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Target audience: XTRF Platform's users

 

 

 

 

Intro

XTRF Language Business Platform enables you to set up the communication with the third-party systems such as common Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools used in the translation process. XTRF Platform provides different levels of integration with most CAT tools available on the market. The deepest integration is developed for memoQ, Memsource, SDL GroupShare, SDL Trados Studio, and XTM software, but cooperation with many other systems is also supported. If you use one of the CAT environments to translate files received from your clients, you can easily integrate it with XTRF Platform. This enables you to use the tool your translators know very well and simultaneously gain control of the project workflow. This approach not only automates the work of the Project Managers who only needs to set up projects in one of the two systems, XTRF Platform, but also enables them to control the status of the projects and workload of the vendors. What's more, it accelerates the translation process by sending notifications to vendors that a given job is started in the project. The vendors can start their work just after the status of the preceding job is changed to ready, therefore there are no delays in the translation process. At the point of winding up a CAT tool project, the files are transferred back to XTRF Platform, can be viewed by the Project Manager, sent for additional processing, if necessary, and delivered to the client. You can decide on the level of automation and Project Manager's involvement which can even differ between projects.

 

 

XTRF Platform is a flexible and efficient tool which enables you to extend its capabilities by adjusting project management workflow to your requirements. Thanks to XTRF Platform's integration with CAT tools it is possible to:

  • Modify the project workflow to anticipate your clients and vendors needs.
  • Easily import analysis files in many different formats from nearly two dozen CAT tools available on the market.
  • Prepare a project workflow with additional jobs that can be performed outside the CAT tool at certain stages of the translation process.
  • Allow clients to order services that use CAT tools directly from the Customer Portal.
  • Prepare quotes and projects, including cost calculation prepared automatically on the basis of the data from both integrated systems.
  • Generate target and/or bilingual files to be delivered to the client.
  • Update translation memories and term bases in the CAT tool when the integrated project is completed.
  • Track project progress and deadlines.
  • Send information to vendors about setting up a new project.
  • Automatically deliver files to and from the vendors and to the clients, with optional preview of files by the Project Manager at every step.

Available CAT Tools

XTRF Language Business Platform is fully integrated with five well-known CAT tools. The project workflow integration allows for automatic creation of projects in the CAT tools on the basis of the files and parameters entered in XTRF Platform. The CAT tools can analyze the files and send the analysis to XTRF Platform when receivables and payables are then calculated. At each stage of the CAT tool's project workflow it is possible to preview current state of files in XTRF Platform. The extent of Project Manager's involvement can be significantly reduced due to fully automated project management process. The integration is available for the following versions of the CAT tools:

CAT ToolSupported Versions

 

memoQ

 

Integration is available for memoQ v 9.12.

 

Memsource

Integration is available for Memsource, Ultimate Edition, Memsource Cloud with enabled API.

For more details go to the Memsource Integration article.


SDL GroupShare

 

Integration works with the following SDL GroupShare versions:

  • 2017 (since XTRF 7)

SDL Trados Studio

 Please mind that XTRF Platform's integration with SDL GroupShare requires the SDL Trados Studio.

 

For more details go to the SDL GroupShare Integration - Compatibility Matrix article.

 

 

SDL Trados Studio

 

Integration is available for the following versions:

  • 2017 (since XTRF 7)
  • 2019 (since XTRF 8.2)

For more details go to the SDL Trados Studio Integration - Compatibility Matrix article.

 


XTM

Integration is available for XTM Cloud and XTM Suite version 12.x (since XTRF 8.5).

For more details go to the XTM Integration - Compatibility Matrix article.

