Project Management

Quality Assurance - QA (TMS)

Content is machine translated from English by Phrase Language AI.

Quality assurance (QA) is a feature built into the editor. It detects errors in translation by comparing source and target segments, checking the term base, spelling, content of the tags, etc. It helps translators detect formal errors and improve overall translation quality and consistency.

Important

Issues with tags are a common cause of export errors, especially for file types such as spreadsheets (MS Excel based) and .XML. Always ensure tags and formatting are correct before exporting files.

If set by a project manager, QA checks may be mandatory for jobs and projects. If mandatory, QA warnings must be mitigated before the jobs can be set to Completed. QA checks are also run on locked segments unless excluded by the project manager.

QA checks can be applied instantly, or manually and are displayed in the QA pane:

  • Instant QA

    Run on a segment when confirmed. If issues are identified, the segment is not saved to a translation memory until the Linguist resolves them.

    Instant QA can be enforced by project managers in Access and Security settings.

  • Manual QA

    Checks all segments in the job. To be run by the Linguist before the job is set to Completed.

There is no reporting available for QA results.

Quality Assurance Default Setup

To setup default QA settings, follow these steps:

  1. From the Settings Setup_gear.png page, scroll down to the Quality section and click on Quality assurance.

    The Quality assurance page opens.

  2. Select required settings and click Save.

    Settings are saved and will be applied to all new projects.

The quality assurance settings interface can also be accessed at the project level by editing a project or by editing a project template.

By default, all QA warnings can be set to ignore by Linguists/Vendors. For some QA checks, the project managers can disable the Can be ignored option in the QA settings so Linguists and Vendors will not be able to ignore these warnings when setting a job to Complete.

QA Status for Jobs

Whenever a QA check is launched for a job, the outcome is saved with the translation job with different values:

  • QA Warnings: Not launched

    The QA has not been launched for this job.

  • QA Warnings: Incomplete

    The QA has been launched for only part of a job (e.g. the user did not click the Show more link at the bottom of the QA warnings list) or the QA launched for the entire job was later edited.

  • QA Warnings: 2 (1 ignored)

    The QA has been launched and it includes a total of 2 warnings of which 1 was marked as ignored.

Hover over the Confirmed value of a job on a project page to see QA Status.

QA Management Options

Forcing providers to run a QA check

Providers (Linguists and Vendors) can be prevented from setting a job to Completed unless a QA check is run and warning mitigated. Project managers can also select which QA checks are applied and which can be set to ignore by Linguists.

To select which QA checks can be ignored, follow these steps:

  1. From a project page, click Edit.

    The editing page opens.

  2. Click Quality assurance.

    The QA checks table opens.

  3. Select Linguists may not set jobs with QA warnings to Completed.

  4. Deselect Can be ignored for any QA checks the Linguist/Vendor should not set to ignore.

  5. Click Save.

    Settings are applied for that project.

Ignore in all workflow steps

QA warnings can be ignored across all workflow steps of a job. Once a QA warning is ignored in the first workflow step, it will not be reported again as unresolved in subsequent workflow steps.

To ignore QA warnings across workflow steps, follow these steps:

  1. From a project page, click Edit.

    The editing page opens.

  2. Click Quality assurance.

    The QA checks table opens.

  3. Scroll down to the Other options section and select Ignore in all workflow steps.

  4. Click Save.

    Settings are applied for that project.

List of QA Checks

The QA checks cover errors that range from spelling errors to tag issues and inconsistent terminology. Some checks can be selected to be highlighted in the translation table.

QA check

Function

Instant QA

Highlighted

Linguistic

Selects all linguistic checks.

Empty target

The target contains no characters or tags.

Yes

Extra numbers in target

There are no extra numbers in the target.

Yes

Yes

Inconsistent translations

  • A segment with an identical source but a different target precedes the checked segment.

  • A segment with an identical target but a different source precedes the checked segment.

  • Repetition exceptions and segments with an empty target are skipped.

Yes (with batch confirmations)

Leading and trailing spaces

There is a leading or trailing space in the target but not in the source.

Yes

Yes

Maximum target segment length in % of source

The target segment length is greater than the given parameter (default 130%).

This setting is independent of the option below, i. e. it may show warnings even if the target segment complies with the limits set in Maximum target segment length in characters or the source file.

Yes

Maximum target segment length in characters

The target segment length is greater than the given parameter (default 100).

