Smartling offers a fully flexible workflow configuration, allowing you to facilitate and structure all steps in your translation process.
All workflows follow the same basic structure:
- First, the content needs to be authorized to kick off the translation process.
- Once authorized, the content goes through a fully automated Processing step.
- A workflow always needs to include a Translation step, so a translation can be applied to your content. This step can be used for Machine Translation or AI Translation, or it can be managed by human translators.
- Once the content has gone through all steps, it is considered published (or completed).
Depending on your requirements, further steps can be added and combined, to edit, review, pause, route or format the translations.
Each of these steps can be fully customized to your needs.
Selecting the Right Workflow Step Type
When adding workflow steps, it is important to select a step type that accurately reflects the work being performed in that step. Different workflow steps influence several factors, such as:
- Rates: You can assign different rates for various workflow steps within a rate card. This ensures accurate cost estimates for your jobs.
- Fuzzy Match Profiles: Fuzzy Match Profiles can be applied just to Translation steps, Translation and Post-Edit steps, or Translation and all post-translation steps (Edit, Post-Edit, and Review Steps).
- Job Due Date Settings: Different step types may require different turnaround times, which can be adjusted in the Job Due Date Settings.
- How Content is Displayed to Linguists: Depending on the type of workflow step, the content will either open in the CAT Tool or Transcreation Tool. For Review type steps, linguists also have the option to work in Smartling's Review Mode.
- How Content is Saved to the Translation Memory: In Machine Translation workflows, step types can affect whether translations are saved to the TM.
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SmartMatch results: SmartMatch rules can be configured to direct matches to specific workflow step types.
Translation Steps
Translation
This step is used for human translation, machine translation, or translation by an LLM. Human linguists translate content using the CAT Tool.
Transcreation
This step is used for more creative form translations, such as taglines, marketing slogans, titles, etc. Transcreation takes place in the Transcreation Tool.
Edit Steps
- Edit
- Post-Edit
- Light Post-Edit (SLS only)
- AI Review (SLS only)
Edit
This step allows linguists to make revisions to translated content in the CAT Tool. It should be used when linguists need to edit human-translated content. This step type is treated as a separate item within a Rate Card.
Post-Edit
This step is designed for machine translation workflows, where linguists edit translations provided by an MT provider or LLM. Edits are made in the CAT Tool. If no edits are made during this step, the translations are not saved to the Translation Memory. This step type is also treated as a separate item within a Rate Card.
Light Post-Edit
This step is specific to Smartling Language Services (SLS) AI Translation (AIT) workflows. It is used for select languages that require a light touch edit. This step is managed by SLS and is automatically included in AIT workflows. It cannot be added to other workflows.
AI Review
This step is specific to Smartling Language Services (SLS) AI-Powered Human Translation (AIHT) workflows. This step is managed by SLS and is automatically included in AIHT workflows. It cannot be added to other workflows.
Review Steps
Review
This step allows linguists to review translated or edited content for quality. By default, the content will open in Review Mode, but linguists have the option to switch to the CAT Tool. It is treated as a separate item within a Rate Card.
Transcreation Review
This step allows linguists to review or edit transcreations completed during the Transcreation step. It is automatically included when creating a workflow from a Transcreation workflow template, but it can be removed if desired.
Hold Steps
Pre-Translation Hold
A hold step can be added before the translation step to pause the workflow. Strings remain in this step until an Account Owner or Project Manager submits them to the next step via the Strings View. This is particularly useful for reviewing translation costs before any work begins.
Workflow Hold
A Hold step can also be added after the translation step to pause the workflow. Strings remain in this step until an Account Owner or Project Manager submits them to the next step via the Strings View. This is useful when you want to delay publishing until all content is translated, allowing everything to be published at once.
Decision Step
This type of step automatically routes content to different workflow steps based on user-defined rules, enabling the creation of dynamic workflows.