Offline TM Update Process for SDL TMS

SDL Studio Online 2011: the New Face of TMS

Hot on the heels of SDL TMS 2011 which was recently reviewed here, SDL Technologies released SDL Studio Online 2011.

In a nutshell, SDL Studio Online 2011 is an optional add-on exclusive to SDL TMS 2011. It is distributed as part of the SDL TMS  2011 Service Pack 1 and upgrades the SDL TMS Translator Interface. While SDL TMS 2011 introduced a new Carbon Theme, its Translator Interface was in fact still a slim version of SDLX 2007. SDL Studio Online 2011 replaces it with an SDL Trados Studio inspired successor.

From a linguist’s point a view this is an important leap forward. Together with the performance improvements promised with the original release of SDL TMS 2011, this could significantly increase the proportion of linguists working online. Translators, and sometimes even Reviewers, have tended to choose to download SDL TMS packages rather than working online. This somewhat defeats the purpose of having an online translation environment with real-time TM and Terminology updates capabilities. Yet it has remained a popular choice mainly for two reasons:

1. Combined server and user-side performance issues: this should already improve with an upgrade to the original SDL TMS 2011.
2. Translation Interface too basic compared to desktop CAT tools: this is what this optional SDL TMS 2011 SP1 add-on proposes to address

Studio Online provides a number of tangible improvements over the standard Translation Interface:

• Improved performance for linguists working online with the more modern interface featuring:
  • Segment-level lookup
  • Concordance lookup
  • Flexible tag display and editing
  • Find and replace functionality across the entire task
  • Integral spell checking with Inline and batch spell checking, multilingual dictionary and correction and user-specific dictionaries.
• Reduced need for training and support for the growing number of linguists unfamiliar with SDLX
• Reduced file management overhead thanks to a more attractive online environment
• Increased proportion of linguists connecting to online linguistic assets rather than working from periodic downloads
• Licensing and upgrade management owned by the client
• Support for Microsoft input method editors (IMEs) for typing East Asian characters on non-matching language versions of Office.

Requirements and setup information

Studio Online is a Microsoft Silverlight plug-in. It requires Microsoft Silverlight 4 and the latest available Service Pack for Windows. Its upgrade or installation process is guided in Studio Online.

Other requirements are Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, 7.0, or 8.0 and Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or 3.6.

Studio Online Licenses have to be purchased in addition to the SDL TMS licenses for a specific number of concurrent users. Once installed and licensed, each user may choose to configure SDL Studio Online as their default editor in SDL TMS by going to Home – My Details – User Preferences and checking the option Use SDL Studio Online (see screenshot). This remains optional, so not all users have to make this choice. Task download for offline work also remains available in any case.

One limitation to note is that SDL Studio Online 2011 does not integrate with the QA Models. If you have made use of the online rating function added since SDL TMS 2007 SP4, you will have to make a choice between that and the new online interface. My inclination would be towards allowing the Translators to use Studio Online to make it more acceptable for them to stay online throughout the translation process. On another hand, Reviewers could continue using the old interface so that they use the QA Model, and so that you save on Studio Online licenses.

SDL TMS 2011: Inner Peace

The pace of release of Enterprise Technology such as Workflow and Translation Management Systems is usually slower than that of end-user applications such as CAT tools.

The reasons for this are easy to understand:

First, the priority for Enterprise Applications is stability, not cutting-edge User Experience. Users, and especially customers, require proven and sturdy environments capable of consistently handling massive traffic. This cannot be compromised in favour of the latest UI bells and whistles, not even the newest linguistic asset formats or features.

Secondly, the licensing and pricing model for these applications is such that customers have to monitor their ROI more carefully. Purchasing decisions would not be influenced with yearly or even bi-yearly releases of brand new product lines. The expectation is that these Applications provide a permanent Solution which can be used for several years to come. For that reason, Support contracts tend to include free Patches and even Service Pack upgrades which take care of the more pressing updates.

Last but not least, the efforts required in deploying these server-based technologies are again prohibitive of frequent upgrades. There are  infrastructure implications like matching SQL server versions or multiple server roll-out workload. The technology also needs to co-exist with a number of desktop applications in use in the supply chain.

