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Key TMS features
Every TMS should have certain features you should look for to meet your business needs.
Quality management
There are still discussions on what should be considered a high-quality translation. Is it an error-free document in the target language or the smooth process where every step complies with the established procedure?
Linguistic Quality Assurance
Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA) is a comprehensive, multi-level process that includes a large number of factors that all aim to measure, control and increase the linguistic quality of any text.

Key TMS features
Every TMS should have certain features you should look for to meet your business needs.
- Project management
  Even though the primary goal of a TMS is to automate a lot of tasks in the translation process, it still requires people to manage it.
- Finance management
  The main reason for investing in a TMS is to reduce costs that your organization spends on translation in general. See how can this tool help you achieve it.
- Content management
  A TMS maintains all the translation-related content centrally to be accessed in real time.
- Translation editor (Workbench)
  Currently, hardly anyone translates in an original document, be it Word, HTML file or InDesign. Most translators and reviewers work in special text editors that are core CAT tool components.
- Quality management
  There are still discussions on what should be considered a high-quality translation. Is it an error-free document in the target language or the smooth process where every step complies with the established procedure?
  - Quality Assurance
    Automatic QA tools to check translations have become the standard in the translation industry. Many of them are built-in with the various CAT tools, but some are also available separately.
  - Linguistic Quality Assurance
    Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA) is a comprehensive, multi-level process that includes a large number of factors that all aim to measure, control and increase the linguistic quality of any text.
- Machine translation
  Machine translation engines are third-party systems for automatic translation that are not standard components of a TMS.
- Connectors
  Learn how to gain more control over your content by integrating content management systems and translation management systems via a connector.
- Security
  Nowadays, data security is on top of mind of all businesses, with the translation industry being no exception.
- Documentation
  When you start working with a new tool, it is extremely useful to have relevant documentation at hand to refer to it when you need it.
- Support
  High-quality documentation is useful, but in some cases it may not be enough. As with every IT tool, with TMSs you can also experience technical problems.
- Product development
  You have bought a TMS and what comes next? Since every IT tool is upgraded from time to time and you get the new version instantly if you use the cloud-based software, you need to be ready for constant changes.

Linguistic Quality Assurance

Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA) is a comprehensive, multi-level process that includes a large number of factors that all aim to measure, control and increase the linguistic quality of any text.

While QA checks are performed automatically, LQA is always performed by human linguists. Using a pre-determined methodology, they determine if the translation contains any objective errors grouped into categories. These may include:

different meaning/mistranslation/incorrect translation
omissions
inaccuracy or inconsistency with glossary, style guide or translation memory
inadequate spelling, grammar, punctuation
wrong register

The process of performing LQA begins with the recording of the errors in translation and ends with reporting analysis. For that purpose an evaluator can use a special form or use a TMS-embedded one.

In XTM, the LQA feature is a translation quality scoring system based on the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) model which has been designed as part of the QT Launchpad project. As a result it is flexible (can be easily configured to meet your needs), suitable for all translation methods (including MT) and comparable.

You can also set the weight for each item and severity multiplier for neutral, minor, major, and critical items, or add new errors.

XTM offers different methods of calculating LQA scores:

based on the number of words in the target text (default option)
based on the number of words in the source text
Reference Word Count (RWC) which can be added to either of the other methods.

After the process is completed in XTM Workbench, you can view LQA results next to each user or download an LQA report as an Excel file.

LQA report — Figure 1. LQA report

LQA can be a separate service or a part of the translation service that you buy from your LSP. In any case, XTM enables you to perform it using a separate LQA workflow step.

You have to decide the total score when a translation is considered as pass or fail. Usually, when it is below 93%, the test is failed and the translation should be returned to the linguist for correction.

LQA feature in XTM Workbench — Figure 2. LQA feature in XTM Workbench