Articles on: Timesact V2

Translations

Localize your customer experience templates' storefront text (button, message, badge, cart label, Notify Me form, and so on) for each language and market. This is done in Shopify's Translate & Adapt app, under Metaobjects, not in Timesact.




How translations work in Timesact


Each customer experience template is saved as a Shopify metaobject called Timesact Customer Experience. The text it shows on your storefront lives inside that metaobject's config fields (Pre order config, Back in stock config, Coming soon config, Low stock config), stored as JSON. Shopify's translation layer exposes these metaobjects in Translate & Adapt, where you provide a translated copy of each config for each language.


The Translations tab inside a customer experience template is an information panel only. There is nothing to configure on it, it points you to your translation app.




Step 1 — Install Translate & Adapt


Free and made by Shopify. It installs automatically the first time you add a language. If you do not have it: Shopify admin → Settings → Languages → Install Shopify Translate & Adapt.




Step 2 — Add and publish the language


In Settings → Languages, add the language and publish it (an unpublished language will not appear in Translate & Adapt). For regional wording in the same language, for example English for Canada, you can adapt per market instead.




Step 3 — Translate the customer experience metaobjects


  1. In Shopify admin, open Apps → Translate & Adapt.
  2. At the top, select the language or market to translate for. If it's not already added, click manage on top right and add it.
  3. Open the content dropdown and choose Metaobjects.
  4. Select the Timesact Customer Experience entry that matches your template (Entries are named Ce followed by a number (for example Ce14), but the Title shown at the top is the easier way to identify the right one.
  5. For each config field (Pre order config, Back in stock config, Coming soon config, Low stock config), copy the source JSON from the Reference column into the target-language column, then translate only the text values, leaving the JSON structure untouched.
  6. Click Save. Shoppers in that language or market now see the translated text.


Repeat for each customer experience template and each language.




Which values to translate


Inside each config JSON, translate only the human-facing text, for example:


  • button text, soldOutText, addToCartText
  • message text
  • badge text
  • cart label, and the cart alert and mixed-cart alert content (title, message, buttonText, dismissLabel)
  • timer title, subheading, and labels (Days, Hrs, Mins, Secs)
  • the Notify Me form content (title, description, buttonText, note, successMessage, errorMessage, emailPlaceholder, successButtonText) and newsletter label
  • the selling plan widget description
  • the same fields under the collection section


What to leave exactly as it is


Do not change the JSON keys, structure, or punctuation, and do not change ids, sellingPlanId, styles, colors, sizes, dates, or enum values like NO_DISCOUNT, ASAP, GLOBAL, or ALL. Only edit the quoted text values. The Markets config type and Inventory locations config type fields are settings (GLOBAL, ALL), not text, leave them as they are.


Example (French): change


"button":{"text":"Pre-Order","type":"DEFAULT",...


to


"button":{"text":"Précommande","type":"DEFAULT",...


and "addToCartText":"Add to Cart" to "addToCartText":"Ajouter au panier", leaving every key and style value the same.


Tip: avoid blindly using Auto-translate on these config fields, since it can translate keys or break the JSON. Translate the text values by hand, or review the output carefully before saving.




Troubleshooting


  • The Timesact metaobjects are not listed under Metaobjects: confirm the language is published in Settings → Languages.
  • A string shows in the source language on the storefront: that value was not translated and saved in the config for that language. Fill it in and save.




Learn more


Updated on: 06/30/2026

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