Productivity Gains

with memoQ server

—
Introduction
memoQ server is an advanced productivity tool for enabling and managing collaborative
translation work. It comprises a repository for your translation assets, a control center for
your translation projects and a hub for collaborative translation projects.
One of the major advantages with memoQ server is that its functionality can be used
immediately. There is no need for an expensive consultant and the system does not have
to be customized and adapted before you can start working with it. memoQ server is an
intuitive and fast to learn system. It is designed with the needs of project managers and
translators in mind. memoQ server does not need very technical IT people to administer
it. In addition memoQ’s support department works six days a week and is considered to
be the most responsive and helpful support team in our industry.
This document explains some of the productivity gains with memoQ server including:

• WORKFLOW AND AUTOMATED PROJECT CREATION

• PROJECT DASHBOARD
• COLLABORATIVE TRANSLATION, which allows translation projects to be
completed faster
• LEVERAGE from translation memories and other resources
• ENSURES PROJECT MANAGERS are in control of their projects
• ELIMINATES TIME CONSUMING STEPS for project managers and translators
• Uses proven QUALITY MANAGEMENT MODELS to deliver better quality
translation

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—
Workflow and Automated
Project Creation
—
Workflow and Automated Project
Creation
A number of customers have told us that the project template feature introduced in
memoQ 2014 has reduced the amount of time it takes to set up a project from 30
minutes to 10 minutes. This dramatic productivity gain is achieved through automating
many project management setup tasks.

The following shows a typical project setup workflow.

Start to set up project

Enter project name Find relevant termbase

Pre-translating
and client name and assign termbase

Find translators
Enter language pair information Assign LiveDocs corpus to project
and assign project

For each language create

translation memory and assign Project analysis Translation starts
to project

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In memoQ we are able to create a template that automates the tasks below colored in
green.

Start to set up project

Enter project name Find relevant termbase

Pre-translating
and client name and assign termbase

Assign LiveDocs corpus to Find translators

Enter language pair information
project and assign project

For each language create

translation memory and assign Project analysis Translation starts
to project

The Project Templates allow project managers to enter data that they commonly use on
one occasion and reuse it for all similar projects. This can be as simple or as sophisticated
as they wish. For example if they do a lot of projects in a particular language pair they
could create a template for those jobs. Alternatively if they had particular customers with
particular requirements they could create a template for each of these customers and
have a lot of the project creation work done automatically.

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 5

In addition to this they are able
to add automated actions at
particular stages in the pro-
ject’s workflow and these ac-
tions will then get executed at
that point.

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 6

Benefits

In order to calculate how much money will be saved by using Project Templates you
simply work out how much time this will save your project managers and work out the
value of that time.

Analyze Your Current Projects

You should start by analyzing your current projects. You could ask the following questions
in order to get an understanding of the savings. If the projects are complex but similar
there is likely to be a very significant savings.

• How many projects are created per week?

• How many language pairs are involved?
• Do you always use the same TM for particular customers or create new TMs
each time?
• Do you use the same Termbases for projects from a particular customer?
• How do you decide on the naming conventions for projects?
• What tasks (Project statistics, Pre-translation etc.) do you always do at the start
of each project?
• Do you always assign the documents to the same translators?

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These questions give you a feel for what you could save. If the answer to a lot of these
questions is that you have a process and they are usually done in a particular way then
you will save a significant amount of your project manager’s time.

Rough Estimate

A rough estimate would be that project creation would take 25% to 30% of the time it
took before memoQ introduced Project Templates. You could make an estimate of the
time based on this.
We would recommend that you time a project manager with a number of projects before
and after you have introduced Project Templates and get an accurate figure of what the
savings is.

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—
Project Management
Dashboard
—
Project Management Dashboard
memoQ 2015 introduced the project management dashboard, which further improves
project management efficiency. The project manager gets a better overview of their
projects and can check a project’s status at a detailed level. The project management
dashboard offers better search functionality and has a two-line view that allows project
managers to see project, domain and subject in addition to the standard status information.
You can create powerful search expressions, for example find all projects where a certain
translator needs to deliver within the next two days, or find all projects created last month
that were for a particular customer into a particular language.

