Introduction
It can happen that the auto-translations from codeit are not of sufficient quality.
When that's the case, codeit supports a specific process to use an external translation provider to update the translations within codeit.
This guide describes this process and the different options available
The process can be described in 3 steps which are described in more details on this page:
Step 1: Setting up the project
Step 2: Exporting Translations
Step 3: Importing new Translations
Step 1: Setting up the project
During the project setup, the variables can be either marked as "auto-translate" or as "manual-translate". You can find the steps for importing data here and the steps for setting up a data link project here.
If "manual translate" is selected, the variables will be marked for translations but no auto-translations will actually happen. All data has to be manually translated using this process. Details about the differences between manual and auto-translated data can be found here.
Step 2: Exporting Translations
Once the project has been setup, the next step is to export the Translation Feed file in the Export wizard.
The documentation for this export can be found here.
Please note the different options available in the Export wizard, in particular with regards to choosing the variables to export (auto-translated or manually translated or both).
It is also possible to split the files exported by language in order to use different providers.
The Export options are described in details on this page.
Each exported file has the following headers:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| ID | The internal Codeit Id value for the verbatim. Including this column makes it easy to feed translations back into the system using the Import File tool once translations are complete. |
| VariableName | For context, the name of the variable that the verbatim is attached to. |
| VariableValue | The verbatim in the original language |
| TranslatedValue | The translated equivalent for the verbatim text. This will be blank if no translation already exists. This field can be completed by the linguist |
The external translation provider must use the exported files in order to be able to update the codeit translations. The headers and existing data must stay in the file. The external translation provider only needs to change the "TranslatedValue" column, all the other columns including data must remain in the file and must not be changed. Please make sure also that the external translation provider is working on the latest data available.
Note: when using auto-translate, it can be useful to do an initial step of flagging wrong translations in the coding screen to reduce the amount of manual translations needed. There is an introduction about using flags here.
Step 3: Importing Translations
Once the external translation provider has finished working on the file, the "TranslatedValue" column of the files should all be updated with the correct translations.
The last step is to re-import these files in the Import Wizard by selecting the "Translations" sub-menu.
These files should import without problems if the step 2 was correctly followed.
Note: if the Translation file used is out of date, codeit will import the matching data and ignore the out-of-date data. codeit checks both the "ID" and "VariableValue" fields on import to verify that the current data and the data in the file are identical.