4 key aspects of an efficient Translation Management System

Having attended a significant number of industry events, I often hear the question: “What should I expect from a next-gen efficient Translation Management System?”. This in my opinion is a very important issue to explore, since there are no universal benchmarks allowing a user to objectively identify the threshold of optimum translation management software. Recently I managed to narrow down a set of features I find especially important to look out for.
First of all, in this day and age an essential requirement to a successful localization process is optimal support for the translation project management system. Additionally a project coordinator must never underestimate the value of automation and the meaning of scalability (the ability to modify the number of users accessing a single solution).
At XTM we consider TMS an entire ecosystem, which is more about openness and transparency than the traditional understanding of such system.
 

Translation ecosystem characteristics

• No limits to the number of users
• All your translation Apps in one place – a comprehensive solution for all your multilingual content requirements
• Fully functional APIs to enable integration with other systems
• 100% Open Standards based
• No vendor lock-in
• No file size limits
• Multiple users working on the same project concurrently, all sharing data in real time

 Translation ecosystem structure

Key aspects of an efficient translation ecosystem

	Intelligent Reporting Real time project management overview on the status of all your project Project management User roles and rights easily defined and limited as desired Comprehensive history of translation actions and TM assets Tagging additional information to individual sentences, sentence history etc.
	Advanced Automated workflow Emails Moving to the next step Automated processing of files Identifying relevant text Re-using previous translations Management of terminology Real-time collaboration among project teams Project managers Translators & correctors – In house, freelance, or LSP In country or customer reviewers Automatic generation of Project metrics Customer proposals Supplier purchase orders
	Flexible No project too big, no project too small Standard support for all common file types Browser based technology – access from any platform Scale the system up and down as required
	Economical No up front costs Concurrent user licensing model Pay only for licences required Low monthly billing No user lock-in – Export your assets in standard format Subscription instantly renewed or modified on-line

Summary

Your efficient translation management system should:

• Meet your needs with the minimum of disruption
• Help you improve your processes
• Be an open environment allowing plugin functionality
• Use open standards to give you portability for your assets and lower costs

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