Webinar on 1st Feb 2018 by ClearBox Consulting and Valo To really engage employees, intranets need to speak the language that they understand best. In a multinational organization, this means dealing with multiple languages at once. In this joint webinar between ClearBox Consulting and Valo Intranet, we explore the options for the design and running a multilingual intranet. Aimed at intranet managers and internal communicators, we'll look at the different approaches you can take, the processes and politics of managing content, and some of the implementation options in SharePoint.

1. Webinar
Managing
Multilingual
Intranets

2. We will try to answer
some questions during
the webinar, and a few
more at the end.
Both participating
companies will email
you the recording
within 48 hours (so you
won’t miss it!).
You can listen via your
computer or by dialling
the phone number in
the email you received
today.
Housekeeping

3. Your webinar hosts
Sam Marshall
Managing Director
@SamMarshall
Juha Koivula
Product Manager
@juha_koivula

4. About ClearBox
Sam Marshall
Managing Director
@SamMarshall
ClearBox Consulting is a specialist independent consultancy
that believes in making the workplace a better and more
productive experience.We understand technology, but we
approach it from the people side first.
Our goal is to help organisations collaborate and communicate
more effectively.We specialise in intranets and the wider digital
workplace, including internal social media, enterprise mobile
strategies and real-time collaboration tools.

5. AboutValo
Valo is an award-winning, ready-to-go modern intranet on
Office 365 and SharePoint.Valo brings together the most
popular intranet features and creates competitive edge by
increasing productivity and improving work satisfaction.Valo is
built on Microsoft’s recommended cloud add-in model, so
Office 365 continuous updates are always safe.
Valo Intranet supports 20 languages!Valo has more than
700,000 daily users and 300 happy customers worldwide. Valo
Intranet is easy-to-use, mobile-friendly, and technically strong -
a flexible solution for the changing world.
Juha Koivula
Product Manager
@juha_koivula

6. Poll
Within your organisation,
how many working
languages are used?

7. Agenda
1. Interpretations of multilingual
2. Options for multilingual content
3. Managing the process
4. Making it work in SharePoint
5. Q&A

8. Interpreting
‘multilingual’

9. Why it matters
 It’s a legal requirement (e.g. Canada, Belgium,Wales)
 ‘One Company’ global strategies are common
 We can’t communicate unless people understand
 Intranets are a way to reach everybody
 Global news
 Global services
 Common standards

10. What do we mean by ‘multilingual’?
 Menus and options in your preferred language and script
 Different sites for different languages
 Multiple languages on a page
 Switch between languages for every page
 Search in one language and find results in another

11. Options for
implementing
multilingual intranets

12. Three different approaches
1. Multiple Sites
2. ContentVariants
3. Mix-and-match

13. UK
Business
French
Business
Italian
Business

14. UK
Business
French
Business
Italian
Business
Global

15. Option 1: Multiple Sites
UK
Business
French
Business
Italian
Business
Global
Approach
 Local sites in local language only
 Global site in single company-wide
language
 Content sharing between sites is manual

16. Option 1 – Multiple Sites
Good for
• Strong local feel
• Local autonomy
• Simple set up
Downsides
• Global site gets ignored
• Duplicated effort
• Conflicting versions if manually
translated
• Hard to see across sites

17. Strategy Products Italy HR
Intranet Home

18. Option 2 – ContentVariants
Approach
 CMS contains each content item in multiple
languages
 CMS delivers content item matching user
language choice
 Workflow manages versions
Strategy Products Italy HR
Intranet Home

19. Option 2 – ContentVariants
Good for
• A true global-local experience
• Version control
• Search results
Downsides
• Implementation cost
• Translation costs
• Co-ordination overhead
• Needs simple page layouts

20. Global
Business
Intranet Home
UK
Busi-
ness
Engineering
French
Busi-
ness
Intranet Home
Global
Business
Engineering
Italian
Busi-
ness
Intranet Home
Global
Business
Engineering

21. Option 3 – Mix-and-match
 Approach
 Preferred language served where
possible
 If not, defaults to company-wide
language
 ‘Smart’ approach manages this in
CMS
 ‘Basic’ approach does it by linking to
translated pages
Global
Business
Intranet Home
UK
Busi-
ness
Engineering
Frenc
h
Busi-
ness
Intranet Home
Global
Business
Engineering
Italian
Busi-
ness
Intranet Home
Global
Business
Engineering

22. Option 3 – Mix-and-match
Good for
• Limited translation budgets
• Quick publishing
Downsides
• Inconsistent user experience
• Manual approach has
downsides of Option 1

23. Managing the process

24. ManagingTranslations
 Planning
 Publishing calendar
 Workflow
 Version management
 Handling revisions
 Budgets
 Formal vs informal content policy
 Centralised model
 Local model
 ‘Summary only’ model Example: airtable.com

25. Things to watch out for
 Literal translation vs. cultural nuances
 Semi-shared language (Spain/Argentina;
Portugal / Brazil; US / UK)
 Some languages need a lot more room
 Right-left scripts (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu)
 Tall scripts need more line height (e.g.
Arabic, Chinese, Japanese)
English 100%
French, Arabic 120%
Spanish, Polish, Hindi 130%
Japan-
ese
60%
Danish 85%
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/blog/translation/t
ranslation-text-expansion-how-it-affects-design/
https://www.w3.org/International/articles/article-text-size

26. Multilingual Search
 Most search tools can identify languages during indexing
 Each index is language-specific
 Cross-language search isn't the same thing
 Should searches for a customer name retrieve results in any language?
 Tagging of multi-lingual content is challenging
 What does an English tag on a Chinese document mean?
Thanks to: Martin White at intranetfocus.com

27. Multilingual social

28. Automated translation
 GoogleTranslate and BingTranslate
 Privacy risk
 Many companies use it for a ‘rough cut’
 Not all translation combinations work well
 Some legal documents require 'authorised' translations

29. Making it work in
SharePoint

30. The options we have
 Variations
 MUI = Multilingual User Interface
 Column per language
 Site collection per language

31. The options we have
 Variations
 MUI = Multilingual User Interface
 Column per language
 Site collection per language
 With cross site collection roll-ups
 With content deep linking
Option 2: Content
variants
Option 1: Site per
language
Option 3: Mix-and-match
'basic'
Option 3: Mix-and-match
'smart'

32. MUI + column per language
 MUI translates navigation, web part titles,
native SharePoint buttons
 Contents are duplicated into as many
columns as there are languages
 Custom components display the contents in
the user's preferred language

33. CASE MUI + columns
 Not scalable
 Significant development overhead
 Pay attention to search results per language

37. Each country has a unique site
structure

38. Mixing and matching new
employee introductions

39. DEMO: Automated content
copying
Global alert news
Microsoft Flow & Translator
Alerts to local content producers
Translated draft

40. Q&A

41. SharePoint intranets in-a-box
10% off
UniqueCode
clearbox.co.uk
34 intranet products reviewed
430 pages
Immediate download
Our expert assessments of products
that transform SharePoint into a useful
and useable intranet.

42. Connect
ClearBox Consulting
clearbox.co.uk
@ClearBox
hello@clearbox.co.uk
+44 (0) 1224 458746
Treliske House, Queens Park Road,
Chester, CH4 7AD, UK
Valo Solutions, Inc.
Valointranet.com
@valointranet
hello@valointranet.com
+358 50 345 74 85
Verkkosaarenkatu 5, 00580 Helsinki, Finland