A Blocklist is a list of terms that should never be included in your translated content. When creating a Glossary of important or frequently used terms, you should also create a Blocklist of forbidden or never-to-be-used terms.
When the Blocklist Quality Check is enabled, the terms included in a Blocklist are flagged in the CAT Tool, and are blocked from being used in translations.
You might have a number of translated terms that can not or should not be used in certain territories or markets. Your Legal department may also have a list of banned terms. The Blocklist feature ensures these terms will not be included in your translated content, by flagging the term as blocklisted in the CAT Tool and preventing the translators from submitting the term.
A blocklisted term is blocklisted per target language, so the Blocklist term should be the translated term and associate target language. Variations of the blocklisted term are included in your Blocklist by default, including plurals, gender variations (if applicable), unless Exact Match or Case-sensitive are selected.
Accessing the Blocklist
Account Owners and Project Managers can access the Blocklist by navigating to;
Account Settings > Linguists Assets > Blocklists
This enters the Blocklist list page, where you can create and manage your Blocklists
Creating a Blocklist
To create a Blocklist, enter the Blocklist list page, and click Create Blocklist
This opens the Blocklist dialog, where you must give the Blocklist a name and associate it with at least one Glossary.
When that's done, click Create
Adding Terms to a Blocklist
Now that we have a Blocklist, it's time to add the terms to it. There are two ways you can add terms to the Blocklist:
Adding Individual Terms to a Blocklist
- Click the Blocklist name to enter it
- Click Create Term
This opens the Blocklist Term dialog, where you should complete the following:
- Under Term, insert the blocklisted term
- Case-sensitive: you can mark your main term as case-sensitive. This can be considered exact match + case-sensitive. Selecting both case-sensitive and exact match gives the same results as just selecting case-sensitive. When marked as case-sensitive, a Glossary term is only detected and displayed in the CAT Tool if the capitalization used in the source text matches the Glossary entry.
- Exact Match: When marked as an Exact Match, the term will only be detected and highlighted in the CAT Tool if the source text uses this term exactly as seen in the Glossary. The source string can include the term with any variation of casing (sentence, title, upper, lower etc.). However, plurals or any variation to the ending of the term in the source string (unless specified in term variations), will not be highlighted as a glossary term.
- Under Languages, choose which target languages this should apply to
- The default is all supported languages, as an extra precaution to prevent the term from being used in any translation.
- To give linguists a better understanding as to why this term is blocked, provide and Note / Reason
- If there are specific variations of the term that should also be blocked, such as plurals or gender variations, insert them into Term Variations
- You can add multiple Term Variations by clicking the + icon
- If you have a preferred term that linguists could use instead of the blocked term, insert them into Preferred Variations
- You can add multiple Preferred Variations by clicking the + icon
- Click Create
Once terms have been added to the Blocklist, you can edit or archive them by clicking the ellipsis
Adding Multiple Terms to a Blocklist - Export / Import
If you preferred to work on a Blocklist offline, you can export the Blocklist and then re-import it to Smartling.
If your Blocklist is new and empty, it is recommended to Export a Blocklist Template first, so that your Blocklist can follow the correct format needed for a successful import. Navigate to;
Account Settings > Linguists Assets > Glossaries > Manage Blocklists > ellipsis > Export Blocklist Template.
Choose to download an Excel or CSV file template, build out your Blocklist locally and import it back to Smartling.
Click here to download a Blocklist Template with tips on what to insert under each column.
Enabling Blocklist Quality Checks
The final step in ensuring all blocklisted terms are flagged and blocked in the CAT Tool, is to enable Blocklist Quality Checks.
From the Blocklist list page, click Quality Checks.
Alternatively, Account Owners and Project Managers can access Quality Checks by navigating to;
- Account Settings > Linguists Assets > Quality Checks
- Click the Quality Check Profile used in the Project
- Scroll down to Blocklisted Terms
- Choose High-Severity level from the severity dropdown. This will ensure the Blocklist term will not be submitted in your translated content.
Viewing Blocklist Terms in the CAT Tool
When the linguist enters the blocklisted term in the CAT tool and when the Quality Check for Blocklist terms is set, the Quality Checks will display the blocklisted term, along with a preferred alternative. Depending on your Quality Checks settings, the linguists may or may not be able to submit the translation with the Blocklist term.
Managing the Blocklist
Updating Details
Once you have created a Blocklist, you can update the name, description, and associated glossaries at any time by clicking the ellipsis beside the Blocklist name. Navigate to:
Account Settings > Linguists Assets > Glossaries > Manage Blocklists > ellipsis > Edit Details
Bulk-Add or Update Terms
If you want to add new terms to the Blocklist or update any existing terms in bulk, you can do so by exporting an Excel or CSV file of the Blocklist, add or update terms locally, and re-import the updated Blocklist.
To export a Blocklist, navigate to:
Account Settings > Linguists Assets > Glossaries > Manage Blocklists > ellipsis > Export Blocklist
Import
If you have created a Blocklist locally, or updated an existing Blocklist locally, and you're ready to upload the file of terms to Smartling, you can so do by importing them to a pre-created Blocklist.
To import a Blocklist, navigate to:
Account Settings > Linguists Assets > Glossaries > Manage Blocklists > ellipsis > Import Blocklist
Once imported, a success message will appear, confirming the number of terms added to the Blocklist.
Troubleshooting Imports
Ensure your Blocklist file contains the same header information, in the same order, as seen in the Blocklist Template. In other words, do not modify the template header.
Ensure your term locales are supported by Smartling and are inserted in the same format as seen under Locale ID column here.