Integrations are really convenient, right? As “plug and play” solutions, they enable you to connect your favorite tools and existing workflows, and enhance your overall experience of localization software.
Integrations can help you increase productivity, save resources, work more efficiently by automating everything you can, and improve your translation turnaround times.
As you may know, Lokalise has more than 40 available integrations to help you get the most out of your localization project. Each integration helps you eliminate a different pain point (or several at once), and support your localization team members in doing their best work.
Lokalise’s product team decided to crunch the numbers and map out the most popular Lokalise integrations used in 2020. Not only that, we also wanted to highlight the key values of these integrations and encourage you to rethink your existing localization process.
1. Figma
| Integration category |
| Designer tool |
Figma has earned its number one place as the most popular integration configured in 2020 and it’s easy to see why.
The Lokalise plugin for Figma provides something that’s all too often missing in a localization process: visual context.
Without visual context, a translation might not fit the design well, the probability of translation errors increases, and the company is likely to waste additional resources by resolving issues retroactively, then having to sync new text with existing keys.
By assuming once-monthly releases and providing an approximate number of bugs per release, we calculated the annual costs for localizing a mobile app of average complexity, which amount to c. $52,800.
The good news is that we noted an up to 10x decrease in costs if you resolve a localization bug in the design stage as opposed to after your product or feature is released.
Using Figma speeds up your workflow by allowing you to push text for translation from Figma to Lokalise in a matter of seconds. You can then easily pull it back once the translation is ready.
Everyone participating in the localization process benefits from Figma. For instance, designers can work on the design simultaneously, translators enjoy context, developers avoid wasting time on fixing bugs, and managers can build a much more efficient process.
2. Code repositories (GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket)
| Integration category |
| Source code |
Lokalise users can enjoy the convenience of automatically exchanging localization files with their chosen code repository, be it GitLab, GitHub, or Bitbucket. (By the way, in November 2020, we released a new integration for Bitbucket Enterprise that contains some small differences in comparison to the cloud version of the Bitbucket integration we already had.)
The most obvious benefit of this type of integration is reflected in the elimination of manual work for developers. Without it, developers would have to export the translations from code repository to TMS manually and create pull requests every time translators performed updates. Not only is this frustrating, but it also creates an error-prone process.
In terms of negatively impacting the localization budget – the more time developers waste on manual tasks that could be avoided, the more money companies spend on expenses that could be prevented.
Integrating with code repositories benefits other roles as well. For instance, translators don’t need to wait too long on developers to get access to keys. It’s all done with just a few clicks. Managers can streamline collaboration more efficiently because significant parts of the process are optimized.
Thanks to the direct file exchange between your chosen code repository and Lokalise, you won’t need to download files or risk merging the wrong ones with your repository. It’s possible to effortlessly keep your source files and translations synchronized.
To find out more, read about the localization issues developers face and how Lokalise helps solve them.
3. Slack
| Integration category |
| Notifications and events |
With more than 12 million daily users, Slack is one of the most used communication tools of recent times. It has been the third most popular integration configured in Lokalise within the past year.
The reason users love the Slack integration for Lokalise? It enables you to keep everyone in the loop when it comes to your localization project’s progress. And, more precisely, users can receive notifications on Slack about what’s happening in Lokalise.
Connecting Slack with Lokalise is easy and can be done in just a couple of clicks. You can select the status update notifications you want to receive and choose the Slack channels and individual contributors you’d like to notify.
Quick updates and centralized communication via Slack help you minimize idle waiting time and ensure the best project pace.
4. Adobe XD
| Integration category |
| Designer tools |
Coming in at number four, is the Lokalise plugin for Adobe XD. Just like the Figma plugin, Adobe XD helps you start the localization process at the design stage.
Thanks to this plugin, you can deliver localized UI/UX designs faster. It allows you to quickly review your multilingual design without leaving Adobe XD. There is no need to manually copy-paste content, which saves a lot of your time.
The Lokalise plugin for Adobe XD also helps you reduce translation costs and improve the quality of your translations. With screenshots and visual context, translators can move faster and work more efficiently while also enjoying built-in QA checks.
Connecting Adobe XD with Lokalise is simple and it brings benefits to various different roles – not just designers.
