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There are many exciting things about Flex. Let us summarize some:
Strings can be tagged as being flat text or HTML.
When HTML, all the markup will automatically be protected against tampering by translators.
Strings and translations will be split into smaller sentences for the convenience of the translation team (and by default).
This often substantially enhances reuse of translations and helps to reduce translation cost.
The segmentation is “smart” and is maintained across all languages. For example, modifying the source text by inserting an extra sentence, will not break the current alignment of segments in the translation editor. In our example, it will insert a blank row at the location of the new sentence and keep the previous sentences perfectly aligned in all languages.
This is definitely not a common feature, see for yourself in other solutions! This feature helps to reduce cost significantly.
You can not just send source content updates to Flex but also:
Updates to translations in any language (maybe your systems allows to amend / fix translations occasionally and you need to get them to the translation team)
Think of a CMS: Maybe content editors occasionally correct some of the translated pages? Would it not be nice (or even mandatory) to get those over to the translation team to ensure the changes are registered for the next time?
Flex is proudly multilingual:
A segment in Flex groups all the translations of each string. Expand from bilingual to multilingual string databases.
You have full freedom to attach meta information and comments to each string or translation. There are different types of meta data:
Free text, Pick lists, Hyperlinks, Checkboxes etc.
On/Off and multi-value tags
Comments, individually per string or translation
Status information: Approved, not approved, etc.
Edit-lock strings/translations by the translation team. Maybe you need to freeze changes to batches of string such as during a release cycle.
Strings can be organized into components:
A component may be a page, a game file, a software component, etc.
The API can pull the list of all components including their translation status.
With each string you can define in which ordinal position it shows up in the translation editor.
Ensure that strings show up in a specific sequence in the translation editor
You achieve this by including a “parent ID” with each string. For example string “B” might include instruction to come after string “A” and so on.
Transactional workflows ensure that you can push updates every 15 minutes without making the translation team go crazy or spamming people with thousands of micro-jobs.
You should be free to push as frequent as you like without “breaking” the translation team and workflows
Costing and invoicing
Word counting, costing and invoicing is per transaction. Supplier invoices can be aggregated on a monthly basis.
Simplicity
Flex truly is easy for the integrators and the translation teams. It has all the features you can imagine and imposes almost no constraints on the way YOU want to work.
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