Localization procedures and prioritization for applications

A system includes a database containing database tables. The system also includes one or more processors configured to: (i) determine, for a software application, a set of the database tables containing information used by the software application; (ii) for an item associated with the software application, query the set of the database tables for entries related to the item, wherein the entries are in a first language; (iii) generate, for display, a representation of a first pane and a second pane, wherein the first pane contains the entries, and wherein the second pane contains data input elements for translations of the entries into a second language; (iv) transmit the representation; (v) receive data entered into the data input elements of the second pane; and (vi) store, in the set of the database tables, the data entered into the data input elements as a translation to the second language.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a 371 application of PCT Application No. PCT/US2021/020905, entitled “Improved Localization Procedures and Prioritization for Applications”, and filed on Mar. 4, 2021; which claims priority to Indian patent application No. 2020110009549, entitled “Improved Localization Procedures and Prioritization for Applications” and filed on Mar. 5, 2020. The contents of each application is hereby incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.

BACKGROUND

Enterprise networks may provide users with access to web pages, applications, or other types of services with graphical user interfaces. These services may make use of various types of structured data, such as knowledgebase articles, incident reports, catalog items, virtual agent dialogs, and so on.

Localization refers to adapting text, language, and other aspects of this structured data for use in specific countries, regions, geographies, or cultures. For example, a knowledgebase article that is initially written in English should be translated to French before it is made available to French-speaking users. But there is currently is no consistent, reliable technique that can be used to localize structured data, as each type thereof may be arranged in different database storage structures. Further, there is no way to determine the overall localization status of the system and/or its individual applications.

SUMMARY

The embodiments herein provide a standardized localization process for structured data, regardless of application. These embodiments further provide dashboards on a graphical user interface that allow users to rapidly determine the locational status of the system. The dashboards may also recommend additional units of structured data for localization.

Accordingly, a first example embodiment may involve a database containing a plurality of database tables. The first example embodiment may also involve one or more processors configured to: (i) determine, for a software application operating on the system, a set of the database tables containing information used by the software application; (ii) for an item associated with the software application, query the set of the database tables for entries related to the item, wherein the entries related to the item are in a first language; (iii) generate, for display on a graphical user interface, a representation of a first pane and a second pane, wherein the first pane contains the entries related to the item in the first language, and wherein the second pane contains data input elements for translations of the entries related to the item into a second language; (iv) transmit, to a client device, the representation of the first pane and the second pane; (v) receive, from the client device, data entered into the data input elements of the second pane; and (vi) store, in the set of the database tables, the data entered into the data input elements as a translation to the second language of the entries related to the item.

A second example embodiment may involve determining, for a software application, a set of database tables containing information used by the software application. The second example embodiment may also involve, for an item associated with the software application, querying the set of database tables for entries related to the item, wherein the entries related to the item are in a first language. The second example embodiment may also involve generating, for display on a graphical user interface, a representation of a first pane and a second pane, wherein the first pane contains the entries related to the item in the first language, and wherein the second pane contains data input elements for translations of the entries related to the item into a second language. The second example embodiment may also involve transmitting, to a client device, the representation of the first pane and the second pane. The second example embodiment may also involve receiving, from the client device, data entered into the data input elements of the second pane. The second example embodiment may also involve storing, in the set of the database tables, the data entered into the data input elements as a translation to the second language of the entries related to the item.

In a fifth example embodiment, a system may include various means for carrying out each of the operations of the first and/or second example embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In order to achieve this goal, the concept of Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS) is introduced, to intelligently automate workflows throughout the enterprise. An aPaaS system is hosted remotely from the enterprise, but may access data, applications, and services within the enterprise by way of secure connections. Such an aPaaS system may have a number of advantageous capabilities and characteristics. These advantages and characteristics may be able to improve the enterprise's operations and workflows for IT, HR, CRM, customer service, application development, and security.

The aPaaS system may support development and execution of model-view-controller (MVC) applications. MVC applications divide their functionality into three interconnected parts (model, view, and controller) in order to isolate representations of information from the manner in which the information is presented to the user, thereby allowing for efficient code reuse and parallel development. These applications may be web-based, and offer create, read, update, delete (CRUD) capabilities. This allows new applications to be built on a common application infrastructure.

The aPaaS system may support clearly-defined interfaces between applications, so that software developers can avoid unwanted inter-application dependencies. Thus, the aPaaS system may implement a service layer in which persistent state information and other data are stored.

