If you are working with team members or stakeholders who speak different languages, you may want to make your database available in more than one language.
In ActivityInfo, users can encounter text from the following sources:
- System messages. ActivityInfo itself displays certain messages to the user, such as "This field is required" or the "Save" or "Export" labels of buttons. These messages are translated by the ActivityInfo team.
- Database structure. This text, which includes the names of Databases, Folders, and Forms, as well as the names of Fields, their description, and choices, are provided by you or other users with administrative rights. To display this text in multiple languages, you need to provide the translations, with or without the help of automated machine translation.
- Record contents. When you add a text Field to a Form, the text provided by a user may need to be available in multiple languages. This includes not only the results of data collection, but may also include reference data, such as the names of provinces or the names of donors and partners.
Supported languages
Only languages supported by ActivityInfo can be used with the translation feature.
Note that if you are designing a multilingual Database, you can design your Database and Forms in any language, but the system messages - such as "This field is required"- will not match the language of your Forms.
If you need support for another language, please contact us, we may be able to work with you and your team to add translations of systems messages for a new language.
Choosing the original language
The first step in setting up a multilingual Database is choosing the original language of the Database. The original language is the language in which you design the Database and Forms. You can then add translations from this "original language" to additional languages.
To select the original language of a Database, see Setting up the original language of a Database.
Migrating from a Database that already includes multiple languages
If you already have an ActivityInfo Database that combines multiple languages into the Form and Field labels, you need to remove the extra language before using the translation feature. For example, the Form below includes both English and Arabic in the labels.
If you decided to use English as your original language, then you need to remove the Arabic text from the Form above. You can use the "Export fields" button to save a backup of the translations if needed.
Alternatively, you could choose Arabic as your original language and remove the English.
Adding translated languages
After defining the original language of a Database, the next step in setting up a multilingual Database is to add a target translation language.
Then, you can translate the Database automatically or manually. Automatic translation means that you send your database structure to Google Translate for automatic translation. Manual translation means that you personally translate the database or to edit some of the automatically translated entries.
Only the database owner can add a new language and use the automated translation feature.
The automatic translation process can take up to several minutes, depending on the size of your database and the number of forms to be translated.
Switching between languages
After you run the automated translation process, you can view the translated Forms by changing your language. You can switch your language temporarily using the Languages button:
If you switch to a language for which the Database has translations available, the translated version is displayed.
Note that the Form designer always shows the Form in the original language, regardless of which language you have selected. The screenshot below shows that the system messages are in French, but the structure of the Form remains in the original language (English in this example).
Using translations with the mobile app
The ActivityInfo mobile app always uses the language the user has selected as their preferred language. You can select this language when inviting a user, and the user can change this later in their profile.
Keeping translations up to date
When you add new Forms or Fields to an existing Form, you need to run the automatic translation again to provide updated translations.
If you make a change to a Folder or Form in the original language, the translations for that element are invalidated. You need to re-run the automated translation process to provide new translations for the updated text.