Automate project assignment to linguists
Automated assignment of tasks such as editing of AI automatic translation significantly reduces the time it would usually take to search for and hire human linguists.
Automate your search with Smartcat AI best matching.
How does Automated Assignment work?
Smartcat automatically searches for the most suitable linguists for your needs in seconds. The Smartcat Marketplace Delivery team handles any and all issues with human linguists.
You can select types of linguists, including your own in-house translators, pinned freelancers, and Marketplace freelancers not saved in My Team. You can also organize them by priority.
5 simple steps to automatic task assignment
At first, the feature will only be available to clients on Starter, Unite , and Enterprise Smartcat subscription plans. In the future, we'll roll it out to Free plan subscribers too.
You can automate task assignment via a button called Run project. This is available for workspace admins, project managers, and users with custom roles who have access levels to create projects and hire freelancers.
The Run project button is available if there is at least one task without linguist assignment.
Step 1: Create a project
Add your project workflow stages, source and target languages, upload files, adjust the linguistic assets, and pre-translation rules if needed.
Smartcat automatically links the most suitable translation memory (TM) and sets up pre-translation rules when creating a new project. However, before activating the automated assignment feature, we recommend that the project manager verify that these settings are correct.
Step 2: Activate automated assignment
Once project settings are set up, you can activate automated assignment by clicking on the Run project button on the Overview page.
As a reminder:
The Run project button is available if there is at least one task without assignments.
The button is not active when:
- linguists are already invited to all tasks
- project has a document where volume is not specified
- project statistics are being calculated
- project has one workflow stage – Automatic Translation – if translations are confirmed after pre-translation
Step 3: Smartcat finds linguists in seconds
Once you click the Run project button, Smartcat begins searching immediately for best-match linguists for your task at hand. When matching linguists are identified, Smartcat displays a pop-up with your project task details and a list of linguists for consideration.
Target effective words : total words in all language pairs calculated after TMs are applied
Estimated completion date: Smartcat automatically calculates date of task completion taking into account the word volume and the industry average per-word work completion rate.
In the event that the estimated completion date exceeds your project deadline, Smartcat displays a message to inform you that the deadline will be updated in line with the estimated completion date.
Total cost: total cost of all tasks.
To invite identified linguists to work on your task, click Run project.
Step 4: Linguists are invited and start working
After clicking Run project, Smartcat sends an automatic invitation to work on your task to the top best-match linguist. If this linguist does not respond, declines, or is unavailable, Smartcat then invites up to ten other best-match linguists.
Each linguist receives an email notification with the project details and the date when they can start working on it.
Step 5: Manager tracks the project progress
The new Overview page shows the project progress all in one place, helping you to keep track of how your translation is coming along.
Once the translation is complete, you can finalize your project by clicking on the Done button in the editor.
What if a linguist wasn’t found or declines the invitation?
First of all, Smartcat invites one linguist per task - this is the best match linguist of all returned results.
If this linguist declines the invitation or doesn’t respond, Smartcat sends a new invitation to up to 10 different linguists and the first who accepts is assigned the task.
A quick recap of the AI Matching workflow
Smartcat invites the top best-match linguist
If the freelancer doesn’t accept the invitation within 24 hours, the invitation expires
Smartcat then automatically sends another invitation to up to 10 other best-match linguists
If no one accepts the invitation within 24 hours, Smartcat informs you via a message that no linguists agreed to your translation task and that the task remains unassigned
Smartcat will then suggest two options: one, hire linguists by yourself or contact the Smartcat Marketplace delivery team for further assistance
Additionally, a message will be sent to the Slack channel #service-delivery-team-events to inform the Smartcat team.
Manage settings for suggestions on automatic project management
Smartcat empowers you to manage suggestions both for automatic project management and all regular projects. You can choose from in-house linguists, pinned freelancers, and Smartcat Marketplace freelancers.
To access your settings for suggestions, follow the steps below:
1. On the Home page, click Workspace settings
2. Select AI assignments in the menu dropdown list
3. Choose the type of linguists that you prefer to hire. You can also drag and drop the translator types to set a priority.
Just find the best one: our default AI Matching algorithm (See more in Sourcing of linguists )
Translators invited to Team members only: * in-house translators saved in My Team in the workspace * (This option is only available on the paid plans)
Favorite Marketplace translators only: pinned freelancers, i.e. Marketplace freelancers saved in My Team in the workspace
Marketplace translators only: Marketplace freelancers not added to My Team
Hire only unique translators: “Unique” translator refers to an individual professional human translator. With this option, you assign a different translator for each task in your project.
This means that automatic assignment will not invite the same translator for different tasks belonging to the same overall translation project.
Your Marketplace Delivery team is on hand to help
Your Smartcat Marketplace Delivery team handles issues with automatic project management. The following events will be automatically sent to Slack channel # service-delivery-team-events:
When Marketplace suppliers do not accept the invitation on time
When Marketplace suppliers do not start working on a task
Marketplace Delivery team works on resolving issues with Marketplace linguists in order to prevent possible workflow bottlenecks and ensure the highest quality Smartcat Marketplace experience for you and your team.
To ensure the highest-quality service, the Smartcat Marketplace Delivery team responds to client complaints on a case-by-case basis.
How does automatic assignment work with prepayment?
After clicking the Auto management button, Smartcat displays a pop-up with the project details and a list of suitable linguists. This pop-up also shows a Proceed to checkout button that will redirect you to the checkout page to close out the prepayment.
If you have not yet added billing details, Smartcat will prompt you to do so before payment. Once prepayment is made, the Run project button will become available.
With auto management, the prepayment logic for inviting linguists will be the same as when you invite linguists yourself. If Smartcat invites several linguists to a task – using the 🚀First who accepted mode – prepayment is calculated based on the rates of the most expensive linguist. If the total cost is less than the prepayment amount, the difference will be returned to your Smartcat balance.