How to request a multiple source language quote from the Customer Portal?

Hi Laura, it is possible to select any number of languages in the customer portal.

Hi Juergen,

How do you do it though? I'm having the same problem as Laura, only being able to select one source language.

Best,

Lea

Sorry folks, only one source language is possible. The client must open a request for every source language

Hello,

yes, but that creates 1 Quote/Project for each source language and we force the client to do the same request once and again for each source language which is completely a waste of time.

hmm, I rarely had a task like this to solve. Does the customer have source files in different languages, which belong to the same project, and want these to be translated in the same target languages? That would be a pretty rare case, I guess.
I do not see a solution other than create quotes/projects per source language.
Maybe it depends on the settings. We are working with smart projects and memoQ server. I can only tell from there.

This is a big limitation of Smart Projects and while it's not the most common scenario, we do need workarounds for this situation. We essentially ask the client to contact us and we create manual quotes for them. As for managing the projects, we set each source language up as a separate project and tie them together using a custom variable to batch projects. Not ideal, but it works for us. 

Mark,

would you mind telling me more about what you said: "we set each source language up as a separate project and tie them together using a custom variable to batch projects" ?

How do you tie or merge them together in a single project?

Thanks a lot

Laura

We took the idea from @Sancho initially. And it doesn't help with your original question here regarding working with the clients need for multiple source languages. But we essentially have a custom variable at the project level that we simply call "Batch". When we have a large project that we need to break into more discrete sections or a project with multiple source languages - essentially any project that need to be combined for various purposes (billing, reporting, tracking... whatever), we add the first project id to the Batch field to combine them. Then we can use this field to combine, report, invoice etc. In many cases we have specific invoicing agreements and to accommodate we put all the receivables in the first projects and all the subsequent projects have a zero dollar receivable. In these cases, our ROI gets messed up a little bit, but overall it evens out. Happy to give you more detail, but I think that captures it. Again, this doesn't address your initial question, this is just how we handle these projects internally.

Thanks Mark. Exactly, it is not the most common scenario but that is happening with a big client used to request through the Customer Portal and they don't like asking by email, writting everything, attaching big and several files...so yes, we do need some turnaround here because it is more and more common to have several source language text to translate into one target language.

I haven't done it for this specific example, but for other cases, we've created web forms on private pages for clients to allow them to have quotes or projects start automatically. In most cases, we're using the web form to collect specific data that the XTRF portal or quote form does not allow us to collect, and begin quotes/projects via api. In this case I could imagine using a web form to collect the data in a consistent manner (simplifying the starting process for the client) and then just having your PMs manually start the projects. Again, not ideal, but it could let your client know that you're trying to make it work for them.

Dear All,

As mentioned a few times, only one source language is available through the client portal. Also, Smart Projects currently have a one-source-language-per-project limitation on top of that. 

We are currently looking into creating an "umbrella" project that will fix this issue as core functionality, but it is not set in stone, and the ETA is not yet known. Currently, we suggest using MasterID (which probably was the variable Mark mentioned).

Also, we have experience creating a Client Portal by our customization team that would create projects linked by masterID from the moment the Client requests that. If this is something that interests you, you can contact your account manager for potential customization.