How do translators fit into the experience workflow for a 3-locale site?
Hello. I coordinate localization for a site rolling out experiences in French, German, and English, and I work with external translators who are not in our Croct workspace.
Before I design the handoff process, I want to understand three things:
- Where do the translated versions of slot content actually live?
- How can a translator review their work in context before we publish? They will not have dashboard access.
- What does the localization add-on cover exactly, versus what the base product already does?
Our current process for the main CMS involves export files and screenshots and I would rather not repeat that here
1 answer
We run fr/de/en with external translators, so here is how it maps.
The translated versions live in the dashboard: per-locale default content is the localization add-on. Once it is enabled, each locale's content is managed in the dashboard alongside the default, so there is no separate translation store to sync. On the code side, content fetches take a preferredLocale option, and your croct.json5 declares defaultLocale and locales, so the integration itself does not change per language. That is the practical meaning of "multi-language without extra dev work": once the slots are integrated, adding a locale is a dashboard and content concern, not a code change.
For translator review, use shareable preview links. You generate one from the experience editor and send it to the translator, no dashboard seat needed. The preview widget in the corner explicitly shows which locale is being previewed, which saved us from a few "I was looking at the wrong language" rounds.
There is a related thread on what the localization add-on includes versus the base plan if you need the plan-side detail for budgeting.
Thank you Katrin, this is exactly the level of detail I needed. The preview links with the locale indicator solve my review step. I will document one link per locale per experience in our handoff checklist.