From reading the SDL TMS 2011 Release Notes, I think the differences with its predecessor, SDL TMS 2007, are very much inline with these requirements. It seems to deliver relevant compatibility updates as well as promising improvements in usability and performance. If the announced increased reliability delivers, then I think one of the key to its success over SDL TMS 2007, will be whether it succeeds at making linguists more willing to work online, or whether they will continue to prefer to use it for File Transfer only and perform the actual linguistic work in their desktop CAT tools.  

Compatibiliy

This is the first major release of SDL TMS since the acquisition of Idiom by SDL back in 2008. Together with the recent release of SDL Worlserver 2011, this confirms that in the short to medium term at least, these two Workflow systems will continue to coexist.

The SDL TMS offering features updated compatibility both in terms of CAT tools and infrastructure:

• CAT: SDL Trados Studio 2009 SP3, SDL MultiTerm 2009 SP3/SP4, SDL Passolo 2011 (incl. word counts accurracy, new dedicated Workflows) and SDL Trisoft
• Infrastructure: LDAP enhancements, Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 support

SDL TMS can be upgraded to version 2011, though only from SDL TMS 2007 SP4 or later. SP4 would have to be installed first, before upgrading from any older version.

One piece of good news is that no data migration is required when upgrading, and all Post-SP4 hotfixes are included in the Upgrader. Microsoft .NET Framework 4 is recommended. 

Usability and Performance

The User Interface has reportedly been made more responsive in several areas: Translation Interface, Job Authorisation, Configuration edits and more. The UI has been updated with a new colour theme, but apart from that the navigation appears to be unchanged. We will investigate in an upcoming article how this may be changed by the addition of SDL Studio Online. SDL Studio Online is an optional web-based version of SDL Trados Studio 2011, exclusive to SDL TMS 2011 SP1.

The Search feature has also been improved with increased speed for the main Search (results are now limited to 2,000 matches) and a new “Go to” feature lets users directly open specific Jobs or Tasks if they know the ID.

SDL Trados Studio can now access SDL TMS directly for TM Concordance and updates. This is achieved through an SDL Open Exchange plug-in. Once installed, users simply need to login using the SDL TMS Server Name, Username and Password, much like previously in SDLX’s SDL Maintain.

Unfortunately, Tageditor’s TTX files can’t be downloaded from SDL TMS 2011.  SDL recommend downloading Packages, which contain the ITD files for translation in either SDLX 2007 or SDL Trados Studio 2009. Eventhough SDLX is considered a part of SDL Trados 2007, this makes using Tageditor and Workbench more difficult and more-or-less means support for Trados 2007 in SDL TMS has been dropped.

Terminology imports have been enabled through a new functionality similar to the TM import added with SDL TMS 2007 SP4. This works using SDL MultiTerm .xml import files and a matching database definition. Passolo Terminology (sequences and TB updates) is also supported.

Here are a few other bug fixes and new features which caught my attention:

• Users can reset their own passwords, which should improve the quality of life of many Workflow managers
• Issues with the second and further pages of the Translation Interface have been fixed (comments, segment history and MultiTerm matches now work)
• TM attributes can be edited from the Edit TM page
• Ampersand(&) and quotes(‘) in ITD names are allowed
• Job-level Project TM availability can be displayed in the Inbox
• PowerPoint SmartArt is supported

Reliability

SDL claim that over 200 reported issues have been resolved, including a number reported by users through ideas.sdl.com.

Improvements in file format support and exception handling should limit the number of failed Jobs and Tasks.

Importantly, progress seems to have been made with Translation Memories exports. A new incremental method, saves having to use server resources to repeatedly perform full exports. This Incremental TM Export option, which is unchecked by default after installation, functions as follows:

• Only segments added or modified since the last export are exported.
• They are added to the latest corresponding TMX export file.
• All TMX export files can be downloaded at once.
• Note: segments deleted from the TM are not removed from the export. A full export (by temporarilly unchecking the Incremental Export box) is required to reflect any deletion

memoQ 5.0: Mr. Q Brings Change Management to the Localisation Continuum

 

Kilgray Translation Technologies introduced memoQ 5.0 to the World last week by means of a twin event. Gábor Ugray, Head of Development, hosted a webinar from the Kilgray HQ in Budapest for the online enthusiasts, while István Lengyel, COO, demo’ed it live from the Localization World 2011 conference in Barcelona.

