Using Machine Translation in SAP Enable Now

One of the many services that SAP offers is the Translation Hub, which allows the automatic translation of business documents. This integrates with a range of SAP Cloud products – and with the 20.11 release, that now includes SAP Enable Now. In this article, we’ll look at how to perform machine translation of your SAP Enable Now, by using SAP Translation Hub.

Firstly, you do need a subscription to SAP Translation Hub to do this. This is relatively cheap (currently “from US$47 for 100,000 characters/year”) and there is a free trial available if you want to try it first. This article assumes that you already have a subscription (trial or paid) and that you know how to get to your Key – you need this to activate machine translation in SAP Enable Now.

Preparation

The SAP Enable Now Machine Translation function will take copies of the existing ‘original-language’ content before translating it – so you don’t need to use the Automated Translation All function to take the copies. It also translates all of the content within SAP Enable Now, so you don’t need to do any Export / send for translation / Import, either. It will duplicate/translate all of the content in a selected Group (including the Group itself), so you will find it easier to have all (and only) the content that you want to be translated in a single Group (and possibly sub-groups within this).

You also need to have a specialized type of Text Unit within this Group. This can be called whatever you like, but must have a Document Type of Translation Information, as shown below. I’d also strongly suggest that you set this object to Hidden (and do this before translating); otherwise it could appear in the Trainer if you publish the Group it is in.

Make sure the Translation Information Text Unit is located within the Group that you will select for translation, for example, as shown below:

In this example, we’ll be selecting the Group Machine Translation for translation, and this contains a single simulation project.

Process

To translate a Group, click on it to select it, and then select menu option Tools | Localization | Machine Translation. The following dialog box is displayed (colorization mine):

Complete the fields in this dialog box with your Key details from SAP Translation Hub. An example of this, using the same colorization as shown above, is shown below:

For most fields, just copy the indicated text from between the quotation marks. However, for the Token URL, make sure you add /oauth/token to the end of the Key URL, as shown in green, in the Machine Translation: Authorization dialog box above. Select the Save Password checkbox to save the Client Secret, so you don’t need to type this in every time (the other fields will be saved automatically). Click OK in the Machine Translation: Authorization dialog box to continue. The Translate Content dialog box is displayed.

In the Translate Content dialog box, select the language(s) in which you want the selected content to be translated. (Ctrl+click to select multiples). The following additional options are available:

• Only Object Properties: Only the metadata properties (the ones you see in the Workarea) will be translated, and not the content of the objects.
• Include Control Names: If selected, the actual names of the objects in simulations (such as button names and field names) will also be translated.
• Include Generated Project Texts: All of the bubble text (and, presumably Book Page text objects) will also be translated.
• Translate Objects with Status: Only select content objects with the selected status. [Feature new in the 21.11 release]
• Change Status of Translated Objects: Once translation is complete, change the Status of the (source language) objects to the Status selected here. [Feature new in the 21.11 release]

Set these options as required, and then click Ok. The selected Group will be duplicated for each of the chosen languages, and then the new, ‘local-language’ copies will be automatically translated.

Once this completes, you will see a new Group for each language, containing the same objects as the original Group (including the Text Unit), all translated into the relevant target language, as shown in the example below:

And that’s it done! You can now move this new, translated content into a new location if you want, but make sure you retain the translated Groups as-is, including the Translation Information Text Units (and the one in the original folder). These are used to tie the translated copies back to the ‘original language’ versions – so if you change the originals and re-translate, SAP Enable Now will automatically track down the translations – wherever you put them – and update them with the new translation! And assuming you have left the Groups intact, if you add a new object to the original Group, this will be translated and added to the translation groups when you (re-)translate.

Limitations

Because translation is entirely controlled by SAP Translation Hub, you do not have the ability to edit or otherwise influence the translation dictionary. However, you can always edit the translated documents, if you want to tweak the translation as per your preferences.

Summary

If you have a subscription to SAP Translation Hub, this new feature of SAP Enable Now is a great way of very easily (and cheaply/quickly) translating your training content. If you don’t have a SAP Translation Hub subscription, but have ongoing translation needs, you may find it is worth getting a subscription. And if you want to get really fancy, consider running the translated objects through Google Cloud Text-to-Speech!