How to manage more than 30 apps in 15 languages without stress and mistakes

MWM (Music World Media) offers music lovers technical solutions that make their life much easier. The company has come a long way since 2012 and since the launch of its very first app, edjing Mix, which is also known for being the world's most downloaded DJ app. 

As of today, the company has developed more than 30 apps covering popular music segments like DJ production, music creation, learning, and gaming.

Thanks to its large ecosystem of products, MWM has become the #1 music apps publisher on App Store and Google Play Store, registering over 450 million downloads across 182 countries. Based in Paris, France, MWM currently manages around 15 languages in Lokalise.

Before Lokalise, a cumbersome and stressful localization flow

When your apps are being downloaded across the world, it seems logical to localize them as much as you can - or as much as is feasible. “As we wanted to localize all of our numerous apps, we had a very complex task ahead of us,” says Benjamin Duvivier, project manager at MWM.

Benjamin explains: “Our initial localization process was not smooth at all. First, we launched our apps in English and then went through an arduous process of mobile app localization. We had to complete a lot of manual tasks, and the end result was nowhere near satisfying.” 

According to Benjamin, these were the main issues that MWM faced during the localization process:

• Wrong texts in the keys or empty keys (missing translations)
• Translations not yet ready for specific keys, although the project was finished
• People were stressed out when they had to start the localization process for a new app

Before switching to Lokalise, MWM was manually exporting keys to Google Spreadsheets, which were then sent out to outsourced translators. After receiving the translations, the code had to be updated manually. Benjamin recalls:

Something had to be done to improve the localization flow. 

At first, MWM tried reducing the time spent on translations by working with translation services like Gengo. But, as the strings of code still had to be manually exported, tested, and then incorporated into the updated code, this didn’t make things considerably better. 

That's when they started to look for a TMS that would help them manage the localization process more efficiently.

Lokalise - a tool that addresses real-life issues in real-life processes

“Lokalise was the first platform that we found that suited our needs, and we decided to give it a try,” says Benjamin. “Our trial was very successful and we immediately felt that Lokalise was addressing real-life issues that we faced in real-life processes.” 

Now, the MWM team uses Lokalise for each mobile app that they launch and that needs to be localized to other languages. Benjamin shares MWM’s localization flow which starts by creating a unique project for each app. He explains:

“Then we sync the Lokalise project with the respective mobile app. We have developed a script where the API downloads the last version of the Lokalise project and updates the mobile app. 

“When we need to make some updates to the text, we push the strings to Lokalise. Then, our team members who work with Lokalise - mainly project managers and the marketing team - can iterate on the text.”

Once the MWM project managers and the marketing team know the scope of the translation task, they order translations through Gengo or other providers that Lokalise supports. Benjamin says:

A developer-oriented solution 

Once the translations are finished and checked, developers can export the latest version from Lokalise, and should they ever need to make changes in the future, they can always log back into the platform to make them. When they do log back in, they don’t need to spend time looking for the translations because the search feature in Lokalise is very convenient - whenever a developer notices an issue in the app, they can easily find it within the platform.

“Our developers are very comfortable using the Lokalise platform, and they say that it’s very developer-oriented,” Benjamin Duvivier says.

“Since we use Lokalise, our team is always looking forward to the localization tasks as it is one of the easiest and the most fun parts of the app publishing process. We are no longer afraid of making mistakes when pushing the updates. We remain calm, as Lokalise takes away the hustle.”

Key features used:

• Dashboard
• Screenshots
• Comments and chat
• Filters
• Tags

A global view of the localization projects 

Thanks to Lokalise, MWM has been able to fully automate the process of updating translations and synchronizing the Lokalise project with the respective mobile app. Before, these were all manual tasks of developers who had to extract and upload all the files. Benjamin points out:

“It's 10x faster to launch a new language in Lokalise compared to our previous workflow in Google Sheets. Previously the localization process for each app could take one to two weeks.”

Benjamin says that now the company has a global view of all the projects and can easily keep track of all the translations. “Lokalise has many little things that help us be quicker and reduce the number of mistakes. We can easily check everything related to the localization process. Furthermore, Lokalise has excellent customer support - every time I asked, I received an answer in 24 hours or less.”