Such an aPaaS system may represent a GUI in various ways. For example, a server device of the aPaaS system may generate a representation of a GUI using a combination of HTML and JAVASCRIPT®. The JAVASCRIPT® may include client-side executable code, server-side executable code, or both. The server device may transmit or otherwise provide this representation to a client device for the client device to display on a screen according to its locally-defined look and feel. Alternatively, a representation of a GUI may take other forms, such as an intermediate form (e.g., JAVA® byte-code) that a client device can use to directly generate graphical output therefrom. Other possibilities exist.

Further, user interaction with GUI elements, such as buttons, menus, tabs, sliders, checkboxes, toggles, etc. may be referred to as “selection”, “activation”, or “actuation” thereof. These terms may be used regardless of whether the GUI elements are interacted with by way of keyboard, pointing device, touchscreen, or another mechanism.

An aPaaS architecture is particularly powerful when integrated with an enterprise's network and used to manage such a network. The following embodiments describe architectural and functional aspects of example aPaaS systems, as well as the features and advantages thereof.

FIG.2depicts a cloud-based server cluster200in accordance with example embodiments. InFIG.2, operations of a computing device (e.g., computing device100) may be distributed between server devices202, data storage204, and routers206, all of which may be connected by local cluster network208. The number of server devices202, data storages204, and routers206in server cluster200may depend on the computing task(s) and/or applications assigned to server cluster200.

III. Example Remote Network Management Architecture

FIG.3depicts a remote network management architecture, in accordance with example embodiments. This architecture includes three main components—managed network300, remote network management platform320, and public cloud networks340—all connected by way of Internet350.

A. Managed Networks

Managed network300may also include one or more proxy servers312. An embodiment of proxy servers312may be a server application that facilitates communication and movement of data between managed network300, remote network management platform320, and public cloud networks340. In particular, proxy servers312may be able to establish and maintain secure communication sessions with one or more computational instances of remote network management platform320. By way of such a session, remote network management platform320may be able to discover and manage aspects of the architecture and configuration of managed network300and its components. Possibly with the assistance of proxy servers312, remote network management platform320may also be able to discover and manage aspects of public cloud networks340that are used by managed network300.

In some cases, managed network300may consist of a few devices and a small number of networks. In other deployments, managed network300may span multiple physical locations and include hundreds of networks and hundreds of thousands of devices. Thus, the architecture depicted inFIG.3is capable of scaling up or down by orders of magnitude.

B. Remote Network Management Platforms

Remote network management platform320is a hosted environment that provides aPaaS services to users, particularly to the operator of managed network300. These services may take the form of web-based portals, for example, using the aforementioned web-based technologies. Thus, a user can securely access remote network management platform320from, for example, client devices302, or potentially from a client device outside of managed network300. By way of the web-based portals, users may design, test, and deploy applications, generate reports, view analytics, and perform other tasks.

As shown inFIG.3, remote network management platform320includes four computational instances322,324,326, and328. Each of these computational instances may represent one or more server nodes operating dedicated copies of the aPaaS software and/or one or more database nodes. The arrangement of server and database nodes on physical server devices and/or virtual machines can be flexible and may vary based on enterprise needs. In combination, these nodes may provide a set of web portals, services, and applications (e.g., a wholly-functioning aPaaS system) available to a particular enterprise. In some cases, a single enterprise may use multiple computational instances.

For example, managed network300may be an enterprise customer of remote network management platform320, and may use computational instances322,324, and326. The reason for providing multiple computational instances to one customer is that the customer may wish to independently develop, test, and deploy its applications and services. Thus, computational instance322may be dedicated to application development related to managed network300, computational instance324may be dedicated to testing these applications, and computational instance326may be dedicated to the live operation of tested applications and services. A computational instance may also be referred to as a hosted instance, a remote instance, a customer instance, or by some other designation. Any application deployed onto a computational instance may be a scoped application, in that its access to databases within the computational instance can be restricted to certain elements therein (e.g., one or more particular database tables or particular rows within one or more database tables).

For purposes of clarity, the disclosure herein refers to the arrangement of application nodes, database nodes, aPaaS software executing thereon, and underlying hardware as a “computational instance.” Note that users may colloquially refer to the graphical user interfaces provided thereby as “instances.” But unless it is defined otherwise herein, a “computational instance” is a computing system disposed within remote network management platform320.

