Automated Workflow Technology
At Lingo Systems, we believe that significant cost savings can be derived from automating localization workflows wherever possible. To help our clients lower their localization costs, we have developed our own proprietary web-based application, LingoNET®, to automatically transfer XML between our clients' systems (usually a CMS) and our Intranet. LingoNET detects new XML content requiring translation and then routes it to the appropriate linguistic resources. By streamlining the localization workflow, LingoNET allows for faster turnarounds, while also providing 24/7 online tracking of every project.
To determine whether your company would benefit from automated workflow technology, ask yourself a few basic questions:
- Is your content static, dynamic, or something in between?
- How frequently do you update your multi-language content?
- How many writers contribute to your content and where are they located?
- How many discrete items do you expect to translate over a given time period?
The central focus of automation is expediting the file transfer and markup process from one localization step to the next. Automation also enhances the updating and management of translation memory (TM) assets. A broad range of elements are considered, and many are put in place, when designing an automated workflow. These include:
- The CMS configuration
- Types of output to be localized
- Structure of the CMS database
- Structure of the CMS writing teams
- Source content authoring
- "Connector" development
It is important to note that the concept of automation may conjure up thoughts of machine translation (MT). At Lingo Systems, we do not employ MT because it does not produce the quality that our clients require. In our view, MT is best suited for translating very large volumes of content in a very short timeframe or other situations where only a basic understanding is required. |