 

Links to external pages

CAT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-assisted_translation

memoQ: https://www.memoq.com/

Memsource: https://www.memsource.com/

SDL GroupShare:   http://www.sdl.com/cxc/language/translation-productivity/studio-groupshare/

SDL Trados Studio: http://www.sdl.com/cxc/language/translation-productivity/trados-studio/

XTM: http://xtm-intl.com/

Integrated Project Workflow

 

 

The Project Manager can create a project which constitutes of tasks split into particular jobs such as translation or proofreading. Each task must be created for a given language combination. Jobs defined in the tasks can be assigned to the vendors who either declare their availability by responding to availability requests or are assigned directly by the Project Manager. The Project Manager can upload input files for each task and any other content received from the client as reference files. In case of integration with the external software the translation memories (TMs) and terminologies (TBs) are usually added or created automatically in the CAT tool. Files can be pretranslated with the TMs or with machine translation engines. In XTRF Platform, the Project Manager can decide whether machine translation engines should be used and whether the TMs and TBs should be updated after finalization of the project workflow. Before starting the workflow, the Project Manager can leave some comments for the vendors to give them some hints or instructions about the projects. The Project Manager can also store instructions received from customer or internal notes about the project itself or its tasks.

 


Client:

  • Places an order*
  • Uploads input files*
  • Uploads reference files*
  • Adds instructions*

Project Manager:

  • Creates a project*
  • Uploads input files*
  • Uploads reference files*
  • Adds instructions*
  • Assigns vendors
  • Starts workflow

 

Vendor:

  • Receives information about the job
  • Is informed how to access the project in CAT tool or downloads files

* : These steps are performed either by client or by Project Manager

 

 

 

When the workflow is started, the information, including language pairs, input files, resources, client and vendor data, is transferred to the CAT tool. In XTRF Platform each project can consist of several tasks, each of which corresponds to one CAT tool project.  All information about the segments, pages, words and characters, depending on which is provided by the CAT tool, are stored in the analysis files. This analysis is used when the information gets back to XTRF Platform to properly estimate the value of the payables for the vendors and the value of the receivables for the clients. The vendors are notified with an automatic email that they can start working on the jobs they are assigned to. By clicking a link in the email they can open the Job Manager, read the instructions sent by the translation agency and, depending on the CAT tool used, either directly go to the editor in the CAT tool to work on the received source files, download a package to open in their CAT tool, or receive information about the project they should download from the translation agency's CAT tool server.

 

Vendor in CAT Tool:

  • Uses the external CAT Tool

 

 

 

 

 

To inform the Project Manager that the vendors' jobs are done, the vendors confirm the readiness of the jobs using the Job Manager. XTRF Platform also sends information to the CAT tool to close the job there. An automatic notification is sent to the Project Manager who can start the final work on the project: check and accept the output files if the action is required, forward the message to the clients that their project is completed. Optionally, all the PMs work can be done automatically, depending on the translation agency's preference. In that case, the finalization the project is done when the vendor closes the job, and after that the client gets an automatic notification that the output files are ready. In this approach, the review of the output files is skipped by the Project Manager. The client can download the files using a link in the email or directly from the Customer Portal.

 

 Client:

  • Gets information about completed project
  • Receives output files

 Project Manager:

  • Checks and accepts files
  • Sends information about completed project to client

Vendor:

  • Optionally uploads files and adds comments
  • Notifies Project Manager that the job is completed

Project Template

When creating a workflow definition for a project or creating a task in a project , the Project Manager can use a project template from the external CAT tool. The advantages of using the project template are as follows:

  • You are able to use all properties of a CAT tool project while integrating with XTRF Platform, even those that are unavailable through the Home Portal interface. Whenever new features are added to the CAT tool in its future release, they will be automatically become available in XTRF Platform within the project templates.
  • You can easily and consistently apply a repeatable set of CAT tool projects among projects set up in XTRF Platform.
  • Even a less experienced Project Manager can create complex CAT projects applying project templates defined by an experienced Project Manager. Thus, you can increase the efficiency of all your employees regardless of how familiar they are with the software.

However, please take into account that it might happen that some of the CAT tool's project template settings can be overridden by XTRF Platform task and workflow settings. The most commonly overridden settings are:

  • Languages
  • Workflow steps
  • Client's settings
  • Domain, called Specialization in XTRF Platform
  • Vendor's settings

These settings are configurable when preparing a workflow definition and task in XTRF Platform.

CAT Tool Analysis Files

XTRF Platform allows you to import CAT analysis files from the following CAT tools:


Please refer also to the related articles: