Project Update

You can add updates to tasks of currently ongoing projects without losing any translation work that has already been done, as long as you manually commit your changes to translation memory (for example, by clicking Save and Update TM in the Browser Workbench). You do not need to start new projects on the same assets.

Note: If you are running in live translation memory mode, this update occurs automatically and transparently for all segments with Pending Review or Reviewed status whenever the segment cache is updated, without requiring you to manually commit your outstanding work to translation memory . See Live Translation Memory Mode.

When you add a new version of an asset (or assets) to an existing project, the corresponding assets will be canceled from the project and new tasks will be started for the project. You are able to leverage your previous work. The new assets are introduced to the project, the new versions will leverage against the updated translation memories, and the workflow process will proceed on the new versions of the assets just like any newly added tasks.

Change detection and project update management is available via three task view filters on the Projects page “Tree View” and also on the tasks filter of the Project Task listing page for viewing and updating tasks with updated assets:

all tasks with changed assets – This view shows all tasks whose assets have been updated since the task was segmented.
active tasks with changed assets – This view shows all active (not completed or canceled) tasks whose assets have been updated since the task was segmented.
finished tasks with changed assets – This view shows all completed or canceled tasks whose assets have been updated since the task was segmented.

When you select one of these views, tasks with assets that have changed since the task was segmented will have these assets marked in the Task List with an "Asset changed" icon.

These task views have an additional Update button (compared to other views), which schedules for update all tasks selected in the update view. When you click the Update button, the Update Tasks confirmation dialog pops up; if you click OK, all selected tasks are put into a Pending Update state. This dialog includes an Include in project cost calculation check box, which, if checked, causes all the work that has occurred in the tasks to be updated in the project cost calculation.

Note: When WorldServer has detected a changed asset in a task, only the Update button displays for that asset—the Edit/Translate button does not display.

The tasks pending update are updated (canceled and restarted) when a workflow step that allows for task update has been completed. If the task is assigned to you, you will get a message like this:

The following tasks may be restarted after the steps assigned to you have been completed:
<list of tasks>

There is no limit on the number of times a task can be updated and restarted in a project to pick up changed assets.

Note: The Add to Project feature in WorldServer Explorer cannot be used to add updated assets for active tasks to ongoing projects. The Add to Project feature can be used for adding new assets to projects. However, if you try to use Add to Project for existing assets, you will get the following message:

You can use the Task Update functionality to tell WorldServer to pick up the changed asset.

You can define exactly at what points of the workflow tasks are permitted to be updated, using the Apply pending update after completing step check box in the Advanced Options dialog of any human or automatic action. The default setting of this attribute is true, so the default behavior of WorldServer is to restart tasks in a Pending update state once the current workflow steps have been completed. Tasks will either be restarted by a workflow engine once the current automatic step completes, or by WorldServer once a user completes a human step in the workflow.

Note: To “update” a task with a newer version of an asset, you first need to cancel the task. Unfortunately, this can be a very harmful operation. For example, if a translator has downloaded a translation kit and is working on this offline, canceling the task will likely mean that the translator will not be able to upload any of their work. This could potentially lead to major losses in work. To avoid this problem, tasks can only be updated between steps (for example, after one step finishes but before the next begins). This solves the problem of a user getting a task canceled out from underneath them.

In the default configuration, WorldServer allow updates to happen after any step in a workflow. However, if you have sophisticated workflows, you may want to create “protected regions” in your workflow during which no task updates can be performed.

For example, if you are not using live translation memory and your translators do not have direct access to Save and Update TM, then you would want to make sure that updates are not applied until after the Save step in the workflow. This would ensure that you don’t lose any work between the time the translation process started and the time the work was saved to translation memory.

To create a “protected region” of your workflow, you disable the Apply pending updates after completing step option on every step, except the last, in the protected region. Under this model, WorldServer waits until the task has exited the protected region before applying an update.

The most conservative approach would be to say that updates can never happen on an active task; updates can only happen when a task has completed or canceled. To achieve this, turn off the Apply pending updates after completing step option on every step in the workflow. Under this model, WorldServer waits until a task has completed or been canceled to apply an update. Note that if a task finishes of its own accord and is Pending update, WorldServer will also automatically restart the task.