Automation in SCHEMA ST4 – a boosting translation management processes

You execute complex work instructions such as these almost every day when managing multilingual content in SCHEMA ST4. And perhaps you already have the viewlets and buttons in mind that you require and would need to click on to achieve the desired aim.

But now at the very beginning of this instruction is “SCHEMA ST4!”. It’s as though you don’t have to do anything yourself; instead it’s like ST4 simply carries out this instruction in one go at your command, and delivers the desired results to you without the need for additional clicks of the mouse.

And that’s exactly how it works! With automation for SCHEMA ST4, you have the option to delegate almost any complex individual task or action sequence to SCHEMA ST4. You can read about what that means for terminology quality here.

Let’s start from the beginning again. A task does not have to be as elaborate as our example above for the automation of translation management tasks to be worthwhile: you can, for example, combine all settings that you would normally make in the translation wizard in a single mouse click or single menu command.

The advantage is that you no longer need to know the rules for your translation process inside out, saving you a lot of mouse clicks. You give the command and ST4 processes the corresponding tasks for you according to your specifications.

This comparatively simple scenario can now be expanded almost indefinitely. In our example at the start, you can see how tasks are completed that you usually process at several points in ST4 in the translation report and translation wizard. You select the project in the ST4 client, and everything else is taken care of by ST4.

Let’s go one step further. As a rule, translation management consists of a sequence of activities in a fixed order, which are dependent on one another. In other words, what we usually refer to as workflows. ST4 also supports these over the long term.

For example, you can automate the following workflow: after the release of a project in the source language, ST4 initiates translation in the foreign languages required as standard. This takes place automatically with the release – ST4 completes all individual steps in the background en route to the TMS export. If you have also automated the collaboration with the TMS via COTI Level 2 or 3, manual work concerning the exchange of translation data is also eliminated.

And if you execute the functions as consistently as some of our customers, you can achieve the highest degree of automation. In our example, this means that once the release is effected – which must actually be done manually – SCHEMA ST4 processes all additional steps automatically (TMS export, TMS import, publication and provision of the finished documents).

As a technical writer in ST4, you only receive status and success notifications. Translation management made easy!

Just one last point to show you how much potential lies in the automation of translation processes: using ST4 automation modules, you can incorporate process participants that cannot actually work with ST4.

Here is a specific example. A colleague in marketing requires a translation for a product leaflet that is being managed in ST4. They submit the appropriate request to ST4 via the SlimClient. If the product leaflet does not yet exist in the desired foreign language, ST4 automatically initiates translation. Once all required nodes are translated, ST4 takes care of the production and provision of the product leaflet.