Translation Configuration Process

Windchill Service Information Manager Translation Management is configured on the Windchill server. A summary of the configuration process follows. All of the translation preferences are described in Translation Preferences. Translation Support preferences are set in Utilities > Business Administration > Preference Management at the site, organization, and application (such as product or library) contexts (with the exception of Translation Package Import Interval and External Import Folder, which are site level only).

Before setting up translation configuration, you need to determine your source and target language sets. If you will also be using pivot languages, determine those as well. A pivot language provides a method to manage the translation from a source language to a target language using an intermediary language. The original source structure and content is first translated to the pivot language, and then the pivot language translations are used as sources to one or more target languages. A pivot language might be used when it is less costly to translate from the pivot language to the target language(s) than from the source language(s) directly to the target languages. A pivot language is also useful when original source content is authored in a variety of authoring languages, but it’s desirable to streamline the translation process by standardizing on a pivot language. In this case, objects of various authored languages are translated to the pivot language, and then the pivot language translations are used as source translations to all other target languages.

1. Be sure the global enumeration languages are set up. Your translation preference language codes will need to map to specifications for Source Languages and Target Languages enumerations. For complete information on setting up languages, see Setting Up Languages.

To create translations, Source Languages translation preference values need to be valid. The preference values must resolve to values specified by the Source Languages global enumeration. Check with your administrator that the Source Languages global enumeration contains the language values you need for translation. For more information, refer to Source Languages.

To create translations, Supported Languages translation preference values also need to be valid. The preference values for language codes must resolve to values specified by the Target Languages global enumeration. Check with your administrator that the Target Languages global enumeration contains the language values you need for translation. For more information, refer to Target Languages.

2. To set up the roles for managing translations the user must belong to the Organization Administrators group. You can create a new role by navigating to the team page for a product or library and click Actions > Add Roles. In the same page, to update a permission for a given role, click Actions > Configure Actions for Roles. Make sure you set or update the specified roles in the Translation Coordinator Roles preference and check to be sure they have the proper permissions. The roles must be specified in upper case.

For translation management, roles need some specific policy permissions for products and libraries containing service structure objects and dynamic documents. In addition to the default policies that apply to all users, you will need to be sure that the following permissions are also enabled:

Read, modify and delete permissions for WTPart and documents, create permissions for folders, documents, baselines, new information structure, new publication structure and translation package, permissions to generate translation documents, set state permission for documents, permission to view information structure and publication structure and permission to cancel translation package.

3. Create an external export folder where Windchill has write access. This folder acts as a holding area for files to be picked up by the translation vendors, who will also need access to it. Set the Supported Vendors preference to a value that specifies both the vendor and the path to their storage area, for example, VendorA|D:\translation\tobetranslated.

4. Create an external import folder at the site level where translation management can pick up incoming translated documents. Set the External Import Folder preference to the path, for example, D:\translation\translated.

5. Define source document languages in the Source Languages preference. Source Languages can then be used in the Language Pairs specification as the source language. By default, only one is set in the preference, en.

The Source Languages preference can also set pivot languages by specifying the original source language and the pivot language, for example, fr|en specifies the source language as French which pivots on English. In the Create Translation Package dialog box, pivot languages appear in the Package Languages list, even if they are not formally specified as a target language in Language Pairs. In the event a pivot language is used as a target language for a translation package, final target translation packages are not automatically created.

Source Languages preference values are displayed as the Source Languages of service structure objects in the Create Translation Package dialog box. The Source Languages list of choices does not come from the Authoring Language attributes used in the service structure, so it’s important to be sure Source Languages and Authoring Language are set up properly in advance.

6. Supported Languages serves a dual purpose. It defines the list of languages that can be used as target languages for translation. It also defines the context and folder where the associated translations, including the translated XLIFF files, will be stored. You will need to create the context and folders in Windchill. You can further define the folder structure if Preserve Source Language Folder Path is set to Yes (the default).

7. Each of the Language Pairs specification uses one of the Source Languages as the source language and one of the Supported Languages as the target language. By default, there is a sample list that uses the source en for each entry, and there is a target defined for each language specified in the list of Supported Languages.

Pivot language translations can be handled automatically in the process of translating from source to pivot to target. A pivot language is paired with its source language in the Source Languages preference. The pivot must be defined correctly in Source Languages and the final target language must be selected when creating a translation package in the Create Translation Package dialog box (rather than the pivot language). That means there is no need to specify a pivot language as a target language in Language Pairs, unless you intend to treat the pivot as a target language and manage the translation to the final target language manually.

The target languages of Language Pairs also provide the choices for Publish translations in the Publish Representation dialog box when publishing service structures. You can also choose to publish untranslated source.

9. The Translate Attribute preference determines whether dynamic documents are to be translated. It must be set to the attribute used for dynamic documents. By default, dynamic documents and their subtypes use the attribute name PTC_DD_TRANSLATE.

