Bilingual portals
Per-portal default locale
Setting a default language per portal, independently of the workspace default.
Each portal in boveDAM has its own default locale, set independently of the workspace default. This means a Spanish-language workspace can contain portals that default to English — and vice versa. The per-portal locale is what a visitor sees when they arrive with no language preference of their own.
How to set a portal's default locale
Open the portal you want to configure, then go to Settings → General → Default locale. Select either English (en-US) or Spanish (es-MX) from the dropdown and save. The change takes effect immediately for any visitor whose language preference has not already been set.
The portal's default locale does not override an existing visitor preference. If a visitor already has the language switcher set to English, a Spanish portal default will not change what they see. For the full resolution order, see What renders in which language.
Example: a Spanish workspace with an English portal
Consider an agency in Mexico City that operates primarily in Spanish. Their workspace default is es-MX. They create a new portal for a client based in Dallas whose team is English-speaking. By setting that portal's default locale to en-US, every team member at the Dallas client will see the portal in English when they open the link — even though the rest of the agency's portals default to Spanish.
The agency's internal team members, who have es-MX saved as their personal language preference, will continue seeing all portals in Spanish because their individual preference takes priority over the portal default.
Use cases for mixed-language client rosters
Per-portal default locale is particularly useful for:
- Agencies with international clients: Set each portal's locale to match the client's language without changing your workspace default.
- Bilingual brands with regional sub-brands: A single workspace can host portals for a US brand (en-US default) and a Mexico brand (es-MX default) side by side.
- Onboarding new clients quickly: A new client receives a link and immediately sees the portal in the correct language with no setup on their end.
If you need every visitor to see a specific language regardless of their browser settings or saved preferences, the portal default locale is the primary control point — combined with clear communication to your clients not to use the language switcher if consistency is required.
Relationship to workspace default
The workspace default locale is the fallback of last resort. It applies only when a visitor has no personal preference, their browser's Accept-Language header doesn't match a supported locale, and no portal-level default is configured. In practice, most portals should have an explicit locale set. Relying on the workspace default is appropriate only for internal portals where your entire team shares the same language.
For more on how boveDAM evaluates these settings in sequence, see What renders in which language and Setting your language.