Workflow improvements to translation status updates

Collaborative work on translation projects can be complicated. Localization of web and mobile applications in particular is a process subject to constant changes. Translation status updates are the main way from which the translation management system on the one hand, and the project manager and the team members on the other hand, draw their information about the current status of the project. Translators work through the texts and mark strings or phrases as translated, reviewers work on those and mark them reviewed.

What happens if the source texte gets changed? What if a reviewer makes a change but it was not meant as a final revision? Here are some workflow improvements to translation status updates we made with the latest release of Lingohub.

The previous behavior: A user with reviewing permissions saved a translation phrase, the status was set to reviewed. A translator with no review permissions saved a translation phrase, the status was set to translated. And so on. It got complex if the project owner made changes to the entire project. Often a whole set of phrases would be set to different status, sometimes rightfully (substantial content changes), sometimes not. This often resulted in status update that were not desired by the user.

From now on, Lingohub will handle automatic status changes slightly differently. Most status changes will have to be triggered manually (or conveniently in bulk via mass actions).

Only the following changes are now being applied automatically:

• The source language phrase is updated: the master locale and all other phrases are being changed back to draft. They now need accurate revision since their content may no longer reflect an actual translation of the text.
• A resource file of another locale is uploaded by the project owner: phrases in this locale are being set to draft. They need accurate revision now.

This can happen if

• a new file of the master locale is uploaded or the file is modified
• phrases in the master locale change for other reasons
• file change in another locale

What does that mean for you? Clarity. No status changes from your actions are applied unless you specifically set them so. The translation editor will allow you to set one or multiple phrases to whichever status you  need to set them to (depending on your permissions).

For example: You have reviewing permissions and just went through 20 phrases that were in draft status. You saved them all, no status was changed. You mark all ten and change them to "reviewed" after you had another look at two of them that were not quite right yet.

The flowchart on the right explains our translation status change policy

So what actually happens when the source gets changed? The dashboard will reflect the change in statuses of the project. This will prompt you to either translate, or get in touch with the project owner about when it is to be done and by whom. In our next blogpost we'll introduce our new translation editor and some really helpful shortcuts.