The multi-instance architecture of remote network management platform320is in contrast to conventional multi-tenant architectures, over which multi-instance architectures exhibit several advantages. In multi-tenant architectures, data from different customers (e.g., enterprises) are comingled in a single database. While these customers' data are separate from one another, the separation is enforced by the software that operates the single database. As a consequence, a security breach in this system may impact all customers' data, creating additional risk, especially for entities subject to governmental, healthcare, and/or financial regulation. Furthermore, any database operations that impact one customer will likely impact all customers sharing that database. Thus, if there is an outage due to hardware or software errors, this outage affects all such customers. Likewise, if the database is to be upgraded to meet the needs of one customer, it will be unavailable to all customers during the upgrade process. Often, such maintenance windows will be long, due to the size of the shared database.

In some embodiments, remote network management platform320may include one or more central instances, controlled by the entity that operates this platform. Like a computational instance, a central instance may include some number of application and database nodes disposed upon some number of physical server devices or virtual machines. Such a central instance may serve as a repository for specific configurations of computational instances as well as data that can be shared amongst at least some of the computational instances. For instance, definitions of common security threats that could occur on the computational instances, software packages that are commonly discovered on the computational instances, and/or an application store for applications that can be deployed to the computational instances may reside in a central instance. Computational instances may communicate with central instances by way of well-defined interfaces in order to obtain this data.

In order to support multiple computational instances in an efficient fashion, remote network management platform320may implement a plurality of these instances on a single hardware platform. For example, when the aPaaS system is implemented on a server cluster such as server cluster200, it may operate virtual machines that dedicate varying amounts of computational, storage, and communication resources to instances. But full virtualization of server cluster200might not be necessary, and other mechanisms may be used to separate instances. In some examples, each instance may have a dedicated account and one or more dedicated databases on server cluster200. Alternatively, a computational instance such as computational instance322may span multiple physical devices.

C. Public Cloud Networks

Public cloud networks340may be remote server devices (e.g., a plurality of server clusters such as server cluster200) that can be used for outsourced computation, data storage, communication, and service hosting operations. These servers may be virtualized (i.e., the servers may be virtual machines). Examples of public cloud networks340may include AMAZON WEB SERVICES® and MICROSOFT® AZURE®. Like remote network management platform320, multiple server clusters supporting public cloud networks340may be deployed at geographically diverse locations for purposes of load balancing, redundancy, and/or high availability.

Managed network300may use one or more of public cloud networks340to deploy applications and services to its clients and customers. For instance, if managed network300provides online music streaming services, public cloud networks340may store the music files and provide web interface and streaming capabilities. In this way, the enterprise of managed network300does not have to build and maintain its own servers for these operations.

Remote network management platform320may include modules that integrate with public cloud networks340to expose virtual machines and managed services therein to managed network300. The modules may allow users to request virtual resources, discover allocated resources, and provide flexible reporting for public cloud networks340. In order to establish this functionality, a user from managed network300might first establish an account with public cloud networks340, and request a set of associated resources. Then, the user may enter the account information into the appropriate modules of remote network management platform320. These modules may then automatically discover the manageable resources in the account, and also provide reports related to usage, performance, and billing.

D. Communication Support and Other Operations

FIG.4further illustrates the communication environment between managed network300and computational instance322, and introduces additional features and alternative embodiments. InFIG.4, computational instance322is replicated across data centers400A and400B. These data centers may be geographically distant from one another, perhaps in different cities or different countries. Each data center includes support equipment that facilitates communication with managed network300, as well as remote users.

Data centers400A and400B as shown inFIG.4may facilitate redundancy and high availability. In the configuration ofFIG.4, data center400A is active and data center400B is passive. Thus, data center400A is serving all traffic to and from managed network300, while the version of computational instance322in data center400B is being updated in near-real-time. Other configurations, such as one in which both data centers are active, may be supported.

FIG.4also illustrates a possible configuration of managed network300. As noted above, proxy servers312and user414may access computational instance322through firewall310. Proxy servers312may also access configuration items410. InFIG.4, configuration items410may refer to any or all of client devices302, server devices304, routers306, and virtual machines308, any applications or services executing thereon, as well as relationships between devices, applications, and services. Thus, the term “configuration items” may be shorthand for any physical or virtual device, or any application or service remotely discoverable or managed by computational instance322, or relationships between discovered devices, applications, and services. Configuration items may be represented in a configuration management database (CMDB) of computational instance322.

