Groups

The Groups feature on GlobalLink Strings allows users to divide a Project's content into smaller subsets of keys that can be managed and delivered independently of each other. This can help organize large amounts of localized content and reduce the amount of translations delivered to an application at once.

When to use Groups

❗ Important: The Groups feature can only be enabled by the GL Strings support team.

The feature is only available to applications or software that have more than 50,000 individual keys. In those cases, users can either reach out to support to enable the Groups feature or set up multiple projects to manage all the content. In cases where an application has less than 50,000 keys, the Tags feature would better serve managing and organizing entries.

If Groups are enabled, the feature does add operational complexity. Users must actively manage group assignments, release configurations, and integration behavior across the application or software lifecycle.

⚠️ Warning: Enabling and using groups will impact the integration and localization workflows. Groups is not recommended if translation review on GL Strings is in scope.

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Group limitations

• Only 50,000 keys are allowed per group.
• Only 10 groups are allowed per project.

📝 Note: The number of Groups does not change with the different GL Strings account tiers.

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Enable Groups

Once the GL Strings support team enables the feature for your account, you must turn on Groups for a project in the Project Settings.

1. From the Project Dashboard, click Project Settings
2. Navigate to the Groups tab and switch the toggle on for Use Groups

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Implications of using Groups

❗ Important: Using Groups has an impact on your overall utilization of GL Strings. You will need to adapt the integration and parts of the localization workflow.

Main Group

Once Groups are enabled, the Main Group is automatically created and all existing entries are placed inside this Group. You cannot alter nor delete this group (only its contents.)

Groups in the Editor

Once enabled, there are new menus to manage groups.

• The Group navigation dropdown in the header of any language.
• The Groups menu which is only available in the Base Language when entries are selected.

Import and export from the Editor

Exports will only include the entries from the Group that is currently selected. Imports of new entries will be put into the Group that is currently selected. Imports of translations for entries that already exist on GL Strings will have no changes to the group, unless the option to "Import into current group" is selected during import.

Import and export from the Project Dashboard

Exports from the Dashboard will include all entries. Imports of new entries will automatically be put into the Main Group. Imports of translations for entries will have no impact on the Group, meaning that the entries will stay in their current groupings.

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Groups and the SDK

All strings found by the SDK will be uploaded into the Main Group. If you need more space in the Main Group to upload additional strings once you reach 50,000 entries, you must move strings into another Group manually or via our API integration.

Configure the initial update

To define which Groups should be within the initial app store release, you must configure the GL Strings Settings File of your app to contain those specific Groups. By default, only the Main Group is included and updated upon opening the app.

1. Click Prepare Release
2. Select the Groups that should be included in the Settings File then click Get Settings File

GL Strings Settings File configuration

Upon starting the app, the SDK will automatically check for translation updates and download them to the device. By default, this only applies to the Main Group and two languages: the one currently selected by the mobile app user (if supported) and the Base Language. If you want to update more than the Main Group and default languages, you have to configure the plist file (iOS) and/or the manifest file (Android) accordingly.

Please follow the documentation for the appropriate SDK integration.

Request-Group-of-IDs SDK method

To make full use of Groups inside the application, you must decide when and where certain Groups are requested. If you don't manually set the “per-group” requests inside the application’s code, the SDK will only update the translations within the Main Group.

Please follow the documentation for the corresponding SDK integration.

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Groups and other integrations

API integration

By default, all new keys are pushed to the Main Group. When using the API integration, the Group must be included as a parameter for both upload and download. See our API integration documentation for more details.

CLI integration

By default, all new keys are pushed to the Main Group. If the CLI integration should respect a key's placement in another group, you must update the CLI configuration file to include the option importIntoGroup. See our CLI integration documentation for more details.

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Manage Groups

Create Groups

If you want to create a new Group, navigate to the Groups tab in the Project Settings:

1. Click Create Group
2. Give the Group a name then click Create

Edit or delete a Group

If you want to edit or delete a Group, navigate to the Groups tab in the Project Settings:

• Click Edit to rename a Group.
• Click Delete to delete a Group (you must remove all entries from a Group before it can be deleted.)

Manage entries within a Group

To assign entries to a Group:

1. From the Base Language, mark the checkbox for the entries that should be relocated
2. Click Group
3. Select the specific Group name listed under Move to Group to relocate the entries to that Group

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Disable Groups

❗ Important: You must update the integrations to remove references to Groups (including generating a new Settings File once the Groups feature is disabled.)

📝 Note: Before Groups can be disabled, you must relocate all entries to the Main Group and delete the other Groups in the Project Settings.

1. Navigate to the Groups tab in the Project Settings
2. Switch off the toggle for Use Groups

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