Determining how many projects to create for a given customer
Tip
The major difference between the two is that a customer is static, while a project is dynamic that changes as the requirements of the translation job change over time.
Each project can only have one customer, but each customer can be a part of many projects.
Each customer within the software is defined as an entity that contains a unique Translation Memory, terminology, and rule set.
Each customer is then assigned to a project (where job-specific parameters are applied) so that it can be sent for translation.
Example 1: Translating a web application and a mobile application for Product-X
For example, let's say that you are translating a web application and a mobile application for Product-X.
In the case of a customer, the web application and mobile application have almost identical translation memory and terminologies.
Note
Hence one can create a single customer called Product-X.
In the case of a project, a Project Manager can send the content for Product-X for translation.
Note
Hence one can create a single project called Product-X, which contains the customer Product-X.
The project will contain multiple source files, one for the web app, one for the IOS app, and one for the Android app.
Example 2: Translating a web application and a mobile application for Product-X with different translation teams for the web and mobile applications
In this example, as Product-X grows, your organization has decided on separate translation teams for the web and mobile applications.
Note
In this case, we still need only one project and only one customer since a project can contain multiple source files, each with its own set of linguists assigned.
Therefore the web app is one file, and the mobile application consists of two files (IOS and Android).
Each file has its own team of linguists.
Example 3: A single product with web and mobile apps, whose branding is different between each app.
Your company has decided on some slightly different branding between the web app and each mobile app (IOS and Android). This means that the terminology between the three application platforms and the translation memory contents are slightly different between the three of these.
Note
One could create one unique customer for the android, IOS, and web apps.
However, the customer should be static, and the project dynamic.
Therefore a unique project will be created for all three applications using the same customer called Product-X.
Each project will have unique TM penalty profiles and terminology penalty profiles, to accommodate for the minor differences in terminologies and translation memory.
TM penalty profile
TM penalty profiles
Penalty Profiles penalize the percentage match of a fuzzy match.
Tip
Example: Segment X has an 80% Fuzzy Match against an entry in TM. However, the TM entry was stored for the prescription drug product whereas the translation is applied to over-the-counter drug products. Both are different products and certain segments have slightly different meanings between products. Applying a TM penalty of 5% lowers the fuzzy match from 80% to 75% accordingly.
XTM can apply penalty profiles based on the following criteria:
Tags.
TM Status (Approved or Not Approved).
XLIFF:doc status (Translated, New, Rejected, Validated, Proofed).
Target Language for all projects or per project.
Note
This penalty (Target Language) supersedes all other penalty profiles when more than one is triggered.
Note
The only languages that can have an associated TM Penalty Profile are: Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish
If Multiple ICE or Leveraged matches exist for a given segment.
TM penalty profiles are created in Configuration->Data->Tags->TM Penalty Profiles.
Terminology penalty profile
Terminology penalty profiles
Penalty Profiles in Terminologies remove the term(s) from the linguist view (XTM Workbench), without having to remove them from the terminologies file. This is useful when a term can only be applied to a specific product
Penalty Profiles are based on assigning a tag (either to an individual term or an entire terminology file) or term customer (assigned to a group of terms).
An administrator creates penalty profiles using this procedure.
Note
Prerequisite: Create tags first.
Example 4: Different release cycles between web and mobile apps.
Your company has changed the release cycle for Product-X. Mobile apps are now released one week before the web app. Therefore the due dates for translations have changed.
Note
There is only one customer, but multiple projects, each referencing the same customer Product-X. but with different due dates.
Assigning due dates is a project function.
Example 5: Machine-translated content
Your company has decided to translate help desk articles. Older help desk articles are to be machine-translated with no edits, while newer articles are machine-translated with manual corrections.
Tip
When defining a customer make sure that the translation memory can't be overwritten.
In this use case, both older and new articles use the same terms and TM.
Note
However, you wouldn't want the unedited machine-translated content to accidentally enter the TM for new articles due to someone accidentally approving that content for the TM.
Therefore you would create two customers (one for older help desk articles and one for newer articles). The Project Manager would then share the translation memory between the two.
The translations in the TM for older help desk articles have not gone through a correction step, whereas the newer help desk articles have.
Sharing translation memory and terminology across customers
A translation memory and terminology can still be shared across different customers for items that are similar.
Splitting content into different customers ensures that any updates to terms or translation memory in one customer have no effect on the terms and TM stored in the other.
Sharing TM and terms is especially useful when using machine translation in a workflow.
Note
The sharing of Translation Memory and Terminology is done within each individual Project.