As noted above, VPN gateway412may provide a dedicated VPN to VPN gateway402A. Such a VPN may be helpful when there is a significant amount of traffic between managed network300and computational instance322, or security policies otherwise suggest or require use of a VPN between these sites. In some embodiments, any device in managed network300and/or computational instance322that directly communicates via the VPN is assigned a public IP address. Other devices in managed network300and/or computational instance322may be assigned private IP addresses (e.g., IP addresses selected from the 10.0.0.0-10.255.255.255 or 192.168.0.0-192.168.255.255 ranges, represented in shorthand as subnets 10.0.0.0/8 and 192.168.0.0/16, respectively).

IV. Example Device, Application, and Service Discovery

In order for remote network management platform320to administer the devices, applications, and services of managed network300, remote network management platform320may first determine what devices are present in managed network300, the configurations and operational statuses of these devices, and the applications and services provided by the devices, as well as the relationships between discovered devices, applications, and services. As noted above, each device, application, service, and relationship may be referred to as a configuration item. The process of defining configuration items within managed network300is referred to as discovery, and may be facilitated at least in part by proxy servers312.

FIG.5Aprovides a logical depiction of how configuration items can be discovered, as well as how information related to discovered configuration items can be stored. For sake of simplicity, remote network management platform320, public cloud networks340, and Internet350are not shown.

InFIG.5A, CMDB500and task list502are stored within computational instance322. Computational instance322may transmit discovery commands to proxy servers312. In response, proxy servers312may transmit probes to various devices, applications, and services in managed network300. These devices, applications, and services may transmit responses to proxy servers312, and proxy servers312may then provide information regarding discovered configuration items to CMDB500for storage therein. Configuration items stored in CMDB500represent the environment of managed network300.

Task list502represents a list of activities that proxy servers312are to perform on behalf of computational instance322. As discovery takes place, task list502is populated. Proxy servers312repeatedly query task list502, obtain the next task therein, and perform this task until task list502is empty or another stopping condition has been reached.

To facilitate discovery, proxy servers312may be configured with information regarding one or more subnets in managed network300that are reachable by way of proxy servers312. For instance, proxy servers312may be given the IP address range 192.168.0/24 as a subnet. Then, computational instance322may store this information in CMDB500and place tasks in task list502for discovery of devices at each of these addresses.

FIG.5Aalso depicts devices, applications, and services in managed network300as configuration items504,506,508,510, and512. As noted above, these configuration items represent a set of physical and/or virtual devices (e.g., client devices, server devices, routers, or virtual machines), applications executing thereon (e.g., web servers, email servers, databases, or storage arrays), relationships therebetween, as well as services that involve multiple individual configuration items.

Placing the tasks in task list502may trigger or otherwise cause proxy servers312to begin discovery. Alternatively or additionally, discovery may be manually triggered or automatically triggered based on triggering events (e.g., discovery may automatically begin once per day at a particular time).

In general, discovery may proceed in four logical phases: scanning, classification, identification, and exploration. Each phase of discovery involves various types of probe messages being transmitted by proxy servers312to one or more devices in managed network300. The responses to these probes may be received and processed by proxy servers312, and representations thereof may be transmitted to CMDB500. Thus, each phase can result in more configuration items being discovered and stored in CMDB500.

In the scanning phase, proxy servers312may probe each IP address in the specified range of IP addresses for open Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and/or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports to determine the general type of device. The presence of such open ports at an IP address may indicate that a particular application is operating on the device that is assigned the IP address, which in turn may identify the operating system used by the device. For example, if TCP port135is open, then the device is likely executing a WINDOWS® operating system. Similarly, if TCP port22is open, then the device is likely executing a UNIX® operating system, such as LINUX®. If UDP port161is open, then the device may be able to be further identified through the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Other possibilities exist. Once the presence of a device at a particular IP address and its open ports have been discovered, these configuration items are saved in CMDB500.

In the identification phase, proxy servers312may determine specific details about a classified device. The probes used during this phase may be based on information gathered about the particular devices during the classification phase. For example, if a device was classified as LINUX®, a set of LINUX®-specific probes may be used. Likewise, if a device was classified as WINDOWS® 2012, as a set of WINDOWS®-2012-specific probes may be used. As was the case for the classification phase, an appropriate set of tasks may be placed in task list502for proxy servers312to carry out. These tasks may result in proxy servers312reading information from the particular device, such as basic input/output system (BIOS) information, serial numbers, network interface information, media access control address(es) assigned to these network interface(s), IP address(es) used by the particular device and so on. This identification information may be stored as one or more configuration items in CMDB500.