Discover more about the best way to design a multilingual web or mobile app using the Adobe XD plugin in Lokalise – with it, making your app global gets a lot easier
5. Webhooks
| Integration category |
| Notifications and events |
At number five, we have Webhooks. A webhook is a mechanism that sends an HTTP request to the specified URL after a certain action has occurred. In Lokalise, webhooks are used to notify your app about predefined events.
Here’s just one example of how webhooks can come in handy. Developers are the people responsible for downloading new translations and monitoring for changes. Constantly checking for translation updates is tedious and time consuming. Webhooks solve this issue by providing a convenient notification system.
You can choose one or more events about which to send notifications. Be it notifying team members about translations being updated or perhaps files being exported – you can do it with ease. Check out the Lokalise documentation on webhooks to discover more.
6. Email
| Integration category |
| Notifications and events |
Email is still our main go-to platform for business communication. The habit of checking emails is not likely to go away, which is why many Lokalise users find the email integration pretty neat.
The value of this email integration is quite straightforward: it’s easy to set up email notifications for activities in your Lokalise projects and ensure you don’t miss a thing. Plus, linguists receive automated emails about all the tasks assigned to them, but notifications can be set up for other stakeholders as well.
You just have to configure your email, select the branch, and then the events for which you’d like notifications (e.g. tasks created, languages added, updated translations for a specific language, etc.), and you’re all set.
Check out our email integration docs for more details.
7. Amazon S3
| Integration category |
| Cloud file storage |
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is Internet storage that offers great security, data availability, scalability, and performance. The Amazon S3 bucket integration for Lokalise allows you to keep your language files on Amazon S3 up to date automatically.
The fact that there’s no manual work helps you use your time more mindfully while preventing the risk of human error. This way, you’ll be sure that the correct files are uploaded to Amazon S3.
With a single click, you can simultaneously export your localization files and store them in your S3 bucket. It’s that simple.
To learn more about the setup, check out our Amazon S3 integration docs.
8. Zendesk Guide
| Integration category |
| Content management |
Coming up next – the Lokalise Zendesk integration. Zendesk Guide is one of the most popular pieces of knowledge base software designed to help you organize your team’s know-how and customize your support center.
With the Lokalise Zendesk integration, you can support both your agents and customers by providing the multilingual content they need. You can deliver languages faster and forget all about the messy process of using spreadsheets for translation management or struggling with a decentralized localization process.
Similar to other integrations available in Lokalise, it’s easy to connect your Zendesk Guide. In just a few short steps, you’ll be able to link sections, categories, and articles in Zendesk Guide to a Lokalise project, then translate the selected content, and export the multilingual content back to your Zendesk Guide.
As a collaborative platform for localization, Lokalise provides you with a variety of built-in tools and other integrations that will help you translate your support content.
Discover more about the Zendesk Guide integration by having a read through our documentation.
9. WordPress
| Integration category |
| Content management |
If you have a WordPress website and you’re wondering about the best way to simplify its translation, then we might just have the perfect answer for you: the Lokalise plugin for WordPress.
Connecting WordPress to Lokalise is easy and once you set everything up, you can link the content you want translated to the Lokalise project. After the linguists finalize their translations, you can export the translated content back to WordPress.
It’s also possible to set up advanced workflows and optimize cross-team collaboration using other integrations. As a result, you can enjoy faster launches, fewer errors, and save money along the way.
10. Contentful
| Integration category |
| Content management |
Last but not least is the ability to sync Contentful data with Lokalise. You may know that Contentful is the API-first content management platform that allows users to “create, manage, and publish content on any digital channel”.
By connecting Contentful with Lokalise, you can simplify the process of creating multilingual content for your global audience.
As with other content management integrations, you can sync Contentful data (Text, Symbols, and Rich Text) with Lokalise, translate all the content you need, and then export it back to Contentful.
Build integrations with anything using Lokalise API
Lokalise has a feature-rich API which allows you to integrate Lokalise with any other third-party system. So, it’s not a ready-made integration, but more of a method for building one.
We invite you to read more about the Lokalise API, see the full API reference, and explore our CLI tool which acts as a wrapper for the API.
Is there an integration you’d really like to see in Lokalise but that’s currently not available? Or maybe you’re struggling with a certain part of your localization process? Let us know by sending a message: just click on the small green circle in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen then leave a message, and we’ll get back to you ASAP.
