Contentful connector

Contentful Connector

 is a headless CMS and iLangL Cloud is the best localization solution for it.

First of all, what is a headless CMS? It is a CMS with strict separation of backend and frontend. The data sharing between backend and frontend is implemented via REST API and reused by our connector.

The highlight of headless CMS is its ability to distribute content via different channels to multiple devices which requires investment into development. The flexibility of headless CMS, however, puts big responsibility on your development team since they need to create a lot from scratch and evaluate the best approach in advance. Localization is one of the aspects that need to be thoroughly analyzed before data structure of the further solution is defined. If you don’t take localization model in account, you may have to redesign the entire application in order to add multilingual support of your data.

Localization is a complex process already, and with the headless CMS in place it may require even more efforts and resources. For example, support of many interfaces for multiple markets may become a big challenge for your company, while our solution can reduce your localization efforts dramatically.

The global advantages of Contentful connector:

• Content export to professional translation tool allows translation re-usage and improves the quality of localization
• Localizable text is automatically returned back to Contentful
• robust translation memory that fosters the productivity and speed of translators;
• No copy/paste and no human errors - as a result, enhanced quality of the final outcome and faster turnaround.

Let's review the localization models that are offered by Contentful and supported by iLangL Contentful Connector.

Field-level localization

This approach is good in case you know for sure that you need to support only one market with a few languages, and all content will be identical for all locales.

Field-level localization is a model where you can enable localization for content property and specify the localized text for each enabled locale.

Pros

• The simplest method to start with.

Cons

• The values of all locales are displayed in the Contentful UI
• Doesn’t allow asynchronous publishing*
• Adding a new language complicates the data management through Contentful UI.

Thanks to delivery capabilities of our Contentful connector, your content writers can focus solely on master content. Management and translation of the language versions can be performed in the professional localization tools. If content writer works directly with Contentful, we recommend enabling governance* and granting them access to native locale only.

Entry-level localization

This approach is good in case you have many languages and different view per locale.

Entry-level localization is a model where you can set up a dedicated content instance per locale. The trick here is that this is not an out of box feature and you need to create aggregation entity with localizable referenced field that will keep references to the locale versions.

Pros

• Better management of multilingual content
• Asynchronous publishing*

Cons

• Not an out of box solution and requires handling of content types

With our Contentful connector you won’t have to worry about the locale versions. They will be created automatically based on the source version and assigned to the corresponding reference in the aggregated entry. In case local version already exists, the connector will update the corresponding properties even if the source and target content types are different.

Space-level localization

This approach is good when you need to distribute content to more than one market.

Space-level localization is a model where you have dedicated space* for each locale. This allows more flexibility with content management and customization.

Pros

• Space per locale
• Asynchronous publishing*

Cons

• Distribution of localizable content
• Content and content types synchronization across spaces

With Contentful connector we can help export content from global space, localize it and deliver to another space assigned to the target language.

Space-level localization can be perfectly combined with Entry-level localization. Here is our suggestion:

We recommend setting up the global space storing the global content that must be present in all markets. For each market, set up a separate space and sync it with the global space. Each market space must have global language enabled as well as local language(s) and entry-level localization configured. Implement solution that synchronizes changes in the global space with all the corresponding market spaces. With the suggested setup and our Contentful connector, any change in the global space will be reflected in all market channels. It can then be easily ordered for translation and delivered to the right places in relevant markets without any manual involvement.

Content type and other localization models

Whatever localization model you choose, our connector and configuration service will be able to adjust accordingly and automate the localization process for your solution.

Dictionary

Space is where you interact with your content for your particular goals; organizations.  

Governance is the ability to restrict users' activity to a given locale. Say you only want to grant some users the right to edit one of the German locales. Or perhaps you want to hide the Switzerland-Italian locale from others—governance would allow you to accomplish these tasks.  

Asynchronous publishing is the ability to publish content in some locales but not others. This comes in handy when, for instance, a campaign will be released in one locale before another.

Supported Translation Management Systems