—
Alerts
The project management dashboard does a lot to make project management work
simpler, more efficient and more effective. The Project managers get a better view of
their projects and can see a project’s status at a detailed level.
Alerts are one way where memoQ really makes life simpler for project managers. If
there is a missed deadline you see an error. If something has not been done you will get

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 10

a warning. If something is ready to be done you will get an information alert. The first
column of the dashboard shows projects that have alerts and need the project manager’s
attention.
You can see more details of the alert by selecting the Alerts button in the top right hand
side of the screen. The screenshot below shows a case where multiple projects have
been selected. Four of these have alerts and these are seen in more detail on the alerts
pane.

Seeing the alert is just the beginning. The project manager must then deal with the
problem. Beginning with memoQ 2015, the project manager can send an email to the
assigned person, reassign them, change the deadline or dismiss the alert without even
opening the project.

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—
Reassigning Translators
Imagine the scenario. It is a very busy Monday morning. You are a project manager for
a medium-sized translation company and you get a message that a translator who is
assigned to at least three projects has called in sick for the next two weeks. The way this
used to work was you found out which projects they worked on and one by one opened
the project and reassigned the translator.
Beginning with memoQ 2015, a project manager can reassign translators on any number
of projects without even opening one project. To do this you can select the reassign
button from the ribbon:

or select the project and click on the reassign

button at the bottom of the details pane:

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 12

A wizard will then open. The first
step is to select the translator you
want to reassign.

The second step is to select the

projects. By default all projects the
translator is assigned to will be se-
lected. You will see the projects
grouped by role and you will also
see the work that remains to be
done.

You then select the translator you

want the project reassigned to.

The final step is to press the reas-

sign button to confirm the changes.

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 13

—
memoQ Anywhere
Translation project managers often find that they need to update or manage a project
when they are away from their desk. With the memoQ cloud infrastructure, they can
access their projects in a browser.
In the screenshot below we have clicked on the “missed deadline” header and a browser
popup window shows a list of documents for which the deadline is missed. Clicking on
any these will take you to the document on the list of documents for translations.

There are many other features in memoQ that will benefit project managers. Hopefully
this article has given you a flavor of some of them.

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—
Dashboard Filters
The project manager dashboard has advanced filtering capabilities that should help
speed up searching for projects. At the left hand side of the search box is a pencil icon.

When you select this, a Filter

Editor opens and you can enter
filter criteria. In the screenshot
below you can see an example
where we have created a fil-
ter that states that the client is
“Kilgray” and the status equals
translation.

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 15

As well as being able to write
in the filter box you can use
keywords and qualifiers. If you
wanted to search for all pro-
jects for the client “Kilgray,” you
would start to type client and
will see a blue box showing this
word. Select return will enter
“Client:” in the search box.

When you start typing you will

then be shown values from your
list of clients. In this case we will
pick “Kilgray.”.

The search box will now have

the text, ‘Client: “Kilgray,”’ and
selecting return will show the
list of projects that match this
criteria.

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Benefits

The project management dashboard’s main benefit is that it saves the project manager’s
time and ensures they know exactly what is happening with their project at any stage. It
does this by:

• Offering a clear, comprehensive and easily understandable view of the staus

of all your projects
• Allowing the project manager to see and resolve alerts without the extra tasks
of opening and editing individual projects
• Allowing the project manager to reassign translators without the extra tasks
of opening and editing individual projects

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—
An Environment for
Collaborative Translation
—
An Environment for Collaborative
Translation
Many translation projects are large, complicated projects that have to be completed in
a short time. memoQ server speeds up translation by allowing multiple translators and
revisers to work on it at the same time.
The example below shows how collaborative translation can save time. This is for the
translation of a 29,000-word document followed by revision of the document.
The standard way of doing this project is to have one translator translating the document
and taking about 12 days to do this. That would then be followed by 2 days of revision
work. Together with the project management tasks this project will take almost fifteen
days to complete.

3 hours Project setup

12 days Translation

2 days Revision

2 hours Delivery

more than 2 weeks

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 19

If we use memoQ server we can use collaborative translation and split the work between
three translators. As they work they synchronize their translation. This allows each
translator to leverage from translation memories they and other translators are creating.
It is also possible for the revision to start early and work can commence on the translation
that is already done. Time will also be saved in project management as it is easier and
faster to set up projects in memoQ.
The end result is a project that previously took almost 15 days now takes less than
5 days to complete.

3 hours Project setup

Translation

4 days

2 days Revision

2 hours Delivery

less than a week

memoQ’s X-Translate functionality also allows for the project to be updated without the
need for retranslation. When you make changes to source documents, the documents
don’t need to be retranslated. You only have to pay for the translation of the changed part.

