Overview
Smartling is a cloud-based Software Service that supports management and automation of translation and localization projects. It is powered by three key components found below.
Automation
Smartling’s Global Delivery Network (GDN) translation proxy is a low code / no code solution that crawls an agency website, finds new content, and automatically routes it for translation. Once translated, the proxy updates all multilingual websites without the need for user input.
- Source language (English) web traffic continues to go directly to agency infrastructure and does not interact with Smartling infrastructure.
- All traffic to client multilingual domains is first directed to Smartling's infrastructure, via DNS, which will immediately hand off the request to the client's source servers. Smartling then parses the HTML as the content is being returned to the end-user, identifying the source strings and replacing them with the appropriate translations before delivering the translated page to the browser. Smartling is also able to rewrite URL references during this process, allowing for the delivery of localized assets from existing infrastructure.
Translation Memory
Using Artificial Intelligence, Smartling memorizes translated content and applies it to future translations, reducing cost and creating consistency in brand voice and terminology.
Workflows
Smartling leverages AI-powered dynamic workflows to route content and optimize translation efforts. The Smartling TMS allows the user to dynamically route and match content to different language service providers all within one platform:
- Smartling’s Artificial Intelligence Human Translation (AIHT) delivers the same quality translated content as traditional human translation, much faster and at a fraction of the cost.
- Translation requests are processed through the Translation Memory.
- iContent not found in the Translation Memory is translated using multiple models, quality is evaluated and the highest quality translation is selected.
- AI Post-Editing adds morphologically correct glossary and grammar, improving syntax, style, and formality.
- AI translations are then edited and validated in context by expert linguists, ensuring the highest quality translations are used on agency websites.
- Machine Translation Hub gives access to the major machine translation engines, enabling the rapid translation of content when human review is not required.
- Smartling Professional Translation is available for projects that cannot rely on MT/AI and require 100% translation by an expert linguist.
VITA’s enterprise offering of Smartling officially supports eleven languages, as included in Enterprise Architecture’s Web System Standards: English, Spanish, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Korean, Arabic, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Urdu, French, and Hindi.
Getting Started Getting started with Smartling
VITA has assumed an administrative role of the Smartling solution and will provide project management support to ensure all participating agencies implement the solution successfully.
The Smartling platform, and all automated Machine Translation of web content, is provided to all Commonwealth of Virginia Executive Branch Agencies at no cost. Additional AIHT and Professional Services are available for purchase by agencies as needed.
Additional agencies may be able to access Smartling on a case-by-case basis. Contact developer@vita.virginia.gov for more information.
Agencies and Localities not supported by VITA’s account with Smartling can purchase services for Smartling via VITA’s Statewide Contract with our reseller, ThunderCat.
To begin on-boarding, VITA needs the following information from your agency:
Users
List all agency resources that will need a Smartling account.
Each agency will have access to two projects within Smartling – a “GDN” project for web content and a “Drag & Drop” project for document translation. Web technologists, Communications teams, and any resources responsible for an agency website will receive access to both projects. If an agency has resources that are solely responsible for the translation of documents, please include them here and indicate they only need access to the agency’s “Drag & Drop” project.
Domains
List all domains that require translation.
NOTE: The VITA Enterprise Account with Smartling uses subdomains to route all web traffic to Smartling’s GDN proxy solution. All *.virginia.gov domains are pre-configured to work with Smartling. Any non- .gov sites, such as .orgs and .coms, can be supported, but you’ll need to either register the localized sub-domains (at agency expense) or look at some of the other integration options. There are several.
Human Translation Review
Provide content for human translation
All web content will be 100% Machine Translated. VITA is also budgeting to have the top content on main agency websites go through review from Smartling linguists to ensure 100% accuracy. Provide your web traffic analytics or specify your top content / most visited pages here. If you have content that you’d call critical but might not be the most viewed, include that here as well so it gets reviewed.
Documents
Provide us with documents you would like translated
Smartling only translates web content by default. If there are documents on your website that you want to be localized, now’s the time to start thinking of that. List them here and we’ll talk through document translations more during implementation.
Acronyms / Brand Terms
Please list any acronyms and terms not to be translated or special rules that should apply to your content.
VITA is creating several glossaries for Smartling – a Commonwealth of Virginia glossary that will apply to all agencies and Secretariat/Industry specific glossaries. These glossaries will contain acronyms and terms that should not be translated (ex. VITA, Virginia IT Agency). The glossaries can also incorporate rules to make sure terms are translated in a specific way. Please list any acronyms and terms not to be translated or special rules that should apply to your content.
Submitting your Onboarding Information Sending us your information
Below you will find a downloadable form that will allow you fill out and attach the the above information to be processed. After downloading and filling out the form it can be submitted via the submission form below.
Download Onboarding Form
The Smartling Onboarding form can be downloaded below
Onboarding Submission Form
Below you will find the the submission form for attaching and submitting your Smartling Onboarding Form
Next Steps Initial steps within Smartling
Initial Steps within Smartling
Click below to view helpful resources in getting you up and running and working within Smartling.