MemoQ 5.0 will be available as a public Release Candidate on June, 30 2011 and should reach Final Release within a few weeks of that.

The Release Candidate version can be installed side by side with memoQ 4.5 and various upgrade paths will be available to current memoQ users.

Following the strong focus on Project Management in memoQ 4, the philosophy behind memoQ 5.0 is Change Management. Changes in source files are better managed through X-translate, while segment changes are tracked through a sophisticated versioning system. Illustrated examples of this and other new features are detailed below.

memoQ 5.0 Version Tracking

X-translate

The implementation of Major/Minor version control is powerful because of the simplicity with which it responds to a real need. A Translator is working on a file, receives an update to the source file, thanks to memoQ 5.0’s Major versioning feature, he or she can immediately generate an updated version of their bilingual file and continue translating.

There is no need to leverage, which would require a more labor intensive process of pre-translating again from Translation Memories. One can simply go straight from a partially translated copy of version 1.0 to a partically translated copy of version2.0.

The screencaps below show how to xTranslate a single file from the previous Major version of the file, then how the  xTranslated segments are marked and finally how to save a snapshot of the resulting file.

It is also possible to export a 2-column file for comparison of 2 Major versions:

Change Tracking

Change tracking enables segment level access to previous versions. The following images show how to enable custom track changes from the Translation menu, how the changes are highlighted in a document, and a further 2 options for translators and reviewers to see changes made to a file since they last edited it.

Terminology in memoQ 5.0

Terminology extraction

MemoQ 5.0 will allow a substantial amount of Terminology work without requiring the use of a dedicated application such as qTerm. Users will be able to extract candidate terms from a Project:

Stop Words

The use of Stop Words list will ensure easy noise reduction by preventing words such as “and”, “the”, or any other short listed by the user, from appearing as Candidate Terms:

Reviewing Candidate Terms

Candidate Terms can then be reviewed in context and possibly against an existing Termbase:

 

Lexicon

The Lexicon option will let you work with a Terms list without having to go through the full process of creating a Termbase. It is meant as an easy-to-use, immediately rewarding tool to manage Terminology within a Project. This should encourage Linguists to run quick Term extractions before starting a job, especially in cases where a Termbase is not available as part of the Handoff, in order to efficiently get a general overview of the Terms contained in a set of source files.

MemoQ 5.0’s Terminology feature does not support the TBX format, however Kilgray’s fully-fledged terminology tool qTerm, does.

memoQ 5.0 and nested file formats

Another very effective idea implemented in memoQ 5.0 is the support for file formats containing code belonging to other file formats. An obvious application is the case where the handoff is a spread sheet containing strings copied from an xml or a software file. But there are other common cases such as XML files containing HTML code.

The requirement here is to parse files twice so that all codes are recognised as such and so that the linguist can concentrate on translating with full confidence that all tagging is managed by the CAT tool. Here are 2 examples:

Cascading Filters

1. Cascading Filters for a spread sheet contain HTML: 
   
2. Cascading Filters with Regex Tagger for a spread sheet containing UI strings: 

Source Content connectors

Finally, memoQ 5.0 will also in time be able to connect to repositories where content is dynamically added. It is designed with CMS integration in mind, however the CMS connectors will only be released later this summer, like the web-based editor webTranslate.

Alchemy Catalyst 9.0: A Practical and Visual Guide

I recently had the welcome surprise of finding an invite to a Catalyst webinar in my Inbox. It was with great anticipation and a touch of nostalgia for my Localisation Engineering days, that I clicked on the link and joined the meeting to discover what Alchemy had been up to.

I soon realised that a practical user’s guide would be the best way to cover this on Localization, Localisation. The Alchemy Software Development website already lists What’s New in this release so rather than analysing the differences between Catalyst 8, for which we did a complete Launch coverage and Catalyst 9, I’ve put together a step by step tour based on the demo.