Running discovery on a network device, such as a router, may utilize SNMP. Instead of or in addition to determining a list of running processes or other application-related information, discovery may determine additional subnets known to the router and the operational state of the router's network interfaces (e.g., active, inactive, queue length, number of packets dropped, etc.). The IP addresses of the additional subnets may be candidates for further discovery procedures. Thus, discovery may progress iteratively or recursively.

Once discovery completes, a snapshot representation of each discovered device, application, and service is available in CMDB500. For example, after discovery, operating system version, hardware configuration, and network configuration details for client devices, server devices, and routers in managed network300, as well as applications executing thereon, may be stored. This collected information may be presented to a user in various ways to allow the user to view the hardware composition and operational status of devices, as well as the characteristics of services that span multiple devices and applications.

Furthermore, CMDB500may include entries regarding dependencies and relationships between configuration items. More specifically, an application that is executing on a particular server device, as well as the services that rely on this application, may be represented as such in CMDB500. For example, suppose that a database application is executing on a server device, and that this database application is used by a new employee onboarding service as well as a payroll service. Thus, if the server device is taken out of operation for maintenance, it is clear that the employee onboarding service and payroll service will be impacted. Likewise, the dependencies and relationships between configuration items may be able to represent the services impacted when a particular router fails.

In general, dependencies and relationships between configuration items may be displayed on a web-based interface and represented in a hierarchical fashion. Thus, adding, changing, or removing such dependencies and relationships may be accomplished by way of this interface.

Furthermore, users from managed network300may develop workflows that allow certain coordinated activities to take place across multiple discovered devices. For instance, an IT workflow might allow the user to change the common administrator password to all discovered LINUX® devices in a single operation.

The discovery process is depicted as a flow chart inFIG.5B. At block520, the task list in the computational instance is populated, for instance, with a range of IP addresses. At block522, the scanning phase takes place. Thus, the proxy servers probe the IP addresses for devices using these IP addresses, and attempt to determine the operating systems that are executing on these devices. At block524, the classification phase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determine the operating system version of the discovered devices. At block526, the identification phase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determine the hardware and/or software configuration of the discovered devices. At block528, the exploration phase takes place. The proxy servers attempt to determine the operational state and applications executing on the discovered devices. At block530, further editing of the configuration items representing the discovered devices and applications may take place. This editing may be automated and/or manual in nature.

The blocks represented inFIG.5Bare examples. Discovery may be a highly configurable procedure that can have more or fewer phases, and the operations of each phase may vary. In some cases, one or more phases may be customized, or may otherwise deviate from the exemplary descriptions above.

In this manner, a remote network management platform may discover and inventory the hardware, software, and services deployed on and provided by the managed network. As noted above, this data may be stored in a CMDB of the associated computational instance as configuration items. For example, individual hardware components (e.g., computing devices, virtual servers, databases, routers, etc.) may be represented as hardware configuration items, while the applications installed and/or executing thereon may be represented as software configuration items.

The relationship between a software configuration item installed or executing on a hardware configuration item may take various forms, such as “is hosted on”, “runs on”, or “depends on”. Thus, a database application installed on a server device may have the relationship “is hosted on” with the server device to indicate that the database application is hosted on the server device. In some embodiments, the server device may have a reciprocal relationship of “used by” with the database application to indicate that the server device is used by the database application. These relationships may be automatically found using the discovery procedures described above, though it is possible to manually set relationships as well.

The relationship between a service and one or more software configuration items may also take various forms. As an example, a web service may include a web server software configuration item and a database application software configuration item, each installed on different hardware configuration items. The web service may have a “depends on” relationship with both of these software configuration items, while the software configuration items have a “used by” reciprocal relationship with the web service. Services might not be able to be fully determined by discovery procedures, and instead may rely on service mapping (e.g., probing configuration files and/or carrying out network traffic analysis to determine service level relationships between configuration items) and possibly some extent of manual configuration.

Regardless of how relationship information is obtained, it can be valuable for the operation of a managed network. Notably, IT personnel can quickly determine where certain software applications are deployed, and what configuration items make up a service. This allows for rapid pinpointing of root causes of service outages or degradation. For example, if two different services are suffering from slow response times, the CMDB can be queried (perhaps among other activities) to determine that the root cause is a database application that is used by both services having high processor utilization. Thus, IT personnel can address the database application rather than waste time considering the health and performance of other configuration items that make up the services.

