A step-by-step description of project analysis

Owned by Damian Rozmiarkowski (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 12, 2024 by Damian Rozmiarkowski
2 min read
@Damian Rozmiarkowski May 13, 2026

Introduction

The process for performing project analysis and then creating a project in XTM might seem fairly straightforward, as all you need to do is to fill out the project creation form, perform necessary steps such as uploading a source file and selecting the language combination, select Create and wait a little for the project to be displayed in the projects list in the XTM Cloud UI. In reality, however, it is not as simple as that: many complex actions take place in the background during project analysis.

This article is intended to help you understand what is actually taking place, and in which sequence, once you create a project in the XTM Cloud UI or do so via the API.

Specifics

After you click the Create button…

  1. The source language is checked.

  2. The file extension is checked:

a) if the extension is supported in XTM Cloud → a relevant filter is applied;

b) if the extension is not supported in XTM Cloud or cannot be recognized → an XML filter is applied:

I. if this action is completed successfully → the file undergoes further processing,

II. if this action is not completed successfully → the file is detected to be non-translatable in the XTM Cloud UI.

  1. The file undergoes the “extraction” step:

  • a project directory is created;

  • a preliminary skeleton file is created;

  • content files are created.

  1. The file is parsed using pre-defined ITS rules. At this point, the translatable content is eventually extracted.

  2. The extracted content is segmented using predefined SRX rules. At this point, the extracted content is sorted and segmented in XTM Workbench.

  3. The skeleton file is refined.

  4. Once the content is properly structured, the next step is translation memory (TM) matching. The system searches for available matches for the translatable content (ICE, Leveraged, Fuzzy, etc.) according to the TM settings defined in the XTM Cloud UI. and performs internal matching (repetitions).

  5. If machine translation (MT) the content is sent to an MT provider for matching.

  6. An XLIFF file is created.

  7. The project is released from analysis in the XTM Cloud UI.

Good to know!

To find out more about frequent causes of prolonged project analysis, we recommend that you read this article: What affects the time that the project analysis takes?