Questions?

They are answered by the XTRF community and our experts

+6

Idea for a future development

Daniel Tufeanu 2 years ago in Something Else updated by J_N 2 years ago 3

Dear colleagues,

Having just switched organisations, I have worked with a different custom made java-based app (only for assigning interpreters to meetings or otherwise add/change their programme). In the other app, there was no difference between language varieties. 

While I see the use of having language varieties separately in XTRF (as it's indeed needed, especially for localisation projects or marketing/branding materials), I find it extremely limitating that that the "general" language doesn't include it's varieties. 

Exact example: 

I wish that, when searching for vendors with DE, to be able to see everyone having DE, DE-DE, DE-AT, DE-LU, DE-CH. Same for French, same for English and so on. This would be very intuitive in my opinion, without having to click on all language varieties, and you would still be able to search for a specific variety if needed. 

Do you think other key users would find this development useful? If so, could this be implemented? 

Best regards,

Daniel 

+6

Volume in notifications for new job proposals

Sandra Lara 5 years ago in Home Portal / Smart Projects updated by Myriam Garcia 4 years ago 2

We are modifying the templates for notifications and we want to include the volume. However, we want to retrieve that information from the Payables, section, this one exactly: 

Image 1259

I cannot find any code in the template to include that information. Do you know how to do it, if possible?

+6

XTRF Summit - recordings for those of us that can't attend?

Thijs Senten 5 years ago in Something Else updated by mark 4 years ago 16

Hi XTRF,

Unfortunately I can't make it to the Summit, and I have noticed that I'm not the only one, so I was wondering if you were planning on recording the sessions to make them available to users afterwards.

The topics include things that I would gladly learn more about, so it would be very nice if these sessions could somehow be shared with the pitiful souls like me that won't be there in person.

Thanks!

+6

How to implement MT/MTPE into fully automated CAT tool integrated project?

Jelle Maes 5 years ago in Home Portal / Smart Projects with CAT integration updated by Pablo Estrada 2 years ago 7

Hi community,


Are there any memoQ integrated smart project users who implemented MT and MTPE into their processes?

Any chance to share insights on how you set up the automation part of it? We are aiming at a highly automated process, obviously.


Ideally we would like to have a separate process template for that, but CAT tool integrated process steps are reportedly not cloneable. So for now we'll work with regular CAT tool integrated process steps, mapped with the available roles in memoQ. This means we'll have to look into other options to automate: price profiles.

But here we stumble upon the roadblock of fully automated provider selection rules. We can filter on categories matching the correct provider, but unfortunately not the correct vendor price profile will be used... as job types from these steps are 'translation' and 'proofreading' which are used for regular translation and proofreading jobs in the default price profile.

Does anyone see or use another workaround that meets the "highly/fully automated" requirement?


Thanks a lot!

+6

Copying Tasks for Multilingual Quotes

Heidi 5 years ago in Home Portal / Smart Projects updated by Nate 10 months ago 4

I am trying to give Smart Projects another chance. I searched for this issue in the forum but couldn't find a matching topic. Is there no way to copy a task (receivables) from one language down to 10 more? It seems quite tedious to do it manually 10 times.

+6
Answered

XTRF bugs and process of fixing them

Alexandros 5 years ago in Something Else updated by Deals Voucher 3 years ago 10

Hello everyone,

I thought I should start this topic since I have seen several other people in various threads unhappy with both the number of bugs introduced in new versions as well as the time it takes to fix these. 

The purpose here is not to vent our frustrations about the various issues, but to see if people agree both that there are serious problems with the bugs as well as propose ways to better address these in the future.

For example, my main problems/issues with the process are:

  1. Obviously, lack of testing before a version is released
  2. There is not a "current list of bugs" for each version available here or anywhere else, which means we are wasting time double checking if something is indeed a bug, creating tickets, providing documentation, ways to replicate, etc., while someone else has done that already. A simple "I am experiencing this same bug" button would work better and save time both for us, as well as XTRF who have to go through multiple tickets for the same bug.
  3. Resolving tickets seems to take forever. Major bugs should be resolved quickly, but sometimes we need to wait for months(!) before a fix is available
  4. On a number of occasions, support staff has misunderstood the ticket (although it was very clearly explained, with screenshots, steps to reproduce, etc.) which meant at least a couple of wasted weeks before they got on the right track to addressing the actual issue
  5. The way of contacting support is unproductive. We send a ticket, they reply a couple of days later with a question, we reply immediately, they reply a couple of days later with another question. Things which would have been resolved in no time if there was direct communication (chat, skype, video call, anything), take days or weeks

What do you think? Do you experience these issues as well? Do you have any more to add? Any ideas on how to improve things?