As noted previously, localization refers to adapting text, language, and other aspects of applications' structured data for use in specific countries, regions, geographies, or cultures. In a complex software system, such as a computational instance of a remote network management platform, localization can be a daunting task. Not only do translators seek to make accurate translations into local languages, specific technical and cultural contexts may be taken into account. Further, the information (e.g., text strings) that are to be translated may exist across multiple locations (e.g., different database tables) of the system. Thus, current localization efforts can be difficult, time-consuming, and prone to being incomplete in practice.

As an example,FIG.6depicts four applications that may operate within a computational instance, such as computational instance322. These include incidents600, catalog602, knowledgebase604, and virtual agents606. These applications are just examples, and further applications may be deployed on a computational instance.

Each of these applications also relies upon one or more database tables for its operations. The applications may store configuration parameters, user interface parameters, and entries in these tables. To that point, incidents600uses database tables608, catalog602uses database tables610, knowledgebase604uses database tables612, and virtual agents606uses database tables614. In some embodiments, tables may be dedicated to a particular application, while in other embodiments some applications may use some of the same tables.

Incidents600may be an application that facilitates the management of incident reports. These incident reports are often opened by IT users to describe a problem that they have experienced. Each incident report may also be referred to as a record. Incident reports may exist in various formats and contain various types of information, such as the name of an originator, a short description of the incident, a full description of the incident, a status of the incident, and an IT professional to whom the incident is assigned.

Catalog602may be an application that provides lists of equipment (e.g., laptops, phones, software) available to IT users, and provides ways in which these users can order the equipment. In doing so, catalog602may automate purchasing workflows and approvals.

Knowledgebase604may be an application that provides longer, pre-written guides or sets of instructions for addressing certain types of IT or enterprise problems. Often, many users have the same technology problems over and over, such as how to reset their enterprise passwords or how to access Wifi networks in various locations. Thus, IT personnel may write knowledgebase articles that address these issues. These articles may take the form of flat files, hyperlinked files, database content, or combinations thereof.

Virtual agents606may be an application that simulates a live human agent by using pre-defined or dynamically generated messages arranged in a conversation flow that is intended to answer a user's question or solve a user's problem. In some cases, all incoming chat requests may be initially answered by virtual agents that will either address the user's request or hand off the chat to a human agent.

As noted, each application may rely upon a unique combination of database tables to store its configuration and entries.FIG.7provides an example hierarchy of database tables for catalog602. This hierarchy is somewhat simplified for purposes of illustration, and in practice may involve more tables and more complex relationships therebetween.

The sc_cat_item700includes entries for each catalog item. This table relies on the item_option_new702and item_option_new_set706tables for storing or referring to variables defined for each of these catalog items. Particularly, each entry in the item_option_new702table may contain a variable, while each entry in the item_option_new_set706table may be associated with a number of variables in the item_option_new702table. The variables may define questions for the user, which are stored in the question_choice table704. In other embodiments, database tables associated with an application may include graphics, links, executable scripts and other information that may also require some form of localization.

The database table arrangement ofFIG.7is just one example thereof, but motivates one of the difficulties of localization—information to be translated may exist in numerous tables. If a translator is to manually attempt localization, the translator may be unable to easily determine which tables are storing text strings that should be translated. Further, by having to navigate between these tables (by editing the database directly using SQL or by way of a user interface), the translator may lose the context of the information being translated, thus reducing the quality of the localization.

The embodiments herein overcome these limitations by automatically obtaining all relevant information for an item of structured data and presenting this information on one or more graphical user interfaces for a translator. This information may be obtained by traversing the database tables associated with the application and identifying all entries relevant to localization of the item. The columns and/or tables could also be manually selected. Alternatively, for each application, relevant columns of relevant tables may appear in metadata stored in files, non-relational databases, or in other types of documents. An example of such metadata in JSON format is shown below.

Regardless, these entries may be provided, in an organized fashion, on the graphical user interfaces to facilitate the localization. An example of this is shown inFIG.8A. This figure depicts a graphical user interface that could be presented to an individual tasked with localization of a catalog item. In particular, the catalog item and its associated data may be in English, and the individual may be attempting to translate the catalog item and its associated data into French.

In order to make this localization task more efficient and complete, pane800A of the graphical user interface may depict the catalog item and its associated data in English, and pane800B may prompt the user to input the equivalent information in French. This side-by-side arrangement of pane800A and800B facilitates comparison of the translation from English to French. Thus, initially, the inputs in pane800B may be blank. Alternatively, if translations of the information displayed in pane800A are known (e.g., cached from a previous transaction), these translations may be automatically populated into the inputs of pane800B.

