Your best practices for long term projects and jobs management Thread poster: Clarisa Moraña
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Clarisa Moraña 
United States
Local time: 07:01
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
+ ...
Dear all
I would like you to share what are your best practices for managing long term projects with many individual short translation jobs along the way using Studio 2009.
For years, I have have a couple of clients who request me to do many short translations per week in the same subject, and I still don't know how to deal with them. Do I create a new project for each translation requested or it is better to modify an existing project adding it the new file to be translated? ... See more Dear all
I would like you to share what are your best practices for managing long term projects with many individual short translation jobs along the way using Studio 2009.
For years, I have have a couple of clients who request me to do many short translations per week in the same subject, and I still don't know how to deal with them. Do I create a new project for each translation requested or it is better to modify an existing project adding it the new file to be translated?
When creating a new project I always doubt between a) creating a project based on a project template, and b) creating a project based on a previous project. I still don't know how to proceed and my decisitiion is taken at random basis, not a well planned nor informed desition.
Besides, when creating the project, another doubt arises: how I name it? I have many options, and none of them convinces me: 1) the name of the file -fine, but what about if the project includes many files? 2) the number of the folder containing the files (this is because I gave each folder a number to know which are the first project) but the problem is that I'm not able to find easily the real name of the project (as they are not sorted by alphabetically order).
I would really like to improve the process of managing my Studio 2009 translation projects properly, giving each translation job (or project) a proper name, but still don't find the best way to do so. Your input will be appreciated.
Regards
Clarisa ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nora Diaz
Mexico
Local time: 05:01
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
+ ...
| One generic "project" plus specific projects | Sep 29, 2011 |
Hi Clarissa,
This is only my personal preference but I'll share it in case it helps.
Please note I only send final files to my clients, not the project files themselves, so this is what works for me.
For clients who send frequent, short files I have one generic project that is sort of a catch-all, and whenever a new file comes in I simply add it to this project, whose settings include my main TM and termbases. It's faster than creating a new project every t... See more Hi Clarissa,
This is only my personal preference but I'll share it in case it helps.
Please note I only send final files to my clients, not the project files themselves, so this is what works for me.
For clients who send frequent, short files I have one generic project that is sort of a catch-all, and whenever a new file comes in I simply add it to this project, whose settings include my main TM and termbases. It's faster than creating a new project every time a small job comes in. I periodically clean files from this project so that it doesn't grow to be unmanageable. As for naming the project, it can be anything, it can be the "Generic", "Everyday", "Small Jobs", etc.
For larger or more specific jobs, I create specific projects, but only when I need to use specific settings, i.e., specific TMs or termbases. On occasion I have handled even these larger jobs within my generic project, if I know I don't need to do anything special with them in terms of TMs or termbases.
To me, the advantage of using projects is choosing the exact settings you want, so if you have some general settings that work for you most of the time, you can simply add new files to the same project. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Emma Goldsmith
Spain
Local time: 14:01
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
| With Nora on this one | Sep 29, 2011 |
I use almost exactly the same approach as Nora. I have "General Project", "Medical Project" and then a couple of others that always stay in the project list from particular clients called "XX Project". As Nora says, you do have to clear them out from time to time.
Then I create separate projects for big jobs and when I need to merge files, because you have to create a new project in order to merge files. When there are lots of tiny or repetitive files, merging them together really m... See more I use almost exactly the same approach as Nora. I have "General Project", "Medical Project" and then a couple of others that always stay in the project list from particular clients called "XX Project". As Nora says, you do have to clear them out from time to time.
Then I create separate projects for big jobs and when I need to merge files, because you have to create a new project in order to merge files. When there are lots of tiny or repetitive files, merging them together really makes use of autopropagation. It also saves you going through the open>translate>save process so many times. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nicolas Coyer (X)
Colombia
Local time: 07:01
Spanish to French
+ ...
| deadline tracking? | Sep 29, 2011 |
Only drawback I see to the generic project approach is you're not able to track mutiple small projects based on their deadlines (in the Projets view), which might come in handy if you have a multitude coming in at the same time?
Although I agree that creating a project for every single small project might be too time-consuming...
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Nora Diaz
Mexico
Local time: 05:01
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
+ ...
| Deadline tracking and file merging | Sep 29, 2011 |
Nicolas Coyer wrote:
Only drawback I see to the generic project approach is you're not able to track mutiple small projects based on their deadlines (in the Projets view), which might come in handy if you have a multitude coming in at the same time?
Good point, although I don't really keep track of deadlines with Studio (maybe I should), but rather with Outlook/Google Tasks and TO3000.
On file merging as explained by Emma:
I've never attempted file merging but this sounds interesting, I will definitely keep it in mind for future projects.
| | | | Clarisa Moraña
United States
Local time: 07:01
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Very good points! A big thank yoiu.
Summarizing:
1) One project, every single file received "is simply added to this project",
2) One project, small files merged.
I do not have any issue with deadlines, and I'm using TO3000 to help me also.
Regards
Clarisa
| | | | Wolf Kux
Brazil
Local time: 09:01
Member (2006)
German to Portuguese
+ ...
| I use to ... | Sep 30, 2011 |
... open a folder for every new client, and inside it I insert a subfolder named with date received (YYYYMMDD), inside this one, I create a subsubfolder named TRADOS; on TRADOS Studio I create a Project named as Agency (or Client) Name + received date + source file name or agency customer name.
Eg.: "XYZ Worldwide Translations 20110929 Machine ABC Users Manual"
Since TRADOS Studio does not allow much project data manipulation, only column sorting, if I classify Project... See more ... open a folder for every new client, and inside it I insert a subfolder named with date received (YYYYMMDD), inside this one, I create a subsubfolder named TRADOS; on TRADOS Studio I create a Project named as Agency (or Client) Name + received date + source file name or agency customer name.
Eg.: "XYZ Worldwide Translations 20110929 Machine ABC Users Manual"
Since TRADOS Studio does not allow much project data manipulation, only column sorting, if I classify Projects by their name I always get all project for this client in received date order; if I do the same with start date, I could see all projects on received date order, and so on.
For translation memories and for multiterms I have corresponding folders outside from my Project / Client folders. On the names of TMs and MTs I insert codes for source languages and target ones. Doing so, if I start creating a new project I can select TMs and MTs very easily.
On the same Project folder I put all corresponding emails for that project.
This date format (YYYYMMDD), called japan date format, could be easily sorted inside Windows Explorer.
Using this folder sheme I think that I have an easy overall vision about every client.
I'll hope that sometime TO3000 vendors may allow us to use our own folder shemes. ▲ Collapse
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