The tool does not matter, the data does

You are a company working with a variety of translation vendors. You don’t want to stipulate what translation workflows the vendors should use, but you would like to take full control over the translation memories that evolve and maximize the gains from leveraging.

One option is to introduce a translation management system. It does the job, with a few shortcomings. For example, all the descriptive information about your translation memory units is easily lost. There are no safeguards built into translation tools that would prevent the loss of metadata. And if you are managing millions of entries, metadata tagging can be crucial to your success.

Tool-agnostic workflows, by definition, stipulate the use of open standards and mean workflows where open standards are leveraged to the maximum and the shortcomings of open standards are addressed. Kilgray’s TM Repository addresses many shortcomings of the most popular standard, TMX, and offers maximum leverage and minimum maintenance costs.

The TM Repository gives you full control over your translation memory units - not just the translation memories. It is a single database with enhanced translation management functionality. The TM Repository is not an online translation memory. It is a cost-saving tool that works best if you have millions of TM entries. It increases leverage and cuts maintenance costs. It can be integrated into any translation management system or used through a web interface. The TM Repository is not part of the memoQ solution and it does not compete with any other commercially available solution. It’s a whole new concept to TM management.

With the TM Repository you can provide your vendors with translation memories that contain the units most specific to your job. You never miss out on reusing a single entry. What’s more, if you localize into several languages (for example English to French and English to Chinese) and have to create a translation memory between two target languages (French to Chinese), you can do that too.

The TM Repository offers the following functionality:

• You can set up a metadata structure that reflects your workflows, product structure and documentation structure.
• It enforces the use of this metadata structure for each and every translation unit and protects the metadata.
• It enables you to create ad hoc translation memories for each and every job by filtering the units in the TM Repository. These ad hoc translation memories are logged with an identifier.
• Once a job is done, it enables you to feed the updated translation memories back into the TM Repository. If the translation tool your vendor used has corrupted the metadata, it restores the metadata, and it archives both the old and new TM entries.
• It provides versioning for your translation memory units.

You don’t have to care about what translation tools your vendors are using.