To provide the information shown in the graphical user interface ofFIG.8A, the computational instance may traverse the database structure that was identified as being relevant (e.g., the structure depicted inFIG.7or a similar structure), and display this information in an organized fashion. For example, pane800A includes information related to a particular catalog item (a MyPhone 8S mobile device) including basic information802A, color variable804A, and color choices806A. The graphical layout may be user-defined, e.g., in a document object model (DOM), XML file, JavaScript object Notation (JSON) file, or in some other fashion.

Basic information802A includes the name of the catalog item, its short description, and a longer full description. Color variable804A and color choices806A may work together to query the end user (customer) as to what color phone they would prefer (e.g., using a text string “Color?” provided by color variable804A). Color choices806A provide the options that would be presented to the end user (e.g., in a drop-down menu) including gold, silver, white, and black. Equivalent entries for the French translation appear in basic information802B, color variable804B, and color choices806B of pane800B.

The information about this catalog item that is shown inFIG.8Ais for purposes of illustration. In practice, the information may be much more extensive, defining questions asked of the end user, and text provided to the end user. For instance, after ordering the mobile device, the user may be sent an email with text confirming the purchase and stating “Your phone will be delivered in 2-3 days.”

This additional information may include options for an amount of device memory, device data plan, cost center to be billed, whether the phone is replacing a lost or broken phone, a preferred phone number, purpose of the purchase, and so on. In a similar fashion, other types of applications (e.g., incidents600, knowledgebase604, or virtual agents606) may have similarly complex information spread across a number of tables that can be presented in an organized fashion on a graphical user information not unlike that ofFIG.8A.

In the top right corner ofFIG.8Ais button808. Pressing, selecting, or otherwise activating the button may result in the translatable text (e.g., the text in boxes) of pane800A being transmitting to a server device for machine translation. This server may be disposed within the remote network management platform, or may be an external service. Results from this machine translation may be populated in the appropriate text boxes of pane800B. Such a machine translation may facilitate localization of the catalog item by providing an initial translation of the text, which can further be edited by a bilingual translator. Notably, machine translation is often not fully correct (e.g., missing valuable context or mistranslating colloquialisms) and manual editing of its output may be warranted.

The localization activities facilitated by the graphical user interface ofFIG.8Amay be part of a localization workflow. An example of such a workflow is shown inFIG.8B.

At step850, an item is selected for localization. This may be a catalog item of catalog602as discussed above, or an incident report of incidents600, an article of knowledgebase604, or a virtual agent transaction or chat script of virtual agents606. Keeping with the catalog item example, selection of the item at step850may trigger identification of database entries associated with the item, which may in turn involve traversing a number of database tables (e.g., for the catalog application, traversing the tables depicted inFIG.7).

At step852, this information is presented, to a first persona, for localization (e.g., from English to French). The presentation may be similar to that depicted inFIG.8A, and may involve logically grouping sets of the information based on a pre-defined configuration. The first persona may be a translator, for example. Once the first persona completes the localization, he or she submits it for review and approval.

At step854, the information and its localized version may be presented to a second persona for the review. The second persona may serve as a “second set of eyes” on the localization, and/or may be a senior individual who is experienced with localization procedures. If the second persona does not approve the localization, the item is returned to the first persona for further localization at step852. If the second persona does approve the localization, the item is deployed to customers at step856. A deployed item may be used by customers in production, e.g., as part of their workflows. Particularly, the deployed item may be saved to the appropriate database tables and may be accessed once an end user sets the locale of his or her computational instance or his or her personal locale to a particular language (e.g., English or French).

In addition to facilitating localization by determining text strings and other artifacts of an application that are candidates for localization, the embodiments herein provide graphical user interfaces to report on the status of localization per application, as well as to recommend further items for localization. While the graphical user interfaces presented herein employ certain arrangements of particular units of data, other arrangements of other units of data may be possible.

FIG.9Adepicts graphical user interface900, which includes dashboards providing visual representations of localization statuses and recommended localizations. Dashboards902,904, and906represent the localization statuses of the catalog, virtual agent, and knowledgebase applications, respectively, for English, French, and German. The key to interpreting these charts is in pane914.

For example, dashboard902indicates that all catalog items have been localized into English. However, more than half of these items have not been translated into French and/or German. Further, some catalog items are partially translated into French and/or German. Partial translations indicate that not all database entries associated with the item have been translated. For instance, in the context ofFIG.8A, this may mean that basic information802A has been translated but color variable804A and color choices806A have not. From such an arrangement, a user can rapidly determine how well-localized each application is on a per-language basis.