This article can be used by Localisation Engineers and Translators alike to preview the Catalyst 9 interface using the 30 or so screen shots included (see after the slideshow for full screen versions), and also to read through some recommended processes and tips, adding to my past article on the Leverage and Update Experts.

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Creating a Project

The User Interface remains the flexible and now very familiar .net window, with its various docked panels and tabs. It’s also a stable interface which will cause little or no navigation headache to even the most novice user.

The first operation when getting started with Catalyst is to create a Project file, or TTK file. This is easily done by using the File – New menu and following the basic steps.

You will notice in the screen shots that the example used includes varied sample files such as compiled help (.chm) not requiring any source or project files, and wpf executable.

Preparing a Project

After the creation of the TTK, source files can be inserted either using the Insert Menu item or a context menu in the Navigator tab. Folder structures can also easily be used.

Once the files have been inserted into the TTK, it is time to prepare it for leveraging. This operation of consists mostly of locking non-translatable strings and sub strings. It can be tedious on a brand new Project but the work done can be completely leveraged to the various language TTKs as well as any future versions of the project.

The lock keywords functionality has been improved in Catalyst 9: the txt file which the project’s keywords list is now automatically generated in the background as soon as the user locks a keyword.

Once a keywords list has been created, it can in turn be used to automatically lock the listed keywords in the remainder of the project.

Another thing to note is that Maximum String Length can now be set on a batch of strings at once.

Leveraging previously translated content

Apart from Leveraging from the TTKs of previous projects, Catalyst supports leveraging from a variety of Translation Memory formats:

• Translation Industry Open Standard (*.tmx)
• SDL Trados 2007 (*.tmw)
• Wordfast Pro (*.txml)
• Tab-delimited (*.txt)
• Alchemy Translation Memory (*.tm)
• Alchemy Catalyst (*.ttk)
• Alchemy Publisher (*.ppf)

Alchemy Translation Memory is a new proprietary format used to create Master TMs from completed TTK projects. This format allows to store Catalyst-specific context information such as the context (Dialog box ID, Menu Item etc.), which can later improve the quality of leveraging by providing Perfect match. In Catalyst terms, a Perfect Match is a 100% match located in the same Dialog, Menu etc).

Alchemy Publisher, Wordfast Pro, Trados 2007 or the nonproprietary TMS are also present provide compatibility with other TM format Catalyst might have to coexist with.

Noticeably, Trados Studio 2009 TMs (.sdltm) still do not appear to be supported.

Batch processing

The process recommended by Alchemy is to create an English to English Master TTK and then to automate its duplication and pre translation for each target language in the Project.

This is an area where Catalyst 9.0 does seem to bring a good bit of novelty:

• With Catalyst 7, engineers had to manually duplicate TTKs.
• Catalyst 8 was a bit more helpful and created Project folders for target languages and project resources.
• In Catalyst 9.0 however, the Job file and Scheduler take care of a lot of the repetitive tasks associated with preparing a new Project.

The Create Job Expert lets you use the Master TTK as a template to create project folder structure and corresponding target language TTKs.

Meanwhile, such tasks can also be added to the Scheduler. This new queuing system allows the user to start working on the next project while it processes queued tasks in the background.

Automation

The Command line automation has been improved since Catalyst 8 to include Analysis. The complete Catalyst localisation process can now be automated.

Catalyst 9.0 Developer Edition also includes the Comm API which lets advanced users script TTK operations all the way down to string level, and output automation reports  in txt or xml format.

Ensuring Quality and Consistency

In addition to Translation Memories, Catalyst 9 also supports several Glossary formats:

• Text files, used in Catalyst since the beginning (.txt)
• Terminology Exchange Open Standard (.tbx)
• Translation Memory Exchange can also be used for Terminology (*.tmx)
• SDL MultiTerm and MultiTerm Server

Validation still takes two forms: the Expert can be run to perform global check, and inline validation can also be switched as a non-intrusive real-time quality control. If a potential error is found, a flag will be raised through the bottom pane, but Translators will not be interrupted. They can simply go back to the issue by clicking on the notification once they are ready to attend to it.

