQs

Introduction

To sell your products across multiple countries, especially products that are less mainstream or not connected to well-known brands, you may have to provide your product information in multiple languages.

ChannelEngine facilitates this process by offering an integration with automated translation tools, such as Google Cloud Translate and Deepl.

Prepare for translations

When using this feature, make sure to select only the source attributes, products, and languages you need before scheduling the translation. While the cost per word/character is quite low, translating two million characters, for instance, adds up. Any translations done via ChannelEngine are billed monthly and are shown on your invoices.

Before requesting a translation via ChannelEngine, narrow down a list consisting of:

• Products whose content requires translations
• Key attributes to translate
• Source languages
• Target languages

Request a translation via the web interface

To request a translation via ChannelEngine:

1. From the sidebar menu, go to Products, Product translations. If the option is not visible in this menu, it is either not enabled for your account or you do not have the correct permissions to configure translations.
2. The Product translations page shows an overview of all previously created translations. Click Add.
3. Enter all the relevant details of the new translation request:
   • Name - the name of the translation project.
   • Translation service - select the translation service you want to use. The source and target languages, as well as the cost, vary based on the selected translation service.
   • Contains HTML - toggle on if any of the attributes for which you are requesting a translation include HTML content.
   • Update existing translations - toggle on to retranslate previously translated attributes that are included again in this request.
   • Source language - select the input language, i.e.: the language you want to translate from. It is important that this is correctly selected so that the translation does not fail.
   • Target language - select the output language(s). Select one or multiple languages.
   • Level - define the selection of products you want to translate. If you select Channel, all products on the channel are included. Further specify on which channel your products are listed in the second dropdown. If you select Product selection, then select the name of the product selection in the second dropdown. 
   • Fields - select the attributes of the selected products that you want to translate. Product description and title attributes are common options. Both translation services connected with ChannelEngine support HTML.
4. Once all required information is entered, click Calculate translations costs to find out how many characters and products are included in the translation project, as well as what the total cost estimation is.
5. After you check the calculation and agree with the request, click Save to store the translation request.
6. The new translation request is now visible in the overview. You can continue to edit the project by clicking the pencil icon. 
7. To submit the translation request, click Schedule. Once the translation is scheduled, changes are no longer possible to your request. 
8. A pop-up appears to reiterate that the translation is linked to a cost. To continue with the request, click Confirm. 
9. Due to the rate limits on translation APIs, it is not always possible to immediately submit a large number of characters for translation; the process is not instantaneous. 

Monitor the translation

1. Once the translation process begins, the status of the translation changes to Running.

   

   
   The new translations are made available as extra data fields on the selected products. Click the eye icon to view which fields are being translated. When the process finishes, its status changes to Completed, and the project is eligible for editing and scheduling again.

2. If the translation service experiences a temporary connection failure or hits a rate limit, the translation status changes to Failed. In this case, the Retry button appears next to the translation. 

   

3. Click Retry to re-translate the fields that failed to translate in the first round of translation. 

Verify the translation

Although the quality of automated translation services has improved significantly in the past few years, it is very important to verify their output, if possible. This way, your customers can make an informed purchase based on reliable titles and descriptions.

To verify the translation:

1. Go to a channel containing the products for which you created the translations. 
2. Open a product from the relevant product selection. 
3. Scroll down to the extra data section. There, you see one or more translated attributes added by the translation service (Figure 2), based on the input (Figure 1).

Retrieve translations via API

Translations can also be retrieved via the API. They are included as custom fields when calling the GET/v2/products or GET/v2/products/{merchantProductNo} endpoints. You can spot them out by looking for the |CE:[language code] suffix attached to the attribute's name.

E.g.: the response below shows "Key": "NAME|CE:SV" and "Key": "BRAND|CE:SV" for the Swedish (i.e.: SV) translation of the Name and Brand attributes.

	{         "Key": "Verpakking gewicht eenheid",         "Value": "kg",         "Type": "TEXT",         "IsPublic": false       },       {         "Key": "Extra image link 10",         "Value": "https://www.example.be/sites/www.example.be/files/example-braadpannen-example.png",         "Type": "TEXT",         "IsPublic": false       },       {         "Key": "Extra image link 11",         "Value": "https://www.example.be/sites/www.example.be/files/example-braadpannen-example.png",         "Type": "TEXT",         "IsPublic": false       },       {         "Key": "NAME|CE:SV",         "Value": "Example Stekpanna 20cm",         "Type": "TEXT",         "IsPublic": false       },       {         "Key": "BRAND|CE:SV",         "Value": "ExamplePan",         "Type": "TEXT",         "IsPublic": false       }, 

FAQs

What happens when an already translated product selection is updated?
Previously translated selections are not automatically retranslated following an update to their attributes. ChannelEngine's translation service also skips selections that had already been translated, even when you request their retranslation. This is done so you are not charged multiple times for the same translation. To change that behavior, enable the toggle setting Update existing translations.

My translation request has failed, but I do not see the reason why. What happened?
The most common causes of translation failures are either downtime or rate limiting on the service provider's side. In both cases, the only solution is to try again later. However, when it comes to rate limiting, the earlier in the day you submit the translation request, the better your chances are. If the issue persists, contact ChannelEngine's Support team.