“One suite to rule them all”- with Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity suites offering, this phrase is not an overstatement. True to form, the launch of SharePoint 2013 as part of Office 365 empower businesses in so many ways – from collaboration, to document management, project management and even social.
Not many of us know, that beyond the flagship features of SharePoint 2013, there are still more capabilities that are waiting to be tapped.
Like what?
Localization.
What is localization?
Localization or translating contents and pages to readers’ native language is one of the features of SharePoint 2013 through Variations. Variations allow users to create, manage and translate local specific contents for internet and intranet sites.
Machine Translation Service
Initially started in SharePoint 2007, Variations in SP 2013 had been re-engineered to better cater to the needs of the geographically diverse market. Now, it has a Machine Translation Service that connects SharePoint to Microsoft Translator. This feature serves as the first line of web content translation which enables users to immediately translate from English to other 39 supported languages.
Machine translation works as an additional step after publishing and approving source-language content; after this, it will be automatically synced to the local site where it’s needed.
XLIFF Extraction for Translation Outside SP
While the Machine Translator proved to be useful in a fast, easy and cost efficient way to localize content; some businesses want to have their contents translated outside SharePoint. This is where the use of XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF) file is useful. XLIFF is an Oasis open-source language that is very popular now in the localization industry.
Centralized and Distributed Control
SharePoint 2013’s variation had been a product resulting from numerous dialogues from different organizations using localized content. Out of these consultations came two beneficial solution features: Centralized and Distributed controls.
Centralized control pertains to the capability to publish contents that apply to all offices, regardless of their location. This is beneficial most especially if the main office wanted to announce new products or services that are offered across all locations. On the other hand, Distributed control is the feature that allows local users to create their own content and at the same time, limit it in their geographic area alone. This feature gives the most utility for those products and services that are only launched in a specific location.
With the geographic boundaries in business shedding as information and technology fosters, there is a need for the organization to focus on improving content and communication in its offshore offices as well. If your business wants to start content localization using SharePoint 2013, now is a perfect time to discuss with Portal Integrators.