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 20

Benefits

Delays in getting localized products and service to the market have a real effect on a
company’s sales and its ability to grow. If the source language version is available before
the localized version, some customers will use this version, resulting in greater support
costs. Lack of availability of a localized version may also cause prospects to look more
closely at competitors’ products. A localized product released at the same time or soon
after the source language version can also benefit from the work done by the company
to promote the product. Collaborative translation reduces time to market. It can save
many thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

OTHER BENEFITS OF COLLABORATIVE TRANSLATION INCLUDE:

• When you make changes to documents, the documents don’t need to be

retranslated again. You only have to pay for the translation of the changed part.
• Translators are working faster in an environment fine-tuned to their needs.
Depending on the text type this can result in 10-60% productivity increase.
• Several translators can work on the same set of documents at the same time,
without sacrificing consistency. This makes you more competitive on the market
by being able to deliver earlier.
• Translation and review can take place simultaneously. This cuts turnaround time
by up to 50%.

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—
Leveraging from Translation
Memories and Other Resources
—
Leveraging from Translation
Memories and Other Resources

TRANSLATION • Segment based reuse of previous

MEMORY translations

• LiveAlign -Automated aligning

LIVEDOCS • Monolingual and Bilingual
leveraging and reference material

SUBSEGMENT • Longest string concordance

LEVERAGING • Automated concordance

• Integration with QTerm & other

termbases
TERMINOLOGY
• Automated terminology lookup
while translating

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—
Leverage Technology within memoQ
memoQ sever has advanced translation memory technology and other technology that
allows for the maximum reuse possible within a translation project. The following are
some of the main leveraging technologies within memoQ server:

Translation Memory

Translation memories are stored collections of matching source and target segments.
memoQ has the most efficient and effective algorithms for matching the document to
be translated with segments in the translation memory. This leads to significant time and
costs savings as well as improving quality.

LiveDocs

LiveDocs is an alternative to translation memories that keeps your translation content

structured and organized. It allows for the reuse of previous material based on the
entire corpus rather than segments. This functionality allows you to align the original
and translated version of a document and immediately leverage this in your translation.
LiveDocs also lets you to use source or target language documents as reference material.
The translator is made aware of the reference material as they translate.

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Subsegment Leverage

Subsegment leverage is the technology that finds other instances where the same string
has been translated within a document and offers this as a translation match. If the same
string has been translated twice before within memoQ, it will present the translation in the
translation results window the same as it would a TM segment. memoQ’s subsegment
leveraging is also called Longest String Concordance.

Terminology

Terminology is crucial to ensuring the quality and speed of the translation. memoQ server
has an integrated add-on, QTerm, which is a professional terminology management
system that can be used to manage the terminology for organizations of any size.

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 25

Benefits

A lot of translation work involves working on text that has previously been translated and
is just being updated. memoQ provides advanced functionality to eliminate unnecessary
work on previous translations. Even if a translation memory tool was not used during
the previous translation, memoQ can align the previously translated document with the
original and allow the translator to use this. The estimates are that advanced leveraging
technologies can save between 10% and 60% of the cost of translation.

In addition to this, some of the other benefits of leverage technologies include:

• Using memoQ’s statistics feature to understand how much content you can
reuse from your translation memories and how much money you can save by
not having materials re-translated.
• Using memoQ’s homogeneity feature in statistics to can get an idea of content
reuse even without having a translation memory. It is highly useful for having a
bunch of similar documents translated.
• Increasing translators’ productivity by providing them with good quality
terminology.
• Using memoQ’s context TM feature to make sure that your content reuse will
not compromise the translation quality. ›››

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 26

• Using memoQ server’s post-translation analysis. This feature, the only one of
its kind in the world, enables enables you to understand how much individual
translators have translated in reality if they worked on a collaborative project.
memoQ’s post-translation analysis is the industry’s de facto business model
of collaborative translation. Without post-translation analysis, you can either
choose speed or savings. With post-translation analysis, you can choose both.

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—
Project Managers are in Control
of Their Projects
—
Project Managers are in Control of
Their Projects

Every translation company knows that when a project runs well they have a project
manager in charge who is a bit more enthusiastic and can do the job better. Everything
runs well and the translators get access to all the resources they need when they need
them. The difficulty is ensuring that each project is run in this efficient and profitable way.
memoQ server gives the project manager direct control over who is doing what and lets
them see up to date status information each time the project is synchronized. It also
enables the consolidation of your assets in one place and provides an intuitive interface,
which allows the project manager to effectively control these assets. The memoQ
Dashboard is central to this and provides a searchable overview of the projects and
provides for effective project management.

