What characteristics and features a good translation management system should have? This is a common question that pops into your head when you go on to buy the best translation management system for your brand localization. Although every company has its own unique localization needs, still there are some features that every TMS should have. If you are a language service provider or a global business, read this article to understand what you should look for in your TMS.
In this post, we’ve listed the 5 best TMS features you can always find in a professional language service provider platform, or a top localization management platform.
Must-Have Features in Your Translation Management System
Make sure your TMS contains all the features mentioned below to make your localization journey hassle-free and smooth.
Provide Plenty of Language Pairs
Being an international brand, or a language service provider platform, you have to manage content translations into multiple languages. It is important for you to choose the TMS tool that provides translations for plentiful language pairs. For instance, it is possible that a TMS provides translation for Spanish to/from Arabic, and Hindi to French; they are 2 language pairs, not four.
Although there are four languages, your TMS may not be able to provide translation for Hindi to/from Arabic, or Spanish to French. If you have to deal in 2 or 3 languages only, make sure the TMS provides translations for that particular language pair. However, for professional LSPs, no number of language pairs is enough. The more language pairs your TMS provides, the more translation projects you can take on.
Have an Automated File Management
There are a lot of complications and chaos dealing with traditional translation file management and formatting. It requires a great deal of manual work and time to manage translation files, still, there is room for errors. Things become even more messed up when you are working on different translation projects at the same time. There will be chances of redundant information and missing files. One of the best translation management systemsalways has an automated file formatting and management mechanism that prevents unnecessary hassle. No need to get more employees on board to manage the translation file, TMS will manage and store them properly on its own.
Files stored at central locations are easier to access, retrieve, and edit. Moreover, you don’t have to worry about duplicate files because everything is super organized.
Contain an MT tool with Translation Memory
Over time, as your international brand grows, or your client base increases, you have to manage a great number of translations every day. It would not be convenient for you to hire human translators to fulfill your regular translation needs. Moreover, it will be more expensive and time-consuming as well. It would become important for you to bring in a professional machine translation system that would manage your translation needs. In this scenario, choosing a TMS with an MT tool would be the best investment.
You don’t have to hire professional translators extensively and break your bank. Your TMS would produce automated translation faster, and there will be no compromise on quality. However, make sure that your TMS also contains a translation memory. It would help you generate relevant translations, and your overall speed of generating automated translations would also increase.
Offer Translation Editing & Quality Checks
It is not just the quantity that matters, you must maintain high-quality translations. Your overall brand reputation depends on how well you have translated its message to the target region. To ensure that the translations generated by TMs are up to the mark, your system should also contain a QA system. Advanced QA tools in your TMS test your translations for grammatical, typo, and sentence errors. So, whenever a document is translated, QA testing is also performed on it to remove all mistakes. This way, the quality of your translations gets automatically uplifted. To further enhance the quality, you can get your translation proofread by professional translators.
Enable Team Collaborations
For any project success, it is important to have effective communication between all team members. Gaps in communication lead to major problems that you must avoid in the first place. Advanced TMS tools come with communication and chat features that allow the internal and external localization teams to collaborate with team other. These smart features promote real-time communication that makes it easier for a project manager to get all teams on common ground.
Cloud-based TMS encourages you to get some remote resources on board as well, it gives your project higher exposure, and you can hire the best people from around the world. LSPs can seamlessly collaborate with their clients and allow them to give feedback for timely improvements.