The Thumbnail view seems to be a great tool for engineers regressing bug. It gives a preview of all dialogs in a TTK and lets you click the one which matches for example the screen shot in a QA report and brings you automatically to the location of this dialog in the ttk file.

Translating in Catalyst

The Concordance search and Translator toolbar do not appear to have been changed. Both were introduced with Catalyst 8 where there was strong focus on improving the user experience from the Translator’s point of view, and they seem to have delivered.

The new Re-cycle button is a result of the same ambition. New translations can be propagated to entire project by using the current project as an inline TM in the background. Layouts are not recycled but fuzzies are supported.

Clean up Expert

Finally the Clean up Expert has also receive some improvements. Like for all Experts, it is recommended to close the Project file before running it, and then select the file(s) to process from the Expert’s General tab.

Clean up now creates a postproject.tm Translation Memory and generate supplied assemblies for .net.

Conclusion

in my opinion, this new generation of Catalyst still offers a great solution for visual localisation. Although the differences with Catalyst 8 may not may not make a bullet proof case for immediate upgrade, the 25% discount currently on offer does represent decent value.

SDL Trados 2007: Quick Guide for the Complete Beginner

This is a quick practical guide which was used when setting up the team of in-house translators I mentioned in my earlier post about Using Trados in Knowledge Base translation.

Everything in here is fairly low-level and is really designed to help someone get started immediately with their first translation, reviewing or bug fixing job in Trados.

SDL Trados 2007 consists of 3 modules

1. Workbench is used to access the Translation Memory (TM), a database of existing translated sentences.
2. TagEditor is the editing tool, where the translation is done.
3. MultiTerm is an add-on (installed) which may be running in the background. It checks the segment currently being translated for English words or groups of words which may have a pre-approved translation.

Getting started

1. Copy the TTX files (or English source files if TTX weren’t provided) and TM (5 files per language) to a folder on your local hard disk.
2. Open the TM in Trados Workbench: double-click the file with extension .tmw or open Workbench and browse to it from the File-Open menu.
3. Open the TTX (or source file) in Trados TagEditor: open TagEditor and browse to it from the File-Open menu or double-click the file if it’s already associated with TagEditor.
4. Place your cursor in the English segment of the Translation Unit (TU) you want to translate.
5. Click Open/Get  in the TagEditor tool bar.
6. Edit the target segment of the TU (i.e. translate the part highlighted in yellow).
7. Click Set/Close to save your changes to this TU into both the TM and TTX.
8. Save and close the TTX once it is fully translated.
9. Start at point 3. above with the next TTX or source file.

Working with placeables

Most Placeables are tags contained within segments. Here is how Trados can help the translator with placeables:

1. Open/Get  a TU.
2. In Workbench, Placeables are underlined in blue (2 in the example below):
3. In TagEditor, put your cursor where the Placeable needs to be inserted into the target (yellow) area:
4. Click Get Current Placeable .
5. If there is more than one, use the Get Previous Placeable  and Get Next Placeable  buttons as required.

Working with terms

If MultiTerm is running in the background, Trados is able to detect Terms listed in a dictionary and suggest their approved translation. Here is how to use this feature:

1. Open/Get  a TU.
2. In Workbench, Terms are over-lined in red (2 in this example):
3. In TagEditor, put your cursor where the Term needs to be inserted:
4. Click Get Current Term .
5. If there is more than one, use the Get Previous Term  and Get Next Term  as required.

Tip: for more information on the Current Term, double-click the book icon beside the Term on the right hand-side of Workbench. This will open a MultiTerm window where you can see more details about the Term (e.g. definition, product category etc. depending on how the TermBase was set), and browse the TermBase for other Terms.

