Sometimes the vast majority of our time spent on a translation is not spent on the actual translation, but on going through all the hoops and loops of restrictions imposed by clients. And then I’m not even touching situations in which the client wants you to invoice that 0.16 USD job under a separate PO number (thank God I have all of this automated at my side). I’m referring to situations in which the client tells you which software to use for translation or communication in the first place.
Most clients impose Trados or memoQ as translation software. If you mention you use something else they will sometimes refuse to work with you, mostly because you’re dealing with project managers who have no clue about software themselves and just use whatever their boss or client tells them to use. Any other software is software they don’t understand and thus unknown, and the only actual fear people have is fear of the unknown. There might be a chance your software is not 100% compatible with theirs, and as they lack the knowledge to solve simple issues themselves, they simply forbid you to deviate from their standard. Indeed: unknown, unloved.
Hush little baby
So what do I do? I don’t tell them. I just do my thing and no one will ever notice. Because Cattitude offers perfect interoperability with memoQ and Trados. Translators in the know know.
Unfortunately, sometimes sending the translated file back in such cases is not enough. There’s a certain online CAT tool for example, that requires translators to upload their translated files. After that this software is often set in such a way, that you cannot deliver your translation without going through the QA of said software, a notorious QA that often generates thousands of false positives (after you obviously have gone through the QA in your own tool already).
Another problem is that if this software is used by multiple clients, you need a separate account for each client.
Let’s call this software Sentence. Sentence requires each translator to have a separate account for each client: one Sentence account for client A, one Sentence account for client B and one Sentence account for client C.
From pillar to post
This is very annoying, because every time when I’m already logged in at client C’s instance of Sentence and then click a project link in a mail from client B that takes me to client B’s instance of Sentence, it says I have no access. To get access anyway, I first need to log out of client C’s instance of Sentence. Then I click the project link of client B, that now takes me to nowhere as I haven’t yet logged into client B’s instance of Sentence. So I close the window, then log into client B’s instance of Sentence, then click the project link, and then finally I’m logged into client B’s project.
But while I’m working on client B’s project, an urgent mail comes in from client A, who needs a small project done within 30 minutes. Rinse and repeat, as I now have to switch from client C’s instance to client A’s instance, and then back to client C’s instance again. Whomever though this way of managing log-ins was a good idea should be forced to eat their keyboard.
But sometimes it’s not the translation software that is imposed. Sometimes it’s the very software we need to communicate with the client, for example to ask questions about the translation. Gone are the days of good old-fashioned e-mail and online sheets. No, we have to use something flashy.
Now, this is not always the project manager’s fault. They often get sucked into a decision made by some other department that made investments in said software, and of course those investments have to be justified. (By the way, if you use Cattitude, Q&A is completely integrated into the tool, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN8fixMPV-0).
Micro$oft T€ams
Enter Micro$oft T€ams. I’m a small business and therefore own a small business account at user@smallbusiness.com. I also have a personal account at me@smallbusiness.com. Now this is where the fun starts. Client A invites me to Teams using one of my e-mail addresses. Client B does the same (and I’ve tried every possible combination: it doesn’t matter whether these two addresses are the same or different). I need to switch between both clients multiple times per day, sometimes every five minutes.
Every single time I need to switch, Microsoft Teams will ask me to re-select my account, re-enter my password and re-enter the code they send me by calling me on my mobile phone. And that is assuming this actually works, because it doesn’t. In most cases, I’m not allowed to log in because for some reason Microsoft Teams has decided I am no longer me@smallbusiness.com but user@smallbusiness.com, even when both clients have invited me using me@smallbusiness.com.
I could of course delete user@smallbusiness.com to see if that improves the situation, but for that I have to contact the admin of my organization: me. So I have to contact myself to delete myself, and even that is not possible, as myself as an admin does not exist.
Fortunately Microsoft is a great company always willing to help out their users. For a small price of course.
598 euro to solve a bug in their own software: a bug that has been known since 2021.
Enter Cattitude. No matter how many of your clients use Cattitude, you will see all projects presented in your centralized view, and you can access all of them without needing to log in. One account for all projects. That applies to you and that applies to all your clients too.
You are a Cattitude user and as such you see both your own projects and your client’s projects. If you select your own project, you are that project’s admin with admin privileges, but if you select a client’s project, only said client will have admin privileges as a host user. You are then a guest in the client’s project.
And if you own the Project Edition, you can assign existing user accounts to the project you’re managing. Why make things complicated when it can be so easy?
And Microsoft, I’m giving this advice to you for free, without charging anything.
