The on-time delivery of a project is vital to maintaining the trust between clients and LSPs. To efficiently complete a project, the project manager may want to use a tool that can both track the whole work flow and ensure an agile communication among different stakeholders of the project, such as vendors, clients, engineers. Tasked with the whole project management process, the project manager is responsible for schedule and budget performance, selection and management of the translation team, ensuring the quality of translation work, and serving as the primary point of contact for the client throughout the project.[1] It’s very challenging. Manually track the workflow, progress, and contact with other people requires a lot of energy, time, and resources and may bring higher possibility of mistakes.

The project management tool XTRF provides a wide range of functionalities that covers a classical localization project. Although for those who have never used XTRF or similar tools, it may take a while to learn, but what most people really care about is that can XTRF really improve my project management efficiency? Or, can ROI be genrated by investing my time and money on these new tools?

Let’s find this out by simulating the project manager managing a small localization project.

Selecting Projects

First, the project manager needs to get the right project. XTRF provides a strong database function and the project manager can easily sort out projects by clicking the “view” beside “all projects”. After selecting desired project, users can export the data into different types of files for other usage.

database of projects

 

Reaching Out to Vendors

Next, the project manager may want to find the right vendors as soon as possible. When looking for vendors, XTRF can automatically filter active vendors displaying the records that meet specific criteria. XTRF also supports the vendor management by making the process of selecting vendors clear and easy to follow. The project manager can see the availability, location and the language combination, etc. This will help the project manager choose the best vendors, reach out to a larger pool of vendors, and optimize the cost. One cool thing about selecting vendors is that the project manager can send project requests to many vendors and the project will be assigned to people who respond first. In this way, project managers will no longer need to wait anxiously by their computers after sending out dozens of repetitive emails asking for availability, and check their email box again and again for response, which will save a lot of time and energy.

database of vendors

File Management

Once the project has been launched, it can run on its own. Relevant stakeholders will be notified by XTRF automatically at the right time and the project manager will only be notified when things go wrong. Here, I’d like to mention the smart file management feature of XTRF. A project manager is likely to get tangled by many projects at the same time. Each project may have numerous files from various people. Manually handling with all these files is time-consuming and mistake prone. With XTRF, the project manager can send, store, and browse files for each project, or from each vendor.

Product Delivery & Invoice

Finally, after all the TEP, DTP, QA and review, the finalized product is ready for shipping. The on-time delivery of a project can be contributed by the flexible scheduling function and the instant notification in XTRF. The project has been completed smoothly before the deadline. Wait, what about sending out invoice? XTRF could help with that too. Moreover, it will track all the financial information for users to review and analyze.

PM Portal, Client Portal, Vendor Portal

XTRF is not a tool that can be used only by project managers. In fact, it has three different portals: the project manager portal, the client portal and the vendor portal.

Compared to the project manager portal, the other two portals are less complex and core functions are presented in a neat format.

vendor portal

client portal

Although the vendor portal and the client portal seem to have less functions than the project manger portal, but these portals do covers all the process for cooperation and communication with vendors and clients.

Take the vendor portal for example, as a vendor, the translator may need to know what are the on-going tasks, who to contact with, the details about each project. XTRF can assist translators from the very beginning — accepting tasks, to the very end — delivering files.

The client portal helps the client launch a new project just by clicking their mouse, get connected with the right person, and know about the whole process of a project.

In conclusion, XTRF is a powerful project management tool which is highlighted by automation. Throughout the exploration process of XTRF, the only thing I’ve found awkward is the UI of the client portal. Obviously, it is quite different from the UI in the other two portals. Inconsistency on the UI design might lower the efficiency of work and extend the time for training.

 

[1] http://www.languagescientific.com/9-ways-a-project-manager-makes-your-translation-or-localization-a-success/