Other useful buttons

• Open : opens the TU in TagEditor without searching for a match in the TM.
• Get Translation : downloads a translation from the TM into the TU opened in TagEditor.
• Restore Source : removes the target segment (i.e. translation) from the opened TU.
• Copy Source : copies the source segment (i.e. English) into the target segment of the opened TU.
• Set/Close next Open/Get : uploads the translation from the current TU to the TM, closes the TU, opens the next TU and downloads any matching translation for the TM.
• Translate to fuzzy : translates all sentences in an English file opened in Tageditor, until it comes across a sentence with match less than 100% against the opened TM.
• Close : closes a TU, saving changes made to the TTX, but without uploading the new translation to the TM.
• Concordance : searches for an English word selected in a TTX, throughout all the sentences in the opened TM.

Troubleshooting tips

Open/Get button is grayed out

Using the Open/Get button in TagEditor requires a TM loaded in Workbench. Here is what to do if it’s grayed out:

1. Ensure only one instance of Workbench is open.
2. Ensure it has a TM open.
3. If so, click the Connect to Workbench button in TagEditor: .
4. If the issue is still not solved, close TagEditor, and re-open it.

TM won’t open in Workbench

Translation Memories are made up of 5 files per language and can only be opened one at a time. Here are the main errors that can occur when opening a TM:

• Couldn’t obtain database lock: you are probably trying to re-open a TM in a second instance of Workbench.
  Solution:
  1. ensure only one instance of Workbench is open
  2. Go to its File menu
  3. Choose Open
  4. Browse to the TM you were trying to open.
  5. If this doesn’t resolve the issue the TM may be corrupted.
• The system cannot find the file specified: one of the 5 files is missing.
  Solution: ensure the .iix and .tmw files are present in the location where you copied the TM.
• Matrix Error: (null), data file: one of the 5 files is missing.
  Solution: ensure the .mdf and .mtf files are present in the same location as the .tmw you are opening.
• Database corrupt! Run export, create and new TM and reimport: one of the 5 files could also be missing.
  Solution: ensure the .mwf file is present in the same location as the .tmw you are opening.
• While no valid license file is used or no dongle is connected, this application runs in demo mode: no available license
  Solution: ensure your Trados license is activated.

XML in Localisation: What can it really do for us?

Have you ever wondered how xml could possibly be relevant to our needs? Localising xml files is pretty much straight forward. But what of using XML to localise?

As localisation professionals we’ve all known about XML for quite some time now. We understand that as a Markup Language, it is closely related to HTML. We also know that it is Extensible, meaning that the tags and structure are user-specific. This gives us the picture of a very powerful and flexible language.

But I’m sure we also all have come across an xml-based document (a “.xml file”), which we have launched in our favorite browser, only to be treated to a pretty unattractive page of…XML code!

So what can that powerful and yet somewhat undefinable animal really do for us?

This article shows a practical example of xml technology applied to a specific localisation process. In doing so, it also illustrates some of the advantages of having a dedicated Localisation Team or Department, rather than allowing various departments in an organisation to manage their own localisation. In this case, a simple handover of responsibilities from a Marketing team to a Localisation team generated a major leap forward in process, efficiency and quality control. Here is how:

Original setup

In this organisation, the process for creating and localising marketing and web content was the following:

• 1 master document – the product sheet – was created for each new product released.
• The product sheet was localised into 13 languages.
• Relevant  sections were pasted individually into the website for each language.
• Relevant sections were also pasted individually into a printable version which was converted to PDF again for each language.
• The localised doc files were also circulated.

There were 2 major issues with this:

1. Copying and pasting made the process extremely time consuming and error prone.
2. No translation memory system was used, making leveraging impossible and quality control of the localised content solely reliant on proof readers.

Solution implemented

The Localisation team was handed over the responsibility of localising this content mainly to free-up Marketing resources. Rather than simply taking over, they identified opportunities for improvement and initiated an R&D effort in xml Single Source Publishing. The goal now was to automate as much of the process as possible, and free-up time within the agreed standard turnaround for systematic quality control.

The new process ended up as follows:

• Product sheet created in xml by the authors, using the free WYSIWYG XML authoring tool Altova Authentic®.
• The xml schema was designed to be compatible with the web content management system used to create localised product pages.
• A Trados ini file was created to parse out all non-localisable content in the xml code.
• XSL Transformation and Apache FOP were used to automatically generate all localised XML, HTML, RTF and PDF copies after post-translation processing in Trados.
• A VB Developer created a tool to manage all Altova StyleVision®-based automation from one single UI.