Dashboards908,910, and912depict recommendations for further localization of the catalog, virtual agent, and knowledgebase applications, respectively, for all languages. For example, dashboard908represents recommended localizations916(the arc with no background) out of all information that can be localized across all languages. Remaining localizations918(the arc with a hashed background) are not currently recommended for localization.

An item may be recommended for localization based on attempted use. For instance, a count may be recorded when one or more users who are in a French-speaking locale or whose computational instance display is set to French request a particular item that is not localized to French or only partially localized to French. When this count exceeds a pre-determined threshold (e.g., 1, 2, 5, 10), the item may be marked as a recommended candidate for localization.

A user of graphical user interface900may click on or otherwise activate recommended localizations916to be presented with a list of these recommended candidates. Similar functionality may exist for the recommended localizations for the virtual agent and knowledgebase applications in dashboards910and912, respectively.

To that point,FIG.9Bdepicts graphical user interface920that could be presented to the user after the user clicks on or otherwise selects or activates recommended localizations916. Graphical user interface920may include a list of catalog items and/or related information along with recommended localizations thereof. For instance, the catalog item laptop, appearing the fourth row of this table, may have been accessed from the sc_cat_item table, may be recommended for localization in German, and have a current localization status of partial. The count of 3 associated with this item may indicate that the item has been requested 3 times by end users with German locales. In cases where this item is also recommended for localization into French, another entry in the table of graphical user interface920may be present.

In this fashion, a user can focus on localizing catalog items (and with other application, other types of information) that have been requested in a non-localized or partially-localized language. This facilitates better use and prioritization of localization efforts.

VII. Example Operations

FIG.10is a flow chart illustrating an example embodiment. The process illustrated byFIG.10may be carried out by a computing device, such as computing device100, and/or a cluster of computing devices, such as server cluster200. However, the process can be carried out by other types of devices or device subsystems. For example, the process could be carried out by a computational instance of a remote network management platform or some other type of device.

Block1000may involve determining, for a software application, a set of database tables containing information used by the software application.

Block1002may involve, for an item associated with the software application, querying the set of database tables for entries related to the item, wherein the entries related to the item are in a first language.

Block1004may involve generating, for display on a graphical user interface, a representation of a first pane and a second pane, wherein the first pane contains the entries related to the item in the first language, and wherein the second pane contains data input elements for translations of the entries related to the item into a second language. In some embodiments, one or more of the data input elements of the second pane may be blank. Some of these data input elements may be prepopulated with previous translations that have been cached or otherwise stored in the computational instance.

Block1006may involve transmitting, to a client device, the representation of the first pane and the second pane.

Block1008may involve receiving, from the client device, data entered into the data input elements of the second pane. The user may fill in any blank data input elements and/or edit any data input elements that have been prepopulated.

Block1010may involve storing, in the set of the database tables, the data entered into the data input elements as a translation to the second language of the entries related to the item.

In some embodiments, the software application is a catalog application and the item is a catalog item of the catalog application.

In some embodiments, the software application is an incident management application and the item is an incident report of the incident management application.

In some embodiments, the software application is a knowledgebase application and the item is an article of the knowledgebase application.

In some embodiments, the software application is a virtual agent application and the item is a chat script of the virtual agent application.

In some embodiments, determining the set of the database tables comprises obtaining a list of the set of the database tables from a user-provided configuration.

In some embodiments, the first pane and the second pane are arranged side-by-side on the graphical user interface.

In some embodiments, the entries related to the item are arranged in the first pane according to functionality or topics thereof.

Some embodiments may further involve: (i) transmitting, to a second client device, a representation of the entries related to the item and the translation; (ii) receiving, from the second client device, approval of the translation; and (iii) storing, in the set of the database tables, an indication that the translation is available for deployment to end users.

Some embodiments may further involve: (i) generating, for display on a second graphical user interface, a dashboard representing a localization status of the software application, wherein the localization status is based on an extent to which items related to the software application have been translated from the first language into the second language; and (ii) transmitting, to a further client device, a representation of the localization status. The localization status may depict amounts of the items related to the software application that are fully translated into the second language, partially translated into the second language, and not translated into the second language. The amounts may appear stacked in a bar chart.

Some embodiments may further involve generating, for display on a second graphical user interface, a dashboard representing localization recommendations for the software application, wherein the localization recommendations are for items related to the software application that: (i) are not translated into the second language, and (ii) have been requested in the second language.