Involve clients in the localization process

Introduction

Sometimes, you may want to involve your clients in the XTRF projects. This could happen when some actions, such as file preparation or DTP, are to be performed by the client. In other cases, a client may want to do a review before the project is finalized. Finally, clients can do even the translation or editing jobs, while all the other tasks are delegated to your company.

The XTRF Platform offers you two ways of involving clients in the project. You can create a vendor from scratch (see the Create a new vendor profile article) and assign them to jobs as you do with your regular vendors. Or you can use the Client Review option that creates a client-related vendor automatically.

In this guide, we will explain how to use the Client Review functionality, which saves you time and simplifies vendor management, as all the client-related vendors are grouped.


I. Enable the Client Review option

  1. Sign in to the XTRF Home Portal.

  2. Go to the Clients module.

  3. Locate the client in question and open their profile in edit mode.

    You can also use the search field in the top menu bar. Don’t forget to click the Edit button after getting to the client profile.

  4. In the client profile, go to the Portal Settings tab.

  5. Scroll down to the Review section and click the Enable Client Review button. The Linked Vendor’s Name pop-up appears.

    1. Check or change the name assigned to the linked vendor.

    2. Click the Apply button.

  6. Click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

A client-related vendor with the provided name has been created. It is automatically classified as a ‘linked with Client’.

Data from the client’s Identification data, Billing Address, Mailing Address, and Contact Persons tabs is propagated to the corresponding tabs of the new vendor profile.

To locate this vendor in the Vendors module, select the Linked with Client option in the Type filter.


II. (Optional) Invite your client to the Vendor Portal

After you have created a client-related vendor, you may give them access to the Vendor Portal so they can use its full functionality. To do so, perform the following steps:

If you do not invite clients to the Vendor Portal, they will be able to perform the ‘vendor’ work in the Job Manager.

  1. Go to the Vendors module.

  2. Select the Linked with Client option in the Type filter.

  3. Locate the vendor in question and click the corresponding icon.

  4. Go to the Contact Summary tab.

  5. Click the name of the contact person you want to invite to your Vendor Portal. You will be directed to this contact person's profile.

  6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

  7. Click the Invite to Vendor Portal button. You will be notified that the invitation e-mail has been sent.


III. Assign clients to jobs

Regardless of the project type (Classic or Smart), you can assign a client-related vendor to any job using the Select Vendor button (see the Smart Projects - Process card or Create a Classic project - V. Select vendors articles).

In the Select Vendor pop-up:

  1. Click the Reset Filter button.

  2. In the Type filter, select Linked with Client.

  3. Select the desired vendor.

  4. Click the Select Vendor button.

After the job is started, the assigned client will receive an e-mail notification about the new job with a link to the Job Manager, just like a regular vendor.


IV. Automatically assign clients to jobs in Classic projects

If you are working with Classic projects, you can also automate the client-assigning process by adding to the workflow a job that has the Provided by Client option enabled. By default, only the Client Review job has such an option enabled, but you can add other jobs with the same setting.

You can’t edit the built-in jobs to be Provided by Client; you need to create new jobs of the same type.

IV.I. Create a ‘Provided by Client’ job

  1. Go to the Configuration menu → System Values: Advanced → Job Types.

  2. Click the Add button on top of the Job Types table. You will be directed to the Add Job Type page. 

  3. In the Name field, provide the name of the new job type.

  4. Check the Provided by Client box.

  5. Select the Calculation Units that can be applied to this job type. Double-click on the calculation unit to move it to the Selected Items or Available Items list, or use the buttons between the lists.

  6. Click the Save button.

IV.II. Add a ‘Provided by Client’ job to the workflow

To add the newly created job to the project, you can:

  • Create a new workflow definition with this job (see the Create a task workflow definition article).

  • Add the job to the project. To do so, perform the following steps:

  1. Go to the Project module and locate the project in question using the filters, or
    Type the project name into the search field of the top menu bar.

  2. In the Project menu on the left, select the task in question.

  3. Go to the Workflow Graph tab.

  4. Click the Edit button at the bottom of the page.

  5. Click the icon on the workflow graph to add a new job. The Workflow Job pop-up window appears.

    1. From the Job Type drop-down menu, select the job created for the client.

    2. Click the Save button.

  6. The job appears on the workflow graph. The client of this project is automatically assigned as a vendor.

  7. Click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

After the job status changes to Started, the client will receive an e-mail notification informing that they are assigned to a review on the Client Portal.

On the Client Portal, the project status will change to Awaiting reviews. To perform the job, the client has to click the Review Files button in the Tasks tab.

In the Awaiting reviews tab, the client can download the work files in the Files for review section.

After the job is finished, they need to upload the ready files or provide comments and click the Finish review button.

The related job status in the project will change to Ready, and the files uploaded by the client will become work files for the next job or the ready files (if this job was the last one in the workflow.