Result

• Upload of complete xml product sheets to the website for each language rather than copying and pasting independent fields (unfortunately batch upload was not permitted by the web content management system).
• Internet team saved 75% on the time required for localised product webpages to go live.
• Other content types were all published simultaneously.
• Use of Translation Memories and pro-active Terminology Management cut cost and increased consistency.
• Thorough Quality Checks were also processed in batch using QA Distiller™ which helped catch multiple terminology and value errors before publication.

The key to the success of this new setup, apart from choosing to use XML, was the ability to revise the process from beginning to end. Because the Localisation team were allowed to have a say in the authoring process, efficiencies were generated on the whole span of the Marketing and Web content creation and XML Single Source Publishing was successfully implemented.

SDL Trados 2007: License Server Setup

Using Technical Support Advisors (TSAs) to produce Knowledge Base content is a logical choice: they are in-house native speakers with unbeatable product knowledge, who can produce source and localised articles at minimal additional cost if they can work around their other duties.

What can be overlooked in such a seemingly efficient setup is Translation Memories (TMs). This case shows an example of such a setup being integrated with Trados TM technology.

Original setup

• English articles were produced at a sustained pace by a team of dedicated technical writers.
• TSAs were involved with their review and the creation of some English articles.
• Translation would be undertaken by native speakers in TSA, when time allowed.
• Percentage of translated articles was low and loosing ground.
• Lack of version tracking meant English articles may be updated several times before translation work started.
• Reusing existing translations and updating existing articles was tedious, and sometimes led to the re-translation of entire sections or documents.
• There was no terminology control and references to UI terms (e.g. OS or software strings, firmware messages etc.) were entirely ad hoc.

Solution implemented

• The corporation setup a Trados Network License Server as part of the Trados 2007 update.
• Thanks to the different time zones involved, a sufficient number of Trados licenses was available to equip the Technical Support translators.
• Initial training and a reference manual was provided.
• A Termbase was loaded into Workbench to provide integrated reference across content types.
• Some Winalign work was also done to start populating the Knowledge Base Master TMs before Trados-based translations even started.
• An engineer was assigned to run TagEditor Verifiers and QA Distiller checks on the new translated content to help increase overall quality.

Result

• The gap between the English and localised Knowledge Base narrowed, especially for the most viewed cases.
• The quality and consistency of the articles increased.
• The pace of translation increased.
• The setup was used beyond its original scope, supporting updates to the parent corporation website.
• Substantial cost was saved and projects delivered which would not have received cost approval necessary for outsourcing.

One of the things which made this project a big success was its negligible cost. The investment was null since the whole setup was based on better utilising existing resources. In such a scenario, the cost of a full-blown Global CMS system would have been impossible to justify..

SDL Trados 2007: Translation Memory Strategies

What is the best way to organise and maintain Translation Memories?

I currently maintain TMs using 2 features of Trados (the Attributes and Master/Project TM dichotomy) and Alchemy’s Trados component.

Master TMs

• single and exhaustive repository for each field and language pair (e.g. EN-FR Medical).
• used to analyse all new projects and generate Project TMs.
• content of Project TMs are only added to it when full project cycle has ended (including review, QA etc.).
• because of their exhaustive nature, Master TMs tend to grow rapidely and would not be practical for inclusion into a translation kits.
• even when outsourcing all or most of the localisation process, these should always be held by the client as they are a valuable asset which they own, regardless of whether they are outsourcing TM Management.

Project TMs

• specific to a project or project stage (i.e. successive handoffs of a same project often have their own Project TMs).
• used to pre-translate the handoff (i.e. generate the TTX files to send to the vendor).
• passed on to translation vendors for analysis and use during interactive translation.
• used during post-translation engineering (bugs are fixed in Workbench + TagEditor + MultiTerm interactive translation environment by the localisation engineer).

Software TMs

• single and exhaustive repository for each field and language pair, generated bi-yearly from Catalyst TTKs.
• added to Master TM of their field and/or used as Concordance reference during translation of help, documentation, knowledge base articles etc.
• also used as leverage source for software through Catalyst.

