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Tales from an Umbraco Localisation Project

Paul Marden

Carbon Six Digital

Deploying Umbraco in China

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It was billed as a tale of triumph and success...

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Umbraco DB

Gym DBs

Business Logic Layer

Umbraco

WebApi

Web App

iOS App

Android App

WinForms Kiosk App

C6Ds 2014-6

Responsibility

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Umbraco DB

Gym DBs

Business Logic Layer

Umbraco

WebApi

Web App

iOS App

Android App

WinForms Kiosk App

C6Ds 2017-8

Responsibility

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2017/8 Goal: Launch in China

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PHASE 1

Setup Seoul infrastructure
Create our registration system to enable members to sign up in gym or online
Create the necessary databases and webapps
Localisation of the Apps and launch in China App Stores

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LESSONS

LEARNT

Our 4-year old architecture plan was sound

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Physical Architecture Europe

Web Server

DB Server

EU-West-1

(Dublin - Serving UK, Europe & Middle East)

UK SQL Server Instance

Customer 1

Customer 2

UK Web Instance Instance

Ireland SQL Server Instance

Customer 1

Customer 2

Customer 1

Customer 2

uk.pulsemove.com

IE Web Instance Instance

Customer 1

Customer 2

ie.pulsemove.com

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Asia Phase 1

Web Server

DB Server

AP-NorthEast-2

(Seoul - Serving CN & SP)

CN SQL Server Instance

Customer 1

Customer 2

CN Web Instance Instance

SG SQL Server Instance

Customer 1

Customer 2

Customer 1

Customer 2

cn.pulsemove.com

SG Web Instance Instance

Customer 1

Customer 2

sp.pulsemove.com

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LEASONS

LEARNT

Our 4yr old infrastructure plan was sound
Latency from Seoul to Beijing was fine for Apps

Just because Chinese firewall works in some respects from outside in, it doesn't always
Chinese market is not like any market we've seen before

Localisation is more than translation

Smart cards don’t work
Social Media is WeChat not Facebook

However, after doing a successful prototype we found that when we made the app available in soft launch, that people were signing up but not receiving our activation emails, rendering the whole prototype functionally useless.
China is a highly regulated market, the Great Firewall of China is a set of technologies and policies that regulate the internet. It's pretty amorphous - when you read stories what is blocked varies based on where it is located, the content and by time - what is accessible inside China today may not be tomorrow.
And what bit us is that it's not just http that's regulated, not all mail sent from outside China to really common Email hosts such as qq.com. when you google this problem it's a common issue.
But bigger than the technical lessons, were the Product lessons we learnt in the marketplace - we’ve done a lot of localistion projects where we’ve translated content from one language to another, but we found that in China that wasn’t enough.

We found issues with the core of the technology used to connect the gym equipment together - Smart Card technology is just not that widely used in China, and it is core to the way gym users interact with equipment and transfer data from machine to machine and back to our cloud database.
We found that while email is in use in China, that users are completely comfortable with interaction with brands via an Integrated Messaging and Social Media platform called WeChat

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PHASE 2

Replace the Smart Cards with NFC wristbands
Enable activation

Improve Emails Deliverability
WeChat Messaging (Requires an ICP license)
Relocate the servers inside the firewall (Requires an ICP license)

Single Global Domain

And so with that in mind our Phase 2 development has delivered a number of improvements
We quickly established that it’s incredibly difficult to ensure email deliverability to the major email hosts from outside china into China
So we looked at integrating with WeChat to send messages via their API - but you need a license from the Chinese Government to access the WeChat API.
There are two types of Internet Content Provider licenses: Filings and Registrations. Both of which require some element of legal representation in China, and you need to be a native Chinese speaker to make the application. You're going to struggle if you try to Google Translate these forms.
Finaly we settled on moving the servers into Beijing for the China Market. But hey you need an ICP license.
We've also moved from Country top level domains across to a single global domain

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SINGLE GLOBAL�DOMAIN

Enable https://pulsemove.com to serve a fast landing page experience anywhere
Enable users to access their account anywhere
Uses AWS Cloudflare to configure the domain redirections

pulsemove.com

Country Cookie Set?

uk.pulsemove.com

Show country picker & set cookie

Country Cookie Set?

cn.pulsemove.com

Show country picker & set cookie

Show country landing page

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PHASE 2

PROGRESS

NFC has been prototyped and now in full production
ICP Filing is now complete
Single global domain is complete
Next up...

Setup AWS CN servers
Integrate with WeChat

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It was billed as a tale of triumph and success…

But in the end delivery in China is an ongoing challenge.

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THANK YOU

Paul Marden Twitter: @paulmarden

Carbon Six Digital carbonsix.digital