As of the moment of writing this article, Ubidots supported 5 different languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German. Even though most SaaS companies initiate localization projects after gaining considerable market share in a single language, we chose to be a global product from day one. Aside from being language geeks ourselves, this decision was driven by a few early adopters who requested specific languages. In fact, there’s a handful of companies who wouldn’t be Ubidots customers today if it wasn’t for the supported languages: Latin American customers (Spanish, Portuguese) and some European ones (French and German).
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However, as we ship new features and improvements, it becomes more challenging to keep all translations up to date. In order to mitigate this, Ubidots uses a platform called “Crowdin” as a way to accelerate the localization of existing and new features.
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Translations are done from the Ubidots interface itself. This helps the translator better understand the context of the sentences or words. To become a translator:
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​Step 1: Create a Crowdin account
​Step 2: Reach out to sales@ubidots.com requesting becoming a translator, specifying which language(s) you wish to contribute to and your email address as registered in Crowdin.
​Step 3: We will add you to our Crowdin project, as well as enabling a “Translator” language flag in your Ubidots account, which will be displayed as a new language in your account profile:

Step 4: Upon confirmation of the above, go to your Ubidots account profile and choose the “Translator” language, refresh your browser and choose your target language:

If permissions are correct, you should see the Ubidots interface full of clickable text labels, which you can begin translating one by one:

Let’s translate our first text label:
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​Step 1: Hover the text label you’d like to translate
​Step 2: Click the appearing icon in the top-left of the text.
​Step 3: Enter the translation in the modal
​Step 4: Click the SAVE button
​Step 5: Continue translating additional text labels or close the modal

IMPORTANT NOTE: In some cases, you’ll notice text labels that are not clickable. To translate these, use the Crowdin In-Context bar. Please note that, in these cases, the resulting interface won’t reflect the new language. Our team will be reported about these missing labels, to incorporate them into Crowdin for easier contextual translation:

This Crowdin In-Context option is also useful to translate sentences that usually don’t appear in the user interface. For example, error messages that are hard to encounter can be searched in this bar:

Thank you for contributing to Ubidots! Let us know any inquiries or suggestions at support@ubidots.com
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