Managing Suppliers

In Wordbee Translator, a supplier is a person or company who provides a service to a client (in form of a job) for the realization of a project. This includes an individual who performs translations or other tasks as well as agencies or other companies who offer their services to clients. In other words, suppliers can be part of your in-house team or external vendors (freelance translators, translation agencies, corporations, etc.).

See details on user types...

The basic idea behind Wordbee Translator is to provide a fully collaborative, end to end solution for managing, carrying out and delivering translations. The platform is designed so that every person involved in the project exactly sees the features which relate directly to their role. For this purpose, administrators have the ability to create logins specific to each user, giving them access exactly to the functions they need.

Generic user types

Wordbee Translator provides the following generic user types:

Administrator: the owner of the platform, who has been assigned login credentials directly from Wordbee and who has complete control of the platform. The administrator controls every aspect of the platform: they can create and manage user logins, configure access rights, change platform settings and have direct control on the API.

Project managers: these users are in charge of managing and tracking projects, from submission of an order right to final delivery. They manage client and supplier information, create and assign jobs, manage linguistic resources, create quotes and invoices and deliver the final product to the client.

Clients: the people for whom a company works. They can submit orders and upload related documents and linguistic resources. Additionally, Wordbee Translator offers a feature called the Client Portal, where each client can have their own personal space through which they are able to submit and track requests, retrieve translations and interact with/ provide instructions to the company through an internal messaging system.

Suppliers: these are freelance translators, translation agencies, or generally anyone who performs translation work. Every supplier will have a domain of expertise, rates per word and perhaps a discount rate.

Inhouse vs. external

Project managers, suppliers and clients can either be inhouse (belonging to the company who owns the platform) or external.

For these two types, the rights to access and modify projects, jobs and resources can be set separately.

Types of suppliers

You can find two types of supplier users in the system:

Inhouse suppliers are all the users registered in the team by the administrator of the platform. They are all listed under my company, which is also highlighted with the icon on the supplier screen. Learn how to manage inhouse logins here. If the inhouse team externalises work, then external companies will be created under the Supplier menu.
External suppliers are all users registered in external companies, which can be formed by one or several individuals. Depending on the size of their business, you will label them as Freelancers (single user), agency, corporation, etc. You will be able to easily spot them because of their distinctive icon(s)
on the supplier screen. Learn how to manage supplier companies and their external logins here.

You will have an overview of all supplier types from the Suppliers page.

How do suppliers join your projects?

As we mentioned above, in each project, you will need to define the tasks to be performed to finalise the work required for your clients. Each step in the project workflow is called a job.

Learn more about how to set up the system so your teams can participate in the projects:

Job requirements

For a supplier to be able to take part in the projects, you will need to enter the right information about the services they provide, so they can qualify for the jobs. There are two main conditions for a supplier to be able to perform a job:

the type of task (translation, revision, DTP)
the language combination

Read the section below, Service portfolio and pricing details to know how to proceed to update the details for each type of supplier user.

Remember

If you require very accurate results and filtering of your suppliers, you can:

- make the language combination of your services locale-specific (English vs. English-US). This will allow you to apply an additional level of filtering when dispatching the jobs among your pool of suppliers.

- include internal comments that you can visualize in the assignment screens as well as in the list of suppliers or supplier services. These comments can be added in the supplier profiles as well as in the pricelists or service screens. They will be available for inhouse vendors having access to these sections.

Service portfolio and pricing details for suppliers

Depending on the type of supplier user you are managing (inhouse vs. external) you will need to enter the qualifications of the service they provide in their user profile or in the company they work for.

Inhouse users carry their service portfolio directly in their profile. Learn all the details about how to configure inhouse profiles here.
External users carry their service portfolio in their company pricelist. Learn how to configure supplier pricelists here.

Entering prices to the services suppliers provide is something optional. If you want to track inhouse and external costs, invoice your vendors and clients or simple use Wordbee to its fullest, then you will need to enter all these details so you can exploit the invoicing features the system has.