Answer

Hello Everyone

First of all, I just want to say that I understand your frustration. I'm a user or various systems, IT tools and applications as well. Every once in a while my phone OS forcesme to update and instead of a thrill about new features, I feel the fear of what will be broken ;)

Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit :) And I'm not writing this to make any excuses, I just want to notice the fact that issues and bugs in the IT systems are not XTRF unique feature.

We're continuously working on improving the quality of the system.

Regarding the points from Alexandros post:


Ad.1 I'm afraid that's not true. 

Every single improvement in the production cycle is tested in reference to the usage story and its specifications. The issues we find at that stage are fixed before the release. Additionally, before releasing every new system version we carry out the stabilization of the system. It is time when we execute several hundred manuals and several hundred automatic regression tests on the version that is about to be released.

Unfortunatelly it this does not ensure the complete absence of errors because it's hard to predict all possibilities and scenarios. But again we're doing our best, our tests database grows continuously as we add new test scenarios. We're working on making more and more test automatic which would make it more reliabe and would shorten the stabilization time (quicker release).

Ad.2 At first glance it might look like a valuable feature, but ... First of all, in most cases description of an issue requires examples of steps to reproduce etc. that means client sensitive data which we simply can't publish. Wasting time to rewrite and anonymize the description of the tickets issued by our clients is probably the last thing you'd like for us to do.

Please trust on this to a person who spends several years digging through the list of current and resolved issues to find if the issue I'm experiencing was already reported or at least there was something similar reported by someone else in the past.

The XTRF support might look for you like not the best but actually is the most optimal way in this case. 

Ad 3. All issues reported have their priority before we can fix the Major we need to take care of the Criticals and Blockers. Aside from that, it's hard to predict if an issue is easy to solve. One issue can be easy to fix and it takes few hours while some other more complicated.

Ad 4. This is something wre're continously working on with internal and external support staff trainings.

Ad 5. I'm sorry if it feels like it takes ages to get a reply from the service desk. We're doing our best to make it shorter.

Best regards,

Marek

+6

Notification of notes from vendor?

Meghan Cooper 5 years ago in Home Portal / Classic Projects updated by Donna Meyer 5 years ago 3

Is there any configuration to trigger an automated email notification when a vendor leaves a note on a project (located: Task > Job > Instructions > Notes from Vendor to PM)? Or a view that would showcase this easily. We frequently have projects with 45+ language combinations, and it is not feasible to look in each job to see if a note is there (and vendors sometimes leave notes there instead of emailing us, assuming we will notice). This is referring to Classic Projects.

+6

O365 Add on (Excel)

Robrecht Belien 6 years ago in Home Portal updated by Martynas Juodis 5 years ago 10

Hi,

I really love the google sheets add on to get the smart views.

Are there any plans to create the same for O365 (Exel) ?

If not I'm willing to develop it and maybe someone would like to help.

+6
Will be answered

Ideas for future webinars

Sancho Leath 6 years ago in Something Else updated by Robrecht Belien 6 years ago 9

Where can we post suggestions for future XTRF webinars? We appreciate the newsletter feeds and videos prepared by XTRF. Personally, we would be very interested in the following topics, particularly for webinars with an interactive Q&A:

- Best practices for Smart Projects

- Use of API to boost productivity

- Use of macros to boost productivity


I am sure other users would be happy to add a few topics to the list.

+6
Under review

Hourly resolution for vendor availability

Krisztián Király 6 years ago in Vendor Portal updated 6 years ago 3

Dear all,


Our vendors frequently indicate their short unavailability by registering a day of vacation and adding a message that contains the exact hours they won't be able to accept new jobs.


We feel that it would be really useful if they could indicate their availability on an hourly basis, not just days, as it would make their reporting easier, and our project planning more accurate.


What do you think, would such functionality be helpful?

All the best,

Krisztián