Customers working with Smartling Language Services can download translation certificates confirming that translation services have been completed in accordance with ISO standards. Certificates are especially important for customers in highly regulated fields, such as healthcare, government, biotech, and financial services.
Smartling supports two certificate formats:
- Translation Certificate per job (default): one certificate is generated per job.
- Translation Certificate per locale in a job (available upon request): A separate certificate and translation bundle are generated for each target locale in a job. As soon as translations for a job locale are completed, a translation certificate is created for the locale.
These two formats are mutually exclusive. If you opt for per-locale certification in a particular project, all future jobs in that project will generate per-locale certificates. You can choose to enable per-locale translation certificates for your entire account or for particular projects in your account.
Per-locale certification is only supported for file-based jobs. Enabling it account-wide turns off job-level certification everywhere, so projects with non-file-based content (e.g., Global Delivery Network (GDN) content, glossary translations, or strings created via the Strings View) will not have certificates. If you're concerned about losing certificates for non-file-based projects, enable per-locale certification for specific file-based projects instead of your entire account.
To enable per-locale translation certificates, contact your Customer Success Manager or another Smartling representative, who can enable this option on your behalf.
Translation Certificate per job
The translation certificate is available on any closed job that has had translation services completed by Smartling Language Services.
The certificate notes the following:
- ISO certificate identifiers
- Project name
- Job name
- Source file name
- Source locale
- Target locale
- Translation service
- Date completed
Click the Download Translation Certificate button to download the PDF file locally.
If for any reason the translation certificate failed to generate, you will be prompted to submit a prefilled support ticket, where a member of the team will assist you as soon as possible.
Translation Certificate per locale in a job
This option issues a certificate and translation bundle for each job locale individually, rather than waiting for the entire job to close. This allows you to get evidence of translation completion at the locale level as soon as each target locale is complete, without waiting for locales that are still in progress.
This option is only available for file-based jobs. Most connectors are supported because they send content to Smartling as files. It does not apply to GDN content, glossary translations, or strings created via the Strings View, because a translation bundle cannot be generated for content that is not file-based.
When is a certificate generated?
For a certificate to be generated, the job locale must have been translated in a workflow with at least one Smartling Language Services (SLS)-managed step. Certificates are generated once the strings for a job locale are complete and have reached the final published step.
Certificates and translation bundles are generated only once, when the job locale is completed for the first time. Any later translation changes do not re-trigger certificate generation. If you need a certificate for updated translations, you will need to create a new job and re-upload the source file under a new name.
Two files are generated once a job locale is completed:
- Locale Translation Certificate: The PDF certificate for that job locale.
- Translation Certificate Bundle: A ZIP file containing the translated files for that job locale at the moment of first completion.
The Locale Translation Certificate notes the following:
- ISO certificate identifiers
- Project name
- Job name
- Source file(s)
- Source locale
- Target locale
- Translation service
- Word count
- Generated (date and time)
How do I download per-locale translation certificates?
Per-locale translation certificates and bundles can be found on the Translation Certificates tab on the Job Details page. This tab only appears if per-locale certification is enabled, the job is file-based, and at least one job locale is eligible for per-locale certification (meaning it was translated using a workflow with at least one SLS-managed step).
The tab label shows a count. This reflects the number of job locales that have completed certification so far, not the total number of locales in the job or the number of files. For example, a job with 15 job locales where 4 have reached completion will show a count of 4. If a job locale's content did not come from a file, for example strings added directly via the Strings View, that locale will not appear in the list, since there is no file-based content to certify.
Job locales are listed in descending order by completion date, with the most recently completed job locale at the top. Use the Filter dropdown to show a single language instead of all languages.
To download an individual certificate or bundle, click its file name. To download for every certified locale in the job at once, use Download All, Download Bundles, or Download Certificates. To download for only specific job locales, select their checkboxes: the toolbar switches to show Download All Selected Files, Download Selected Bundles, and Download Selected Certificates for just the locales you checked, plus a Clear selection option.
Generating the certificate and bundle isn't instant. Until both files are ready, the job locale shows a Generating status in the tab. If generation fails, the job locale shows an Error status instead. Contact Smartling Support if you see an error message and need assistance.
How do I get notified when a certificate is ready?
Account Owners and Project Managers can opt in to a notification called "SLS Locale Translation Certificate ready," found in the Jobs category of your notification settings. This setting is off by default.
Once enabled, choose a delivery frequency: Near real time to be notified as certificates become available, or Daily to receive a single digest email listing every job and locale certified that day.
Either way, the notification includes links to download both the Locale Translation Certificate and the Translation Certificate Bundle.
How long are certificates retained, and can they be deleted?
Per-locale certified artifacts (both the certificate and the bundle) are retained for 3 years. They cannot be deleted by any user, regardless of role. They can only be removed by Smartling.