Synchronising Product Translations from Business Central to Shopify

Shopify Connector for D365 Business Central

How to Synchronise Product Translations from Business Central to Shopify

Expanding your e-commerce business to international markets involves offering a seamless shopping experience for customers in different regions. A critical element of this is providing product information in the native language of your customers.

With the latest integration features between Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Shopify, synchronising product translations has never been easier. This ensures that product descriptions, details, and attributes are consistent across various languages, helping you to engage a wider audience and drive conversions.

In this blog, we’ll explain how to synchronize product translations from Business Central to Shopify, the benefits of doing so, and how it can help improve your global e-commerce operations.

Business Value: Synchronising Product Translations from Business Central to Shopify

Why Synchronize Product Translations?

Ensuring that your product information is available in multiple languages can have significant business benefits, including:

Improved Customer Experience: By offering product descriptions and details in a customer’s native language, you can enhance the shopping experience, making it easier for them to understand and purchase products.
Boost Conversion Rates: Providing translations helps customers feel more confident in their purchasing decisions, leading to increased sales and higher conversion rates.
Foster Customer Loyalty: Customers are more likely to return to your store if they feel the content is tailored to their language and culture, promoting long-term brand loyalty.
Consistency Across Platforms: Automatically synchronizing translations ensures that your product details on Shopify match those in Business Central, maintaining accuracy across both platforms.

This integration provides a seamless process that ensures your global customer base can always access the correct information in their preferred language.

Feature Details: How to Synchronize Product Translations

The integration between Business Central and Shopify allows you to sync product translations with ease. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to enable this feature:

Access Shopify Shops in Business Central

Start by selecting the Tell Me icon in Business Central and enter Shopify shops in the search bar. Select the related link to access the Shopify Shop Card page.

Open the Shopify Languages Page

Once you are on the Shopify Shop Card page, choose the Languages action to open the Shopify Languages page.

Refresh Shopify Languages

To import the languages enabled on your Shopify store, click the Refresh action. Note that the primary language will not appear in the list. For the primary language, you will continue using the Language Code field found on the Shopify Shop Card page.

Configure Language Settings

For each additional language you want to include in the product synchronization, fill in the Language Code field and toggle the Sync translations option to “On.”

Sync Translations Automatically

Once these steps are completed, translations will be included automatically every time you run the Sync Product task—either manually or using the job queue. This ensures that your translations are updated consistently without requiring extra effort.

Key Points to Keep in Mind

New Shopify Permission: A new Shopify permission is required for this process: read_locales. You will need to request a new access token for it to function properly.
Initial Item Export: The first export of items initiated by the Add item to Shopify action will not include translations. You’ll need to run the Sync Product task and enable the Can Update Shopify Products toggle.
Marketing Text: Marketing text is only included for the primary language.
Extended Texts: Extended texts are added for each language, including those where the All Languages toggle is turned on.
Missing Translations: If a translation is missing for a particular language, the primary language text will be used as the fallback.
Item Translations: Translations are synchronized for product items, provided a translation is defined. However, variant translations are not synchronized because the connector only exports the variant code, not its description.

Extensibility Impact: Customisation for Specific Needs

The synchronisation process is highly extensible. The CreateProductBody procedure in the Product Export codeunit now accepts language codes as parameters. This allows the process to be adapted for each language in your Shopify store.

Event Triggers: The OnBeforeCreateProductBodyHtml and OnAfterCreateProductBodyHtml events are now triggered multiple times per item during the synchronization process, with the language code included as a parameter. This gives you the flexibility to skip translations or apply custom logic to your synchronization process, such as adding region-specific content or translations.

Benefits of Synchronising Product Translations

Improved International Reach: By translating product information into multiple languages, you make your products accessible to a wider audience, particularly in international markets.
Enhanced Customer Engagement: Translated product descriptions and details resonate more with customers, leading to higher engagement and satisfaction.
Operational Efficiency: Automating the synchronization of product translations saves time and reduces the risk of manual errors. Translations are always up-to-date across your systems.
Increased Conversion Rates: Customers are more likely to purchase when they fully understand the product, and offering them the option to view descriptions in their own language can significantly increase sales.

Business value

Automatically synchronizing translations from Business Central to Shopify guarantees consistent product descriptions and details across various languages. Offering customers product information in their native language enhances accessibility and satisfaction, which can boost conversion rates and foster customer loyalty.

Feature details

To include translations to the product synchronization, follow these steps:

Choose the Tell Me icon, enter Shopify shops, and choose the related link.
Select the shop to open the Shopify Shop Card page.
To open the Shopify Languages page, choose the Languages action.
To import languages enabled on Shopify, choose the Refresh action. Notice that the primary language isn’t be listed. For the primary language, continue to use the Language Code field in the Shopify Shop Card.
For each language you want to include ino synchronization, fill in the Language Code field and turn on the Sync translations toggle.

That’s it. Translations are included every time you run the Sync Product task either manually or by using the job queue.

More information

A new Shopify permission (scope) is needed: read_locales. You must request a new access token.
The first export of items, initiated by the Add item to Shopify action, doesn’t include translations. You need to run Sync product and turn on the Can Update Shopify Products toggle.
Marketing text is only added for the primary language.
Extended texts are added for each language, plus extended texts where the All Languages toggle is turned on.
Attributes are added for each language. If a translation is missing, the primary language is used.
Item translations are added for each language if a translation is defined.
Variant translations aren’t used because the connector only exports the variant code, and not its description.

Extensibility impact

The CreateProductBody procedure in the Product Export codeunit takes language codes as parameters so it can be used for each language. Now this procedure is called multiple times according to the list of selected languages. Because it contains the OnBeforeCreateProductBodyHtml and OnAfterCreateProductBodyHtml events, those events are now triggered multiple times per item. The events now include the language code as a parameter, so you can skip translation or add your own logic.

Conclusion: Synchronising Product Translations from Business Central to Shopify

Streamline Your Global E-commerce Operations

Synchronizing product translations from Business Central to Shopify provides an invaluable solution for businesses looking to expand their international presence. This feature enhances the customer experience, boosts conversion rates, and fosters long-term customer loyalty by offering consistent and accessible product information in multiple languages.

With easy configuration steps and the ability to automatically sync translations, your business can stay ahead of the curve and cater to a broader, more diverse audience. By streamlining your global e-commerce operations, you ensure that customers across the world have access to the same high-quality product information—no matter what language they speak.