More and more organizations are international. They have offices in several countries, or even on several continents, use contractors, or serve people across oceans. Language barriers can be a challenge, and your digital workplace rises to meet it by working to provide a seamless experience for all supported languages. Today we look at several questions that have come in recently around using multilingual in practice.

Are members stuck with the default language? 

Not at all! Regardless of the defaults for your digital workplace, members can set their own default language from their profile, and all system text will be translated into that language immediately. Your Igloo's default language is English, with French as a second language (We are in Canada, after all), but a quick message to your Customer Success representative or to Igloo Support can get them rearranged to suit your needs. 

How do I use the language tabs? 

The language tabs are present on widgets and content creation, and are used to maintain your content in any supported language. English content under the English tab, German under Deutsch, and so forth. You can write translations here directly, or use the translate function to run a quick Google translate of the content from another tab. Select the tab of the language you want, and use the translate dropdown to translate your content from the tab where it's written. The platform will flag that it was translated automatically, and the flags can be removed by selecting the Verify Translation button once someone has had a chance to go over it. 

In widgets, the titles and descriptions must be translated and entered manually, but will also come across when the Page is used as a template, saving additional translation work. In any case, when a member views the item, it will appear in their default language if the translation has been done. If it hasn't, they'll see it in your digital workplace's default language, so there's always something to view. 

How does search work across languages?

Articles are indexed in every language, but in order to improve efficiency, search will only search in two languages: a member's current language and the digital workplace's default. This means, for example, that you'll only find Italian content if one of those settings is set to Italian. You can change the language you're searching in by using the language toggle in the userbar, which will set the digital workplace language for you. The search will look for matching terms in either language, and return any content or Pages that have a match. 

Maintaining multilingual content can address challenges for members internationally, and is essential for a digital workplace that does business in several tongues. 

If you have questions about the Igloo platform, workflows, or best practices, you can leave a comment here, or ask a question in the Community area.