Manage Workflows

If you prefer watching to reading, check out our video tutorial on creating a workflow in Smartling

How to Access the Workflow Configuration

1. Go to a project in Smartling
2. Click the gear icon > select Project Settings.
3. On the left side, click Workflows to enter the Workflow Configuration

Search and Filters

Filter	Options / Definition
Workflow	Search by workflow name.
Workflow UID	Search by workflow UID.
Workflow Level	Filter by Workflow Level: Account-level or Project-level.
Translation Provider Type	Filter by Translation Provider Type: Machine translation or Human translation. Content that moves through a workflow that uses MT, results in MT Word Usage.
MT Profile	Filter by a particular MT Profile.
Only show workflows managed by SLS	Select the checkbox to filter for workflows managed by Smartling Language Services (SLS).

 

How to Create a Workflow

1. In the Project's Workflow Configuration, click Create Workflow > select either Add Project Workflow or Add Account Workflow.
2. The Add New Workflow dialog appears. Complete the fields.
   1. Add a workflow Name (visible to all users)
   2. Select an appropriate Content Type from the dropdown menu (only visible in the Workflow Configuration). The content type should match the rate card of the assigned agency/translator.
   3. Do one of the following: 
      • For a Project-level workflow, select all languages set up in the project that this workflow will apply to. 
      • For an Account-level workflow, select both a Source Language and any pairing Target Languages. To pair languages with an additional source language, click Add Source Language, and select pairing target languages from the dropdown. Note: selected languages must already be listed in your Language Configuration.
   4. Choose a Workflow Template: Translation or Transcreation
   5. Select Managed by Smartling Language Services if SLS are your vendor
3. Click Create

Workflow Templates

When creating a workflow, you are asked to choose a workflow template. Your choice depends on the content you are translating and the tool you want linguists to use to translate it in.

1. Translation Workflow
2. Transcreation Workflow

Translation Workflow

Selecting the Translation workflow template results in a one-step workflow. You can add a variety of different step types before or after the Translation step. This workflow template is the most common and best suited for any content type.

Translations are completed within the CAT Tool.

Transcreation Workflow

Selecting the Transcreation workflow template results in a two-step workflow; Transcreation and Transcreation Review. Transcreation is a slower process for translating extremely high-value content, such as a brand's slogan, or headline. For this reason, a Transcreation Review step is provided automatically, but can be deleted.

Transcreations are completed within the Transcreation Tool.

How to Add Steps to a Workflow

To add steps to a workflow:

Click Add Steps (right), and click the + to add a step before or after each step.

Workflow Step Types

If you click the + anywhere before a Translation step, you will see the following step types:

1. Decision: automatically routes content to different workflow steps, based on user-defined rules. Learn more about Decision steps here.
2. Pre-Translation: Pauses the flow of content before translation. Strings are held in the step until an Account Owner or Project Manager submits them to the next step in the Strings View. Useful for reviewing translation costs before any work begins.

If you clicked on a + anywhere after a Translation step, you will see the following step types:

1. Decision: automatically routes content to different workflow steps, based on user-defined rules. Learn more about Decision steps here.
2. Edit: Allows Translation Resources to make revisions to translated content in the CAT Tool. This step type is its own item within a Rate Card.
3. Review: Allows Translation Resources to review translated/edited content for quality in Review Mode (default). This step type is its own item within a Rate Card.
4. Post-Machine Revision: Allows Translation Resources to revise machine translated content. It is important to note that if a translation is unedited in the step, translations are not saved to the Translation Memory. This step type is its own item within a Rate Card. For more information, read Human Translation, Machine Translation and MT Post-Editing. 
5. Workflow Hold: Pauses the flow of content after translation. Strings are held in the step until an Account Owner or Project Manager submits them to the next step in the Strings View. Useful before the publishing step if you want to wait until all your content is translated, and publish everything at once. Recommended step if translated content requires DTP before publishing.

Edit, Post-Machine Revision, and Review all have similar settings, but have different rates and affect where SmartMatched strings enter the workflow.

Choose a step and click Next to configure the step (see Configure Workflow Steps).

Delete Steps on a Workflow

On a workflow step, click the downward arrow and select Delete Step.
All users, agencies, and MT configurations will be unassigned from the step. If there are still strings in the step, they will be submitted to the next step.

Workflow steps can only be deleted under the following conditions:

• There are no strings in the step.
• There are no users, agencies, or MT configurations assigned to the step.
• If the selected step is the only Translation step in the workflow, it cannot be deleted.
• If the selected step is a Translation step on a workflow branch, the other steps on the branch must be deleted first. 

For more information, read Workflow Branches and Dynamic Workflows.

Edit, Delete, or Copy a Workflow 

Click the ellipsis (3 dots) on the right to edit, delete or copy the workflow.

Edit 

Here you can rename the workflow, update the content type, update the language pairs that the workflow can be used for, or update SLS as the vendor (it is recommended to select this checkbox on a workflow step-level, rather than here, on a workflow-level).

Delete

Deletes the workflow from the account. This action cannot be undone.

All linguists and agencies will be unassigned from the workflow. All unpublished strings will be unauthorized. This means that for any languages in progress using that workflow, the content will be removed for that language, and you will see No Content under the progress column. To re-authorize the content for that locale, remove the language from the Job (under Actions) and re-add the language. You cannot delete a project's default workflow, and you cannot delete a language's default workflow. Only Account Owners can delete account-level workflows.

Copy

Duplicates the workflow.

The copied workflow will have the same scope as the original workflow. For example, a copy of an account workflow will also be an account workflow, except if the user creating the copy is a Project Manager, in which case the newly created workflow will be a project workflow.

Creating a copy of a workflow is one way to have variations with different steps (for example, translation and editing versus translation, editing, and review) or for different translation resources. Other approaches may be easier to maintain, depending on your organization's needs. Contact your Customer Success Manager for personalized guidance.

The copied workflow will include all user workflow assignments from the original workflow. 

What's Next?

Once you have created a workflow, the next step is to configure and assign the people to each of the workflow steps (or tasks). Once that is complete (and they have activated their account if a new user), the final step is to ensure you have the right people assigned to each step. 

After that, you're ready to translate content in the workflow!

Don't forget to check out how to Change a Default Workflow for a language.