A workflow is a set of steps that your content needs to pass through to be considered fully translated and completed. To create a new workflow, follow the steps outlined below.
Tip: New to Smartling? Check out our Introduction to Workflows before creating your first workflow.
Step 1: Navigate to the Workflow Management page
To begin the process of creating a workflow, first decide if you would like to create an account-level workflow or a project-level workflow. To help you select the right workflow type, you can find more information on account-level and project-level workflows here.
Based on the desired type of workflow that you would like to create, navigate to the relevant Workflow Management page:
Option 1: Creating an Account Workflow
If you would like to create an account-level workflow that can be used across all projects in your Smartling account, please navigate to the Account Workflows page from your Account Settings.
Tip: This option is only available to users with an Account Owner role.
To add a new workflow, click Create Account-Level Workflow.
Option 2: Creating a workflow from the Project Settings
Alternatively, if you would like to create a project-level workflow, please navigate to the Settings tab in the project that you want to use the workflow for. Then click into the Workflows tab.
Tip: This option is available to users with a Project Manager or Account Owner role.
To add a new workflow, click Create Workflow.
- For users with a Project Manager role, this action will create a project-level workflow.
- Users with an Account Owner role can select between creating an account-level workflow or a project-level workflow. To proceed, select the desired workflow type.
Step 2: General workflow settings
In the workflow creation modal, select some general settings for your new workflow:
Name (visible to all users)
Enter a name for your new workflow, which will be visible to all users.
We recommend choosing a name that is intuitive for your team and gives an overview of the steps and vendors included in the workflow.
Content Type
From the drop-down menu, select the content type the new workflow will be used for.
The most common option suitable for a wide range of translation options and content types is General. If the workflow is designed for a specific type of translation, such as legal translation or transcreation, you can select the corresponding content type. This allows you to associate the workflow with a distinct set of rates tailored to specific content types.
Each content type can be associated with a specific rate card for your translation vendor.
Info: The content type should match the rate card of the agency or Translation Resource who will be assigned to the workflow.
Language pairs
Select all language pairs that the new workflow will be used for. The workflow will only be available for the language pairs specified here.
- For project-level workflows, select the project target languages that the workflow will be used for.
- For account-level workflows, select both a source language and any pairing target languages.
Account-level workflows can be used across multiple projects with different source locales. To add language pairs with a different source locale to your workflow, click Add Source Language and select the pairing target languages from the drop-down.
Tip: A workflow can only be used for the language pairs specified in the workflow settings. If additional language pairs are needed at a future point, they can be added by editing the workflow.
Workflow Template
When creating a workflow, you must choose a template based on the type of content being translated: Translation or Transcreation.
The workflow template determines which translation tool the linguists assigned to the workflow will be using: Smartling's CAT Tool (Translation) or the Transcreation Tool (Transcreation).
Translation
For a regular translation workflow, select the Workflow Template Translation.
In this type of workflow, your translation team will work in Smartling’s regular CAT Tool. This workflow template should also be selected for Machine Translation workflows.
Selecting the Translation workflow template initially results in a one-step workflow. You can fully customize it by adding various step types before or after the Translation step, as described in the following steps listed below.
This workflow template is the most common and is suitable for translating any content type, except for highly creative content that requires Transcreation.
Transcreation
Select the option Transcreation to create a Transcreation workflow to translate highly creative content, such as slogans. With this workflow template, your translation team will work in Smartling’s dedicated Transcreation Tool.
Selecting the Transcreation workflow template results in a two-step workflow with a Transcreation step and a Transcreation Review step.
Transcreation is ideal for translating high-value content that requires a creative approach, such as brand slogans or headlines. For this reason, a Transcreation Review step is provided automatically. This step is optional and can be removed if it is not needed.
Create the workflow
To confirm the general workflow settings, click Create.
The basic structure of this workflow has now been created. The workflow can be searched for on the Workflows Management page and tailored to your requirements.
Step 3: Add workflow steps (optional)
When a new translation workflow is created, it initially only contains a Processing step (which is fully automated and cannot be customized) and a Translation step.
You can now add further steps to your workflow, to edit, review, pause, route or format the translations. To add steps to a workflow:
- From the Workflow Management page, search for the workflow you just created and click Add Steps (on the right).
- Use the + button to add a step before or after an existing step.
- From the drop-down menu, select the appropriate Workflow Step Type.
Smartling offers various different workflow step types that can be added and combined based on your requirements.
Info: When adding workflow steps, it is important to select a step type that accurately reflects the work being performed in that step. For detailed information about all available step types, please visit this article.
- Once you have selected a step type, click Next to configure the step.
- When you are finished adding steps to your workflow, click Done.
Step 4: Configure workflow step settings
Once you have created a workflow, the next step is to configure the workflow step settings.
These settings determine how content will be translated, and how work will be distributed and pass through your workflow.
To access and configure the settings, click on the relevant workflow step and select the option Manage Step.
Among others, the following settings can be configured:
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Step Name
For each step in your workflow, you can enter a custom step name. We recommend choosing a step name that is clear to your team, and indicates the task, as well as the assigned translation vendor or MT provider.
On the Workflow Management page, this custom step name will be displayed underneath the workflow step type.
In the Jobs Dashboard, the custom step name is displayed in the Workflows tab, making it easy to track the translation progress.
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Translation Provider
By clicking "Manage Step" on the Translation step of your workflow, you can select the preferred translation provider: Human translators or Machine Translation.
For more information on setting up a Machine Translation workflow, please visit this article.
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Content Assignment and Claiming
Determine if new work will need to be assigned manually to a preferred linguist, or if Translation Resources should be able to proactively accept new Jobs.
Info: For detailed information on all workflow step settings and how to configure them, please visit this article.
Step 5: Assign your translation team
Once you have created all necessary workflow steps, you need to give the right people access to work on your content. This is an essential part of setting up any new workflow that involves human linguists or reviewers.
You can either assign an agency to a workflow step, or individual Translation Resources. All agency and user assignments can be managed from the top navigation > Team.
Info: For detailed information on how to assign your agency and translators to a workflow step, please visit this article.
What's next?
You are now ready to start using the new workflow.
If you would like to use it as the default workflow for a target language in your project, please visit this article for more information.
To learn more about workflows in Smartling, visit the following articles:
- Learn about Accessing and Managing Workflows.
- Learn about Dynamic Workflows.
- Learn about Setting up a Machine Translation Workflow.