10. The Document Language Attribute preference determines the language of the dynamic document. It must be set to the attribute used for dynamic documents. By default, dynamic documents and their subtypes use the attribute name PTC_DD_LANGUAGE.

11. Translation Package Data Context specifies where translation package data is stored during translation processing. Make sure you create the contexts (libraries or products) in Windchill that are specified by the Translation Package Data Context preference. You can use one context for all translations, for example, in a library (such as the one specified by default, wt.inf.library.WTLibrary|Translation Package Data). A subfolder is automatically supplied for each language code specified by Supported Languages.

Translation management automatically collects, creates and stores the baseline objects when preparing and creating the translation package. It also creates pivot collections during the interim pivot translation process.

Language codes in Source Languages, Supported Languages and Language Pairs must map to global enumeration language values in Windchill Type and Attribute Management. The folders and locations in Supported Vendors, Supported Languages, External Import Folder, and Translation Package Data Context must be valid as well.

When you create a translation package, the languages, the vendor folders, import folder, and locations for storing baselines and translations are validated. If a preference value used to create your translation package is invalid, the Create Translation Package window displays the associated error. The errors should be reported to the translation administrator.

For information on the translation package process, refer to Managing Translation.

The following list explains the more common language and storage preferences you need to evaluate.

Defines the list of languages to be used as source languages. The Source Languages preference can also set pivot languages by pairing the original source language with its pivot language separated by |. A pivot language is an intermediary language used for translation between a source and the final target language, such as French (source) to Japanese (pivot) to Korean (target). In this case, the source and pivot would be fr|ja.

Supplies the list of supported translation sources and targets for generating a translation package. The specifications pair a source language with a supported target language. The source language must be a valid Source Language preference value. Do not specify a pivot language in a language pair; pivot languages are specified in Source Languages.

Specifies both the translation vendor and the path to the associated storage area where files will be picked up by the vendors. The external export folder must be a location where Windchill has write access permission. The translation vendors must also have access to it.

The external import folder specifies the location where translation management can pick up incoming translated documents. The translation vendors must also have write permission access to it. External Import Folder is set at the site level.

Specifies the location where baselines of objects that are put into a translation package are stored. If you specify a location other than the default, folders for each target language are appended automatically using the language codes from Supported Languages. Translation management automatically gathers, creates and stores the translation objects in these folders when preparing and creating the translation package.

Set to Yes to include the name of the product context for the source document in the target folder path. In the location specified by Translation Package Data Context, the context name follows the source and target names.

The following list explains configuration preferences that you may want to consider changing.

Set by default to Yes to include the default representation, such as PDFs, for the service structure and for any dynamic documents in the structure in the translation package. If the translation includes a pivot language, the default representation for the pivot is picked up when the translation package is created.

Set by default to generate XLIFFs automatically when a translation package is created. The XLIFFs are set to the same state as the structure when the XLIFFs are generated. As part of this process, XLIFFs are created for dynamic documents referenced from a publication structure, information structure, or parts list.

Set this preference to use a subtype for your baselines, such as when you use custom life cycle states for structures and dynamic documents. Specify full type definitions, starting with the root type WCTYPE|. Not set by default.

This preference would specify a custom Managed Baseline subtype. If you use custom life cycles for your dynamic documents, you must assign the same lifecycle template to either the Managed Baseline type or subtype of it.

This link follows the source to the target translation, specifying the target language. Publishing processes follow this link to find the targeted translation document. You shouldn’t change this value; however, you can create a subtype for it.

Use care when considering changing the following workflow processes, as workflows can have interdependencies. Templates are provided for customization of workflow processes, such as pre-processing or post-processing. An example would be sending an email notification when a process has completed.

Quote packages are generated only for direct target languages and for pivot languages. No quotation package would be generated for a target language if the source language is configured to use an intermediary pivot language.

This translation process monitors the directory where vendors return translated content. It unzips the translation package, checks the contents, and checks in the translations. Its monitoring frequency is set by the Translation Package Import Interval.

Translation packages can take some time if the service structure is quite large. You can set up email notification in Windchill to receive a message when a workflow step finishes, such as when a translation package is created.

For more information, refer to Workflow Email Notifications.

When dynamic document translations are imported, you can choose to turn off updating their metadata (for example, in cases where you want metadata in the source language only). The com.ptc.tml.updateMetadataOnTranslatedDocuments property controls the metadata import behavior by setting Yes (the default) to permit updates or No to suppress updates. Metadata rules must already exist in burst configuration files for metadata updates to succeed. For more information, see Setting Up Dynamic Documents.

Do not change the following preferences:

Set to Yes by default, this preference permits a new revision of the document to be translated, regardless whether the previous translated revision has been set to the Preparation State. This allows a translation to occur for the latest version that is set to the Preparation State.