Adding a Metaconnector to Link Several MT Profiles

By configuring a metaconnector in the MT profiles section, several MT engines can be linked through a single MT profile that can be made available in projects, orders, or jobs. The goal is to create a tailor-made MT configuration for specific language combinations. Using specific MT engines for each language pair, administrators can make the most out of each MT engine in the system, plugging them into Projects in which they perform best, or based on the way they need their users to interact with them.

How to set up a metaconnector?

Follow the process described below to configure a metaconnector profile:

1. Add the individual MT engines you want to have available in the system. Learn more about this in Create a new MT System configuration
2. Click 'Add metaconnector' to create your custom routing of MT engines.
   Give it a name so this profile is easily recognizable in other configuration screens.
   

   

   
   
3. In the Metaconnector configuration screen, add the specific mapping of MT systems and language pairs.
   Ensure all the language pairs you require are included in this section. 
   

   

   
   

4. The configuration of the Metaconnector also defines the direction in which the translation happens. Add as many language pairs as you need to offer. 
   

   

   
   
   

   Note

   Language settings are strict.
   This connector only accepts the exact languages listed within its configuration. Ensure all locales that must be offered as Source and/or Target language are covered since language settings are strict (it is impossible to leverage these settings across different languages/locales). This means language pairs with English "en" and English"en-US" need to be explicitly defined in the connector.

5. Once done, click 'Save' to register the metaconnector settings and make them available in all other relevant screens (ex. word counting settings, MT Hive and Order form settings, etc.)

How to troubleshoot the Metaconnector profile?

Since the Metaconnector profile is dependent on individual MT profiles available in the system and ultimately on how the subscription for these is defined with each MT service provider, it is possible to get errors while configuring a Metaconnector profile.

Errors in the configuration. When do they happen?

Most cases refer to MT systems that don't support or no longer support specific language pairs. This can occur when these languages in the related MT profile in Wordbee Translator have been removed or if changes are done on the engines directly via the end provider as part of the customization options they offer). In such cases, an error is provided in the list of MT profiles as below:

Segments returned with no translation. When does this happen?

Because the Metaconnector profile is defined for strict language pairs, any language pair not configured in the profile's settings will return no translation.

This means:

• The source-target settings are explicit. Ensure each language pair is added for all directions you expect to cover.
  In other words, you will need two separate configurations to translate from 'English (United States)' to 'German (Germany)' and reverse.
  

  

  
  
  
• The language settings are strict. No leveraging between a generic language and all the specific locales is done
  In other words, you will need to define as many language combinations as locales as your use cases require:
  

  

  
  

Error Handling and Email notifications

Usually, when the system detects an error with the used MT profile, an event is logged, and administrator users are made aware of the incident. The information in these errors is directly taken over from the error the Machine Translator provider generates. Some screens show the related information, and in most cases, the incident is also reported to administrator users via email notification. 

Event types reported

The events for which an email notification is triggered are listed below:

1. Notify MT issues: Translation failures: when the machine translation system failed to translate fully or partially
2. Notify MT issues: Unsupported languages: when the chosen MT configuration does not support the language combination

Find more information about these notification options on the related page (Settings > Emails and notifications)

Each error log contains all relevant information for administrators, including:

• The summary part has the total number of issues in this document and a link to the project
• The issues grouped by source/target languages
• The type of issues detected (see types described above), with these additional details: Document name, document ID, Document URL, and total issues for each event type.

This information is used to work out the problem with the Machine Translation provider while keeping the Translation Team aligned about how to handle the incidents.