Synchronize Pages Between Translated Channels

Introduction

Goal

Synchronize pages between channels in the same translation group.

Summary

When you are managing multiple localized channels in a translation group, you may have to create the same page, or make the same modifications to an existing page, in some or all of those channels. For example, you may want to create a new landing page for a summer sale campaign that will run in multiple locales, or you may want to update a promotional banner on the homepage in multiple localized channels.

By using the page synchronization feature in the Experience manager, you can efficiently perform such tasks and minimize repetition. You make your changes in one channel, then synchronize them to the desired other channels in the same translation group.

Prerequisites

To be able to synchronize pages between channels:

• The source and target channels must be part of the same translation group.
• The source and target channels must be configured by site developers to meet certain requirements

If the above requirements are not met, page synchronization is not possible or will fail with an error message.

Features

• Either the core version or a project version of a source page can be synchronized to the target(s).
• If a target page doesn't exist in a target channel, it's automatically created. The target page gets the same page name and page URL as the source page.
• If a target page was already created by a previous synchronization, the target page will be updated with the changes in the source page.
• If the source page has components added, removed, or moved since the last synchronization, these changes will be synchronized to the target.
• If any properties of a component on the source page changed since the last synchronization, these changes will be synchronized to the corresponding component on the target page.
• If the content of a page-specific component on the source page changed since the last synchronization, these changes will not be synchronized in order to preserve localized content on the target page.
• If the source page contains shared components that refer to documents, the page synchronization will update these references to corresponding translations in the target channel(s) of the referred documents, if available.
• If the source page contains shared components that refer to documents inside a content folder shared between channels, the page synchronization will keep these references intact unless the referred documents have corresponding translations.
• If the parent folders of the source page don’t exist in the target channel, the folders are created in the content tree of the target channel and the created folders are linked to the corresponding source folder(s) as translated folders. A newly created translated folder gets the same name and the same URL as the source folder.
• Optionally, the user can choose to have the metadata of the target page(s) overwritten with the metadata of the source page on synchronization.

Restrictions

• If you manually created matching pages in your translated channels, currently these can't be synchronized.
• If a target page only exists in a project and not in core, synchronizing to a core version or to another project version is not allowed.
• If a source page only exists in a project and not in core, then only project version to project version synchronization is allowed.

Follow-Along Examples

The following examples are based on 3 localized "Pacific Home" channels (US English, Canada English, and Canada French), all part of a "Pacific Home" translation group:

The example also assumes the "banners" folders in the channels are linked as translations:

Finally it is assumed there is at least one banner document that has been localized for each channel:

Synchronize a new page with a page-specific component

You want to create a new landing page for a summer sale campaign in the US English channel and you also want to add this page to the two other channels. You will use a single, page-specific banner carousel component.

Open the US English channel preview in the Experience manager and create a new page. Add a page-specific banner carousel component and configure a banner image and some text:

After saving, open the Page menu and select the Synchronize translated pages... option:

The following dialog will appear, listing the source page and the possible target channels:

Because you just created the source page, it doesn't exist yet in any of the target channels.

You can either select individual target channels by checking each channel's checkbox (you may have to scroll to see all channels) or you can select all target channels by checking the checkbox at the top of the list:

Click on the Synchronize button. You should see a message telling you that the page was successfully synchronized.

The new landing page now exists in all the channels but contains the exact same content in each channel. You still need to localize its contents. Open each channel's preview in the Experience manager and use the Sitemap to browse to the synchronized page:

In the example, in the Canada French channel, the banner texts need to be translated to French. Click on the banner component and modify the text.

Repeat the same for all target channels.

Synchronize modified page-specific component

You want to make changes to the banner on the summer sale landing page in the US English channel and apply the same changes to the corresponding pages in the other channels.

Open the US English channel, browse to the summer sale landing page, and make the following changes to the page-specific banner component:

Change the discount from 30% to 40% in the banner text:

On the Properties tab of the component editor, change the Content Alignment property from "center" to "left":

Save the component and choose Synchronize translated pages... in the Page menu. The same dialog appears but now you'll see that the page already exists in the target channels:

Check the target channels you want to synchronize the modified page to.

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Note the checkbox Overwrite page metadata. It's unchecked by default. If you check it, the metadata of the target pages will be replaced with the metadata of the source page. For now, leave it unchecked.

Click on Synchronize and wait for the success message.

Open the Canada French channel preview and browse to the summer sale page:

Note the following:

• The change to the text content of the page-specific component was not synchronized; the localized content was not overwritten. You must update the localized content manually.
• The change to the Content Alignment property of the page-specific component was synchronized: the text is now centred to the left.

Synchronize shared component with linked translated content

You want to add a shared banner component to the summer sale landing page in the US English channel and display the contents of the US English banner document you prepared, and synchronize the page to the other channels so that they will display the content of the corresponding translated banner documents.

Add a shared banner carousel component to the summer sale page in the US English channel and in its Banner 1 field, pick the banner document you prepared:

Save the component and synchronize the page as before.

If you get the following error message, the banner document you selected does not have a corresponding translated document in at least one of the target channels:

If the banner document does have translations in all target channels, synchronization will succeed.

Open the summer sale page in the Canada French channel:

Note the following:

• The page now also has the second (shared) banner component
• The shared banner component's Banner 1 field refers to the translated banner document:

Synchronize pages between channels in a project

You want to make changes to a page within a project, and synchronize those changes to the other channels within the same project.

Open the US English channel in the Experience manager preview and make sure your project is selected in the For project dropdown. Then browse to the summer sale page and add it to the project if you hadn't done that yet. Make the desired changes, then select Synchronize translated pages... in the Page menu:

In the dialog, the source page is now indicated to be part of your project.

In the Target dropdown, select your project as well:

Then select the target channels and click Synchronize as before.

The pages are now synchronized within the project and you can use the project features to preview and localize the pages and eventually merge your changes to core.