What is Wordbee Flex?
Wordbee Flex is a technology developed by Wordbee S.A. to support continuous localization processes.
The localization of digital products (apps, games, software, websites) has become a continuous, agile process. Continuous localization workflows are characterized by a high frequency of projects and quick turnaround. Developers of a new software game, for example, may push content changes on a daily basis, which may need to be localized and translated over longer periods of time. To avoid creating new translation jobs every time strings of software are updated, you can set up automated Flex workflows that support continuous content production, translation and delivery. With Wordbee Flex, the collaboration between developers, content producers and translation teams has become easier than ever!
This article shows users with a project manager role in Wordbee Translator how to set up a Flex Translation Workflow and automatically invoice their clients and suppliers.
Prerequisites
Before you start setting up Flex translation workflows:
Make sure you have access to the Wordbee API.
To be able to manage Flex workflows, the administrator of your Wordbee platform needs to give you access to the API. See How-to article: Creating API Keys. The key is linked to a specific user in Wordbee Translator and the key gives the same access rights that the user has.
2. Customize the settings for Wordbee Flex files (.wbflex) that are nothing else than empty “containers,” with no segments. The developer pulls and pushes content to the .wbflex container with the help of Flex API.
Before you set up a Flex workflow, go to the Wordbee Translation Settings > Document Formats and customize the Wordbee Flex configuration to suit your project. For example, you may need to adjust the text segmentation or the way the changes in the source document are highlighted.
Create a new Codyt project
Automated Flex workflows are possible only in Codyt projects.
Go to Projects and create a new Cody project.
Name your project and add languages
Save the changes.
Set up the translation workflow
Go to Project settings > Workflow & Suppliers and configure your workflow:
On the Workflow tab, specify when the workflow shall start and what kind of operations should be triggered when the last job in the workflow is completed.
Open the Flex tab to configure the costing options:
Specify how the new content pushed to a Flex document affects the cost calculation of clients and suppliers.
Choose to generate invoices automatically for both clients and suppliers every time new content is pushed to translators.
Add Flex containers
When your Cody project is ready, go to Documents and add the .wbflex files. There are two options in which you can create the Flex files:
Create them manually in the project
Create them with the Flex API
See Prerequisites in Wordbee Translator Flex to learn how to create and add the Flex containers.
The .wbflex file type is an empty ‘'container,’' it does not have any segments. The developer pulls and pushes content to the .wbflex container using the help of Flex API. Every time new segments are pushed to Flex, the translators assigned to your Codyt project are notified automatically and they can open and translate the new strings in the Translation Editor. Hence, you do not have to create a new job every time the source content is changed.
Developers are referred to our API documentation to learn how to set up the Wordbee Flex workflows.
Mark the files for translation
After you have added the .wbflex containers, mark them for translation and configure the settings.
Mark the .wbflex files for translation.
Select the text extraction rules for Wordbee Flex.
Assign the Jobs
Go to Jobs and assign them to the translators.
Select Job > click on Manage > select translator/reviser > set a deadline and change the job status.
The workflow in a nutshell
Explain the workflow to your clients and suppliers:
Jobs reopen automatically when new or modified strings come in for translation.
A draft invoice is created automatically for the vendor (and for “client” if needed).
Translators open the files in the Translation Editor and filter the segments by their red-status.
Translators remove the red status.
Revisers/proofreaders change the status of the revised segments to green.
You push and pull only the segments with a green status.
All changes and revisions can be tracked in the Revision History.
How to invoice
We have optimized the API methods to enable the use of Flex in real-world workflows, making costing and invoicing of Flex translation work much easier. Suppliers are immediately notified of any changes in the source or target segments, and invoices are automatically generated for the additional work.
Click on Select to view the client’s invoice:
Unlike the invoices produced in other project types, here you can see the unique Flex file ID number. If you click on the ID link, you will access the log file with all the details of the transaction, including the number of new or modified words.
What is different from other projects
In Flex projects, it does not make sense to Recount the number of words and then create the invoice because the invoices are created automatically every time new or modified content is pushed to the .webflex container. This applies to both Quotes and invoices & Supplier counts and cost.
Another difference is that Fuzzy matches word count are disabled in Flex projects.
When new content is pushed to the .wbflex container, the existing translations are automatically counted as pre-translations.
Invoice aggregation
With the Invoice production tool, it is possible to aggregate all the invoices produced for each transaction into one monthly invoice.
Go to My company and select Invoice production - Clients.
Pick the period for which you want to aggregate the invoices and go through all the steps: Aggregate, Approve and Distribute the invoice.
What’s New
Recent changes in API2:
There are new Flex API 2 methods to download transactions in JSON and HTML format. See Transactions in the API 2 documentation.
Both logs and API push methods now include details regarding "post-operations": re-opening jobs, notifications, client and supplier costing.
The options to reopen completed jobs with new content and to notify suppliers with updates to Flex containers have been moved from the Flex configuration page to the workflow profile page. This change improves the overall usability.