The Translation Manifest and its Language Manifests

A Translation Manifest is a snapshot of content in Authoring that is sent for translation. A Language Manifest acts as a dashboard for managing the translation process and provides you with ready access to the map and the objects within the map.

A Translation Manifest represents the content objects at the point in time when the Translation Manifest was created. The Translation Manifest does not change throughout the progress of the project. It is a snapshot of the map and its dependencies, meaning that it points to the revision of the map, topics, images, resources, etc. that are current at the time you create the Translation Manifest.

Because of this, if you edit the map or any of its dependencies in Authoring, you create new revisions of those objects and those new revisions are not reflected in any previously-created Translation Manifests. You should create a new Translation Manifest (and Language Manifests) to ensure you send the latest content for translation.

Each Translation Manifest has one or more associated Language Manifests—one for each language selected when the Translation Manifest was created. A Language Manifest dynamically changes to reflect the progress and status of each object within it as it moves through the defined workflow.

The Language Manifest is your central location for managing translated content in CCMS Web. If you need to edit or generate outputs for translated content, you do so from the Language Manifest.

What is "Managed by"?

Language Manifests include a column named Managed by. When you generate a localization kit, you have the option to include "Already managed" objects in this kit. What does "managed" mean?

The map you are currently localizing might share objects with other maps. Those maps might have already been localized and therefore those objects are part of the Language Manifests for those maps.

The first Language Manifest you create for a map is the one that manages all the objects shared by other maps for which you create Language Manifests later. In any later Language Manifests that share the objects, they are noted as being managed by the first Language Manifest.

For example, TopicX is shared by MapA and MapB. You localize MapA to French. The French Language Manifest for MapA is now managing TopicX. Later, you localize MapB to French. In the French Language Manifest for MapB, you see that TopicX is managed by MapA's French Language Manifest.

If the target language is different, the shared object is not managed. For example, TopicX is shared by MapA and MapB. You localize MapA to French. The French Language Manifest for MapA is now managing TopicX. Later, you localize MapB to Spanish. In the Spanish Language Manifest for MapB, TopicX is not being managed by another Language Manifest because the language is unique.

In the first example, TopicX exists only as a virtual placeholder. It's marked with a Do not translate status. After you import the localization kit for MapA, TopicX becomes a real object at Translation:in review and this is reflected in the French Language Manifests for both MapA and MapB because they are pointing to the same object.

There are three possible states for Managed by:

  • There is no managing Language Manifest
  • The object is managed by the current Language Manifest; the column reads "Current"
  • The object is managed by another Language Manifest whose name appears in the column

Normally, objects that are managed by other Language Manifests are not sent again to avoid duplication and confusion but if you want to include all the map's dependencies in the current kit, choose to include already managed objects in the kit.