What is translation collaboration?
Translation collaboration, sometimes referred to as collaborative translation, is a workflow methodology that involves bringing together various stakeholders, such as translators, project managers and subject-matter experts, to deliver translation projects on time and within budget. This process employs technology to reduce the total translation lifecycle, improves communication between translators and other stakeholders and eliminates many administrative tasks.
Without the right technology to support translation collaboration, it can be difficult to work across highly distributed teams, streamline processes and ensure deadlines are met.
Trados Team
More about translation collaboration
What are the use cases for translation collaboration?
Translation collaboration is used for various purposes, including:
- Bringing together disparate teams
- Centralizing and sharing project data
- Facilitating agile project management
- Connecting business systems
What are the business benefits of translation collaboration?
- Streamline communications: Standardize communication throughout the translation process by centralizing all dialogues in one platform. Minimize miscommunication and the possibility of errors to improve overall translation quality.
- Reduce turnaround times: With clear lines of communication, teams can work together to complete projects faster and more efficiently.
- Remain in control: Track project progress, monitor key metrics and maintain complete visibility over every step of the translation process. Integrate in-house systems to simplify communication and content handoffs.
- Gain transparency: With project data accessible to all stakeholders, information can be easily viewed and discussed at every step of the process. The need for manual communication methods is eliminated and information can be accessed in real time.
What is the difference between translation collaboration and translation management?
Translation management automates processes to eliminate repetitive manual tasks, increases control and delivers greater efficiency. It’s particularly important for businesses and organizations that operate in multiple countries or regions and need to provide their content in multiple languages. Translation collaboration, on the other hand, looks to centralize and standardize communication throughout the localization process to minimize errors and facilitate collaboration. The two concepts, alongside translation productivity, are integral to any robust translation strategy.
What is the difference between translation collaboration and crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing and translation collaboration are two completely different translation approaches. Crowdsourcing involves enlisting a large group of people to complete translation work over the internet and is often used for large multi-language projects to reduce costs and accelerate the translation process. Contributors can be anyone from freelance translators to translation enthusiasts to subject-matter experts. Some crowdsourcing platforms are not curated and allow these users to keep their identity and qualifications anonymous, which can result in poor translation quality. In comparison, translation collaboration involves bringing together a team of carefully chosen professionals who you know and trust to work on a project.
What is a translation collaboration solution and how does it work?
What features would you expect to see in a typical translation collaboration solution?
- Automatic notifications, comments and mentions to exchange feedback quickly
- Chat functionality to centralize communication in the platform
- Communication history to log previous exchanges
- Assignment features to allocate work
- Activity tracker to monitor information access
- Basic to advanced query management
