Translation Manager workflows
Define a Workflow Process for Translation Manager in SDL Web to specify how a translation job flows through your organization.
When a translation job first gets sent back to SDL Web, users can preview how the translated content looks in the context of a website, review it and send it back for translation if required, without creating a new job or copying the job.
The following diagram provides an example of a simple SDL Web Translation Manager workflow. It shows all the transitions and options available. A workflow would normally contain more activities than this, for example, publishing to a test website after the PREVIEW or REVIEW activities and unpublishing after the TERMINATED activity.
The steps in the diagram that are in all capitals are automatic steps. For these automatic steps, set Script Type in your Automatic Activity to Translation Manager activity, and set Script Content to the name of the activity in all capitals, as found in the Activity column. For example, for the RETRIEVE Activity, Script Type must be Translation Manager activity, and Script Content must beRETRIEVE.
| Activity | Description |
| Enable Edit Workflows | SDL Web Edit Workflows require the first step to be manual. To work around this limitation, any manual step with a single transition available is automatically completed when content is retrieved. If the implementation calls for an actual manual activity at the start of the workflow, create two manual activities (Translation Manager will only finish the first in the workflow). |
| RETRIEVE | This is the activity the Item will be in when it can retrieve updates from the translation management system. For an Edit Workflow this activity will be completed immediately the first time, because the workflow has started by retrieving content. In other cases (multiple retrieves in the same translation job), the activity is suspended once it is reached, and is restarted by the Translation Manager service when it retrieves the update. The Retrieve step can have 4 possible transitions:
It is allowed (even expected) that the REVIEW and PREVIEW activities lead back to RETRIEVE. |
| PREVIEW | PREVIEW allows the RETRIEVE activity to identify which transition to make for the preview version of a translation. This activity should result in activities responsible for previewing content, such as publishing. The last activity in the preview chain should lead back to the RETRIEVE activity. |
| REVIEW | REVIEW allows the RETRIEVE activity to identify which transition to make for the translation review process. This activity should result in a manual review translation step. |
| FINAL | FINAL allows the RETRIEVE activity to identify which transition to make for the final version of a translation. |
| Review translation | A manual step assigned to a user or multiple users. If there are multiple users, multiple manual activities can be used. Users can modify the translated content, which is saved back to the translation management system. If multiple review activities are used, only the last one must have a transition to ACCEPT. |
| ACCEPT | Indicates the translation has been accepted and no further changes will be made in SDL Web. From the ACCEPT activity the SDL Web workflow must reach the RETRIEVE activity - it can do this through any number of additional activities if needed. The ACCEPT activity causes the translation management system to transition the item to the Translated Content Retrieval step. |
| REJECT | Indicates the translation has been rejected, meaning additional changes to the text are required in the translation management system. The comment entered when the last non-automated activity was completed is passed to the translation management system. From the REJECT activity, the SDL Web workflow must reach the RETRIEVE activity, which can be done through any number of additional activities if needed. |
| OBSOLETE | Translation Manager attempts to transition to this optional activity if SDL Web no longer has the latest version of the translated Items. Any manual activity following the RETRIEVE activity (with the exception of FINAL activities) should have the possibility to transition to OBSOLETE. If no transition is available when Translation Manager detects obsolete content, a warning is added to the Translation Job. Transitioning to OBSOLETE is attempted again on the next retrieve. From the OBSOLETE activity, the workflow must reach the RETRIEVE activity, which can be done through any number of additional activities if needed. |
| TERMINATED | This activity allows the RETRIEVE activity to identify which transition to make when a job is canceled. When a translation job is canceled, Translation Manager does not terminate workflow on Content Manager. The reason for this is that some cleanup work might be needed before completing or reverting workflow, for example, unpublish an item on staging. Instead Translation Manager checks if there is a transition to TERMINATED activity from the current activity. If TERMINATED is not available from the current activity, Translation Manager cancels the job, leaves the workflow as is, and sets the "tm:TranslationTerminated" marker in workflow process variables. If the workflow reaches the RETRIEVE activity later and the "tm:TranslationTerminated" marker is present, the transition is made to TERMINATED. TERMINATED itself does nothing, it simply marks the path that Translation Manager should use if the job is canceled. Note: at the time of job cancellation, workflow can be any activity. Translation Manager will try to find if TERMINATED can be reached from the current step. This means that it is better to transition to TERMINATED from different decision activities where workflow will be waiting. The example workflow diagram shows that it is also possible to transition from a "Review translation" manual step, as it is likely that workflow will be in this state at time of cancellation. |
| REVERTPROCESS | This is a useful additional activity that reverts the workflow process. All changes will be undone and the process will be deleted. |