Creating multilingual dashboards

You can create a dashboard or story in different languages so that a user can experience a dashboard in their language of choice. This activity is also called localizing your dashboard.

About this task

In the dashboard properties, in the Advanced section, there is a languages option. This option is where you get started by setting a default language and where the different languages for your localized dashboards are displayed.

The localized content can include tab titles, visualization titles, and border colors on visualizations. For text widget properties, changes to font family, font size, style, text color, fill color, and border color can all be captured in a localized dashboard. You can also localize the descriptions in image, media, and web page widgets. In a story, you can localize the scene names and other items.

Users can set the content language in My preferences. After you localize a dashboard, a user opens the dashboard and IBM® Cognos Analytics matches the content language to the available languages in the Languages list. If the content language does not match any language in the Languages list, the default language is displayed for the dashboard. For example, if a user's content language is set to French (Canada), when the user opens the dashboard, the languages in the Languages list are matched according to the following order:
  • French (Canada)
  • French
  • French (any country)
  • Default language in the Languages list

Users can also select the preferred language for the IBM Cognos Analytics user interface. For more information, see Language settings.

Procedure

  1. Open a dashboard.
  2. On the app bar, click the Properties icon.
    Properties icon

    If you don't see the Properties icon, click the Switch to edit icon.

    Switch to preview icon
  3. Click Advanced.
  4. Click Set default language and select the language to localize to.
    The first language that you choose becomes the default language and starts your list of languages on the Dashboard properties pane. You can set a different language to the default later.
  5. In the Dashboard properties pane, under Languages, click the menu icon More icon for the language you want to localize to, and click Edit translations.
    You can now translate the dashboard.
  6. Localize the default language by translating text widgets, titles on your visualizations, titles on tabs, and so on.
  7. Click Done.
    Note: If the language is not already added and you click Done without changing the dashboard, the language is not added to the Languages list.
  8. Alternatively, download a CSV file that lists all of the text strings in your dashboard that require localization. To do so, click the menu icon More icon for the default language, and click Download.
    You can send this list to a translator for localization.
    Note: You cannot upload the CSV file. A translated CSV file is a reference for you to manually localize a dashboard.
  9. Click Add another language and select a language from the list.
    Localize each translatable area that is marked with a translation mode icon.
    Translation mode icon
  10. Click Done.
  11. To change the default language, click the menu icon More icon for the language you want to set to the default language, and then click Set as default.
  12. To switch any language in your Languages list to another language, click the menu icon More icon for the language you want to switch, and then click Switch language.

Results

A localized dashboard opens for users based on the languages in the Languages list and the content language set in the user's preferences.