Modernizing the translation workflow on access.nyc.gov

The access.nyc.gov team spent a lot of time on its translation workflow. I set up a process that reduced the workflow from 7 hours down to 10 minutes. 

ACCESS NYC has content in 11 languages. Implementing those translations was a time-intensive and manual process. 

Every time the team updated content, they also needed to update the translations. The team copied and pasted these translations into the website's content management system (CMS). This process takes upwards of 6 hours a week.

I researched translation management systems (TMS) that could simplify the translation workflow.

I met with translation vendors to understand their TMS offerings and how they fit into the workflow. I learned that some TMSs could automate the entire workflow (translation "proxies") while others significantly reduced the workflow but still needed some manual inputs (translation "connectors").

I identified a TMS that drastically reduced our workflow by 98%. 

After weighing the benefits and limitations of different TMSs, I selected a TMS solution using a "translation connector". This directly linked the CMS of ACCESS NYC to the vendor's systems, creating a two-way linkage that let our team send content to the vendor and then receive translations directly within the CMS. Doing so allowed us to skip the manual copy-paste process entirely.

This reduced the translation workflow down to as little as 10 minutes a week.

Now, the ACCESS NYC team has more time to focus on new priorities.