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One of the most effective tools a translation company has is a well-conceived and
-executed process. memoQ server sits at the heart of such a process. The more straight-
forward and efficient the process, the more you will get out of memoQ. A translation
company can use memoQ server to assign and track projects. It can also be integrated
with third-party project management software. It can be integrated with a data source
through content connectors and the API allows for memoQ to work seamlessly with
external systems.

Benefits

Project management functionality within memoQ ensures that the project is well managed
and under control. This is the key to successful translation projects.

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—
Eliminate Time-consuming
Steps Such as File Management
—
Eliminate Time-consuming Steps
Such as File Management
FILE MANAGEMENT Eliminate manual file management

Productivity gain through automating file management

PROJECT TRACKING Automates project tracking

Project manager sees live status updates

AUTOMATIC TRANSLATION Eleminates needless translation work

memoQ can automatically translate certain word lists, numbers and dates, and mark
words as not for translation

There are many time-consuming jobs that project managers and translators do every
day that memoQ server has eliminated, saving time and money.

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File Management

Translators spend an average of fifteen minutes per project moving files from one
place to another and attaching them to emails etc. memoQ server eliminates this.
A project manager can even set up memoQ Content Connecters to watch a folder so
that whenever a file is added to that folder it is automatically added to the project.
memoQ eliminates the need to use email for anything except optional automated
notifications.

Project Tracking

There is no need for the project manager to contact each translator individually to see
what the current status is. They see this information in the project dashboard. They also
need not worry about making sure they can track where the files for translation are or
where the translation memory or other resources have been kept. memoQ does this
automatically.

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Report Writing

memoQ has a number of built-in reports that can be used to scope a translation or do a
post-project review. The dashboard also provides live status information.

Automatic Translation

It is often the case that certain words should be translated the same way or not translated
at all. There are differences between one locale and another in how numbers, dates and
times are represented. memoQ allows these to be translated automatically and eliminates
needless translation work.

Benefits

One of the design features behind memoQ server is an effort to reduce the time it takes
to complete a project. This functionality shows how eliminating small tasks can lower
costs.

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—
Use Proven Quality
Management Models to Deliver
Better Quality Translation
—
Use Proven Quality Management
Models to Deliver Better Quality
Translation

memoQ server provides two types of Quality Assurance (QA) that can help projects
complete faster and with fewer errors. There is automated QA functionality that will check
each document before it is delivered by the translator.

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Automated QA

memoQ has sophisticated Quality Assurance functionality. Translators use the QA

module. The tests are divided into eight categories: Segments and terms, Consistency,
Numbers, Punctuation, Whitespace, capitalization, characters, and Inline tags. These are
customizable, can be used for the translation memory as well as documents, and the
translator can run the QA tests at any stage. The QA functionality also offers an easy and
intuitive way to find and fix errors or ignore those that are not relevant.

Linguistic QA

Many translation companies that put a lot of work into managing quality have a problem
demonstrating this to their customers. The Linguistic QA functionality makes it easy to
use an existing quality control model or to create your own. Once you have done this, the
model can be shared among the project managers and all projects can be tested against
it. This provides an effective way to manage quality and to show your customers what
you are doing and how you are doing it.

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 37

Benefits

While high quality can be very intangible and difficult to define, people seem to spot low
quality more easily. Improving the quality of a translation improves its effectiveness.

Other benefits of memoQ’s quality assurance functionality include:

• memoQ’s quality assurance module automatically spots a large proportion of

potential translation mistakes, including mismatching numbers that can easily
lead to big problems in certain industries.
• memoQ provides automatic checks to prevent easy mistakes. memoQ identifies
if a term has not been used the right way, if a forbidden term has been used,
if the numbers are not the same in the target text as in the source text, if
the number format isn’t correct, if an identical sentence has been translated
differently two times, and so on. These reports can also be saved.
• memoQ allows you to implement industry standard QA models.

Productivity Gains with memoQ server | 38

—
About memoQ
memoQ Translation Technologies is the developer of memoQ, one of the world’s most
advanced translation environments. Used by hundreds of enterprises and translation
companies all over the world, memoQ is the #1 solution to automate and optimize the
entire localization process, and manage translation and localization projects in a time-
and cost-efficient manner.

—
Contact us
Take your localization processes to the next level. Let our localization professionals
establish a workflow for you, or optimize your existing one even further.

Get in touch with us at [email protected]