How to improve your translation workflows | Translation

If you’re interested in finding out more on this topic, you can read our free guide on how to optimise your translation workflows for continuous delivery here: http://bit.ly/2Fo24fm

(This video was first published in March 2017.)

In this episode of The Translation Show, Emily MacKenzie from Webcertain talks about improving web translation workflows.

The success of any translation project depends on having a good workflow. It is important to have the most efficient workflow possible as this reduces costs and delivery times, allowing more content to be translated without compromising on quality.

The need to have a slick translation workflow is especially important when a client works on a continuous delivery basis.

Continuous delivery refers to the practice of quickly delivering content, products and updates in a continuous cycle of creation. So, for example, rather than delivering one huge update once a year, a company may make small updates every week.

Continuous delivery offers many benefits. It allows companies to get their content in front of their audience faster than with traditional workflows. It also means that any problems can be identified and fixed more quickly, which reduces costs. This in turn leads to improved product quality and customer satisfaction, which allows the company to stay ahead of competitors.

An agile translation workflow allows a language service provider to continually deliver translations as part of a client’s continuous delivery cycle. With agile translation workflows, content is translated as soon as is it uploaded to the client’s website or when it is needed.

The following is an example of an agile translation workflow: content is uploaded to the website CMS, sent to a translation management system, translated, reviewed, and then sent back to the website CMS for publication. The core part of any agile translation workflow is the fact it allows for continuous updates and reviews.

So, how do you actually go about implementing an agile translation workflow?

A key part of setting up an agile translation workflow is the use of connectors. Connectors are plug-ins that connect a website’s CMS to their translation partner’s technology. Connectors allow content to move back and forth between the CMS and the translation provider seamlessly. When new content is added to the CMS, the connector pushes it to the translation provider. They can then translate this content and send it back to the CMS via the connector.

Connectors enhance workflow as they speed up delivery times by automating a lot of work that would otherwise have to be done manually by a project manager or localisation engineer, such as sending and receiving content, and copying and pasting it in and out of the CMS.

It takes a while to initially set up a connector; typically around 2 to 4 weeks. This is because it needs to be integrated into the website’s CMS and the translation partner’s technology. It needs to be configured to suit the internal structure of the website and then it needs to undergo rigorous testing to make sure that it works properly. For websites which use basic templates without heavy customisation within the CMS, this set-up time can be dramatically reduced. Once the connector has been fully integrated with the CMS, then content can be smoothly transferred to and from the translation partner to allow for the continuous delivery of updates.

As well as using connectors, another way in which you can improve your translation workflow is to incorporate in-country teams or language captains to ensure quality. These are people who are native speakers of the target language and are therefore able to check the content for linguistic and contextual errors, as well as maintaining linguistic assets such as translation memories and glossaries.

In-country teams are people who come from within your company, which means that they have the advantage of being subject-matter experts. However, it can also mean that they cannot spend all their time reviewing content as they have other responsibilities.

Language captains are individuals who are usually not part of the company but work very closely with the company and the language service provider. They tend to work full time as a language captain, and work with the company to develop glossaries and style guides to ensure consistency, as well as reviewing translated content on a daily basis. Language captains can be employed on behalf of the client either through the language service provider or an external company specialising in such roles.

In-country teams are usually a company’s first choice as they have better knowledge of the topic, with language captains being the second choice. Both types of people improve workflow by raising standards and reducing the need to go back and improve translated content later on.