If the source file contains max. target segment length information (which is imported via the job settings and applied by enabling the Max. target length as set during job creation option), that will override this check.

Yes

Missing numbers

The number in the source is not present in the target.

For example, the source has the phrase "1 and 2", but the target reads "1 and 3".

Yes

Yes

Multiple spaces

There are multiple spaces in the target but not in the source.

Yes

Yes

Repeated words

Two or more adjacent words in the target are identical.

Yes

Yes

Spelling

The target contains misspelled words.

Yes

Target text identical with source one

  • This is a QA check for text copied from the source to the target.

  • No warning will be displayed for segments containing only plain numbers, tags, or non-translatable characters.

  • Segments translated using the Non-translatables feature are ignored in this QA check.

Yes

Trailing punctuation

Trailing punctuation is different in the source and target.

For example, the source ends with "." but the target does not or vice-versa.

Yes

Yes

Unedited NT/MT fuzzy match

A fuzzy NT/MT match has been confirmed without being edited.

No

Unedited TM fuzzy match

A fuzzy TM match has been confirmed without being edited.

No

Terminology

Selects all terminology checks

Forbidden terms

Based on a target term (while a source term is not required).

Yes

Yes

Missing terms

  • The terms (with status New and Approved) in the source do not have a corresponding term translation in the target. If the Ignore not approved terms option is selected, new terms are not considered.

  • A forbidden term is used for the translation. (Forbidden terms in the source are ignored.)

Only terms within the source will be checked.

Yes

Yes

Not allowed

The target contains strings that are not allowed. Characters, or alternatively, utf-8 codes, can be entered as strings that are not allowed.

Numerous strings can be entered if separated by commas.

Strings are case-sensitive.

Yes

Yes

Formatting and tags

Selects all formatting and tags checks.

Empty tag content

The target tag content is empty, while the source tag content is not.

For example, the source reads <a href="http://bbc.co.uk"> but the target shows "".

Yes

Inconsistent tag content

The tag content between the source and its corresponding target tag differ.

For example, the source shows <a href="http://bbc.co.uk"> but the target contains <"http://">

Yes

Nested tags

Paired tags in the target are misplaced.

For example, there is {1>{2>abc<2}{3>abc<3}{4><4}<1} in the source and {1>{2>abc<2}{3>abc{4><3}<4}<1} in the target.

This option is disabled by default, but it is important to enable it for projects with spreadsheet files.

Yes

No text between the tags

There is a paired tag with no text between the tags in the target but not in the source.

For example, there is {1>abc<1} in the source and {1><1} in the target.

Yes

Tags & formatting

Tags/formatting are missing or invalid, or there are missing or redundant line breaks.

Example: the source contains "{1} {2}" but the target reads "{1}".

Yes

Tags-joined segments

The number of {j} tags is different in the source and target.

For example, the source is "xxx{j}yyy" but the target is "xxx yyy".

Yes

XLIFF tags

Paired tags (such as bpt and ept) are in the incorrect order in the completed target file.

For example, the source contains "bpt bpt ept ept" and the target contains "bpt ept ept bpt".

Yes

Workflow

Selects all workflow checks.

Newer version in a preceding workflow step available

Checks whether newer versions of segments exist in preceding Workflow steps.

For example, a translator has modified a segment in the Translation Workflow step after it was revised in the Revision Workflow step.

Yes

Not confirmed segments

Checks to make sure each segment is confirmed.

No

Unresolved comment

Ensures that no segment contains an unresolved comment in a conversation.

No

Custom checks

  • Used to define checks based on regular expressions as well as descriptions that will be displayed in the editor when such an issue is identified. Will be verified before being able to be saved.

  • Multiple conditions can be set using the Add button.

  • If both Source regular expression and Target regular expression are NOT empty, checks whether the counts of the regexp matches differ between the source and the target text.

  • If Source regular expression is NOT empty and Target regular expression is empty, returns a warning when there is a match in the source text.

  • If Source regular expression is empty and Target regular expression is NOT empty, returns a warning when there is a match in the target text.

Yes

Error Messages - QA

No results were returned from the QA web service. An error occurred while servicing the request.

Indicates that there was most likely a temporary server issue and QA was unavailable for a few minutes. Wait a couple of minutes and try running QA again. If the issue persists, check the status page for an incident or contact the support team.

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