Use of attributes

• every time a new project is analysed, custom attributes are added and set (e.g. Vendor=AAA, Project=XXX, Field=FFF).
• can be used to filter searches and analyses.
• also useful to track back on errors or arbitrate between duplications.

Who’s responsible for Localization in your organization?

Who’s responsible for Localization in your organization?

Seems like a simple question with a simple answer, right? However, whether they are aware of it or not, most people use the term ”Localization” when they may well be referring to areas under the broader headings of Globalization, Internationalization, Localization & Translation (GILT).

There are historical reasons for this anomaly of course; once upon a time Localization was only considered an afterthought to product development and had no real place in the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). GILT is certainly a more accurate and all-encompassing acronym, but even as industry experts in “Localization” we do not typically embrace such broad terminology. Personally I find GILT a somewhat clumsy and uncomfortable acronym. After all, who in an organization would want to say they work in GILT, or are head of GILT! Even if we were to adopt this term within our organizations, I could foresee many blank stares when discussing GILT with those not familiar with what is traditionally known to them as “Localization”. So naturally we default to using “Localization” as an often all-encompassing term to avoid having to give every person we interact with a brief (and most probably unwelcome) history of what is better known as “Localization”.

The problem is, that by accepting our moniker as “Localization” we are also endorsing the view that Localization is still just an afterthought to development and is solely the responsibility of a single department within an organization. I still work as part of a Localization team, as Localization Engineering Manager. Some of you who work in the industry probably have a sign hanging over your little farm of desks that says, “Localization”.

In my experience, this tends to result in those in senior management, in charge of strategic decision making, and those in regional sales offices, believing that by having a Localization department; Localization is taken care of. It’s a black-box. It’s possibly even viewed as a glorified term for translation. Consequently, should any issues arise with Localized product, it’s clear to these groups where the responsibility lies.

So in response to the initial question I posed, who’s responsible for Localization in your organization? The truth is, in the broadest sense of the term, “Localization”, that everyone at every level of your organization is responsible for Localization (If we take it that by Localization we are in fact referring to GILT).

Just because a Quality or Quality Assurance department may exist within an organization, this does not mean that quality is the sole responsibility of this department and is no longer a concern for the rest of the organization. Similarly Localization, or more accurately Globalization, must be a discrete function of every individual within your organization. If not, there will be an inevitable adverse impact on Internationalization and subsequently the quality of the localized end-product will suffer, as will sales in the target region for that localized product.

Each step within the Globalization, Internationalization, Localization chain will have an exponential impact on the next. If you don’t take your Globalization strategy seriously enough, then, in the absence of a firm mandate from the highest levels of your organization, Internationalization will suffer because there will be no development impetus to properly Internationalize your software. If the Internationalization effort is poor, Localization will be painful, perhaps even impossible within certain software features, and you will be looking at a lengthy delta between your domestic software release and your localized releases.

Conversely, if you start with a solid and coherent Globalization strategy that is communicated, in a relevant and contextual manner, to all levels within the organization, then Internationalization will be an integral part of the SDLC, Localization should be a straightforward, finite task, and you will be in a better position to achieve a Sim-Ship of domestic and localized software releases.

Some people may prefer to use the acronym GILT, some may prefer “glocalization”. For me, the answer to this conundrum, and to addressing people’s sometimes limited awareness of what Localization entails, does not lie in changing terms or the invention of new terms and pseudo-techno-babble. It’s too late. The horse has bolted on that one. It would be comparable to Apple insisting that people stop using “iPod” as a brand name and adopt another title for their pre-existing portable media players. Instead, I believe the answer lies in educating all the relevant stakeholders within an organization on the importance of G11n, I18n, and L10n and how these relate to them and various groups throughout the organization in terms of responsibilities.

So with this in mind, in upcoming posts I will take a look at the terms Globalization, Internationalization and Localization in more detail, their inter-dependent relationship, who owns what in terms of responsibilities, what they mean to your organization, and what you should know when endeavouring to sell software in a global marketplace.