Setting up

Languages and the words on screen

Every person who uses Line Me Up can read it in their own language, on the same visit: the owner in English, a receptionist in Tamil, a customer in Malayalam. This page explains how each person's language is chosen and changed, and which words depend on the kind of business you are.

The eight languages#

Both the staff app and the customer app, your TV displays and the messages a customer finds on their phone are available in eight languages. Every language picker lists them in their own script, so somebody who cannot read the language on screen can still find theirs:

All eight read left to right. Token numbers, room and desk signs and digits stay in the familiar Latin form in every language, so A-014 is A-014 on every screen and on the TV.

How a language is chosen#

Each person chooses their own language. Nobody has to read the language somebody else picked. When a person has not chosen, Line Me Up falls back in a fixed order:

"The device's own language" is the language the phone or computer itself is set to. A customer whose phone is set to Hindi reads Line Me Up in Hindi without choosing anything. Chinese is read by script, so a phone set to Taiwan or Hong Kong Chinese gets Traditional Chinese.

Set your business's language#

The business's language is what your team's screens are in until each person chooses their own. It starts as English.

1. Open Settings, then Business.
2. Pick your language from Language.
3. Press Save changes. If you follow the business's language yourself, the page reloads in the new one.

The business's language also sets:

• the words printed on your QR poster ("Scan to join the line" and the instructions under the code);
• the language a new TV page starts in (each page can then be changed on its own).

It does not change what your customers read — their own phone or their own choice does.

Choose your own language as a member of staff#

Your choice is saved to your account, so it follows you to every device you sign in on — the front-desk tablet, your phone, the office computer.

The quick way:

1. Press the round badge with your initials in the staff app's header.
2. Pick your language from Language. The app reloads in it.

From your account, with the option to follow the business:

1. Press the badge with your initials, then Your account.
2. Under Language, pick a language, or pick Same as the business (the business's language is named in brackets) to stop choosing your own and follow whatever the owner sets.
3. The page shows Changing…, then reloads in the language you chose.

If the change fails, you see We could not change your language. — check the connection and choose again.

Pick a language before you sign in#

The Log in screen has its own Language picker at the foot of the form. What you pick there is remembered on that device only, for the screens you see while signed out. Once you sign in, your account's language (or the business's) takes over.

Choose your language as a customer#

Customers do not need an account to read Line Me Up in their language: the phone's own language is used automatically. To choose a different one:

Signed out:

1. On Explore (the list of places) or the sign-in screen, open Language.
2. Pick a language. The page reloads in it, and this phone remembers the choice. Pick Same as this phone to go back to the phone's own language.

Signed in:

1. Open Account from the tab bar.
2. Under Language, pick a language, or Same as this phone. The choice is saved to your account, so every phone you sign in on uses it.

The messages a visit produces in the customer's inbox — "almost your turn", a booking reminder, a closed day — are written in the customer's language too. More for customers is in Your account, language and privacy.

Set the language of a TV display#

A TV in your waiting area is watched by everyone at once, so it has one language per page, not one per person. When you build a TV page, its Language setting decides what the TV says and shows — the same for everyone watching it. A new page starts in the business's language.

If the TV reads calls aloud, it uses a voice in the page's language when the TV has one, and English when it does not. Building TV pages is covered in TV displays.

What stays in English#

A few things are the same in every language:

• Anything you type yourself — your business name, the names of your lines, services and desks, notes on a visit — is shown exactly as you typed it. Line Me Up never translates your words. If you want a line called "ജനറൽ" for your Malayalam-reading customers, name it that.
• The starter lines suggested when you first set up are in English. They are ordinary names you can rename at any time.
• Column headings in a CSV export from the Visits report.
• The "what's new" list behind the version number.
• A printed invoice.
• A few error messages that come straight from the server.

Words that change with the kind of business#

Line Me Up is built to speak to any business — a clinic, a salon, a car wash, a café, a counter. So its words are neutral: the person waiting is always a customer, the person who serves them is whoever is at the desk, and where to go is whatever your desk's sign says — "Room 12", "Bay 3", "Chair 2", "Counter 1".

A clinic (a business whose kind of place is Clinic or hospital) gets a handful of its own words where a clinic's way of working really is different. Every other kind of place shares the general words. The kind of place is set in Settings › Business › What kind of place, and changing it changes these words for everyone at once, in every language.

On the staff screens#

On the customer's phone#

The kind of place also chooses the starter lines suggested when you first set up, and the ready-made processes on Processes — "Pay, test, review" and "Fracture clinic" for a clinic, "Colour and finish" for a salon, "Repair with sign-off" for a car wash or garage, "Verified application" for something else, and none for a café. The process names are written in your business's language. Both are starting points you can change.

When the language looks wrong#

• A member of staff sees the wrong language. They have probably chosen one on their account. Ask them to pick Same as the business under Language in Your account.
• Changing the business's language did nothing on my screen. Your own choice wins over the business's. Set yours to Same as the business.
• A customer's phone shows English. Their phone is set to a language Line Me Up does not have yet. They can pick one from Language.
• The TV speaks English on a Hindi page. The TV has no Hindi voice installed. The screen itself still shows Hindi.