SMP_adding_translation.md

Process of adding a new string using the Translation component in sm_platform

The following steps represent a semi-automated (yet human) process for translations using Github for collaboration, continuous integration and change tracking. When changes are made with a string that uses the Translate component or translate() function in a PR, they should ensure that the correspoding Chinese and Russian language files are also updated. The steps to update are as follows:

• A developer working on a specific functionality that requires translation populates the new values in the en.json file by running the translations script npm run translations. The script includes a formatjs extract command that extracts messages from the source code and generates translation messages into the desired format in the en.json output file. The other ru.json and zh.json that are found together with the en.json file are added and updated manually, ensuring that the IDs in both match the IDs in the en.json file.
• The developer creates a pull request with the code changes including the updated en.json file. The pull request can be landed without being blocked by translations.
• The developer creates another translation pull request in the same repository with manually populated values in ru.json and zh.json in English. Both pull requests should be linked in their descriptions.
• In the description of the translation pull request the developer tags the translators and the QA to be notified via Github email that there is a translation request. In addition, the developer attaches snippets with the corresponding IDs and English words showing the platform changes to provide context for the translators.
• The developer creates a translation request thread in Teams and tags the translators and the QA to be notified further. The thread should include the translation pull request link, translation deadline, target clients/projects so that the translators and the QA are aware and can plan the changes and the verification.
• A ticket with the translation pull request link and the Teams thread link should be created to track the progress.
• The translators use the Teams thread to coordinate translating and post their suggested translations there.
• The developer should push the approved translations to the ru.json and zh.json files in the translation pull request, test them in their local development environment and merge them afterwards.
• The QA verifies the landed translations on the staging environment.