Tips and best practices for the QA step

[AgaP]

Tips and best practices for the QA step

Do you feel you could be using the automatic quality assurance (QA) checks more effectively? If so, we have put together some ideas below.

Keep the instructions handy

Familiarize yourself with how we use QA checks at TWB and remember

• You should always run the Phrase QA check before delivering any task in a translation project.

Running a QA check is often mandatory in our projects! This means that you will not be able to complete your task without it.

• On some translation projects we also work with QA checks in lexiQA.

Think outside the QA checks

Automatic QA checks are key in systematizing your review. But there are more ways to ensure quality

• As a rule of thumb, see your work as the final version that no one would fix later. Always review your own content before completing your task.

A pro tip: some spelling mistakes might slip QA check’s ‘attention’. Keep that in mind while doing your review. It’s worth using a spellchecker, if you have it available.

• There are other things that help us meet the quality requirements. Check how you can assure quality.

False positives are quite common

You will come across them all the time. It is OK to ignore those, as long you check and confirm that these are in fact ‘false positives’.

They often relate to term base entries

• the QA check may produce a ‘false positive’, if there is a differing capitalization or changes due to grammar rules (gender, declension, etc.)
• sometimes a source word is flagged as a term base, when it’s not

a good example would be humanitarian terms “MEAL” or “WASH” applied instead of common words “meal” or “wash”

Remember that terminology is crucial to us. The best practice is to check term base notifications one by one, instead of doing it in bulk. This way, you won’t miss anything!

If you spot an issue in your terminology base, please flag it to the project officer so it can be fixed.

Tags require an extra attention

Make sure you correctly place tags and take care of adding or erasing spaces around them. Remember that a tag does not represent a space!

• Learn more about the Phrase TMS tags.

A pro tip: some of tag issues should be easily spotted by using the target in-context preview inside of the Phrase TMS project (the preview at the bottom of your screen).

There is an instant QA feature available

You can read more about it in this article from the Phrase TMS resources.

Practical tips

1. Are you working on a big document? Run an extra check or two, just in case. Parts of ‘heavy’ documents might get omitted by a system mistake.

• Even on regular tasks, re-run the QA check one or two times more, so you are sure you addressed all issues.

2. Have you picked up more than one task in the same project? Run the QA check across all tasks in a joined task. This is crucial for spotting any inconsistencies between documents. You can do it by following the steps below. Contact your project officer if you need help.
   (i) open one of the tasks
   (ii) on the top pane go to Document>View Project
   (iii) the project page will open
   (iv) go to the Jobs section and select all of them
   (v) a new joined job will open in a new tab - now you can run the QA across all tasks

3. You can filter the QA check by category - click on the arrow button next to Run job QA option.

4. Some formatting errors, such as missing italics or broken links are easy to overlook and can trigger ‘stubborn’ notifications. Keep your eye on them!