Overview

The Translations module enables multilingual collaboration by allowing document and free-text translations directly within Alluvial.

It is powered by Azure AI Translator, a cloud-based neural machine translation service.

  • Basic Translation – Available by default for supported languages.
  • Custom Translation – Allows specialized translation models for domain-specific language needs.

Getting Started

Enable Translations

Translations are not enabled by default.

You can enable this module when:

In Project Administration, enable the module from the dropdown.

Select a processing region for the translation service.

Once enabled, the Translations card appears in the Administration menu:

Core Concepts

Basic vs. Custom Translation

  • Basic Translation uses the default translation service for supported languages.
  • Custom Translation uses a model associated with a Translation Objective so translations can be tailored to a specific domain or terminology set.

Translation Objectives

A Translation Objective defines:

  • Source and target languages
  • Processing region
  • Subject matter domain

Translation Objectives are required only when you want to use Custom Translations.

Document vs. Free Form Text Translation

  • Document Translation is used when you want to translate uploaded files.
  • Free Form Text Translation is used when you want to translate text entered directly into the interface.

Common Tasks

From your project dashboard, open the Translations dropdown and choose:

  • Basic Translations
  • Custom Translations (if using a Translation Objective)

From the translation search pages, you can:

  1. View previous translation results.
  2. Create a Document Translation.
  3. Create a Free Form Text Translation.
  4. Export Details (Excel) of translation history.

Create a Translation Objective

This is required only for Custom Translations.

  1. Click CREATE NEW.
  1. Complete the form.
  • Project Name – Name of the Translation Objective.
  • Region – Closest processing region for performance.
  • Domain – Subject matter domain.
  • Source Language – Language of original content.
  • Target Language – Language to translate into.
  • Is Active – Defaults to “Yes”; can be set to “No” later.

IMPORTANT: After saving, only the Project Name and Is Active fields can be modified.

  1. Save to return to the objectives list.

Create a Basic Document Translation

  1. From the project dashboard, go to Basic Translations -> Document Translation in the ACTIONS menu.
  2. Complete the form.

Example: Uploading こんにちは、ユーザー.txt ("Hello, user").

  1. Save and wait for processing.
  1. Download the translated file once ready.

Create a Basic Free Form Text Translation

  1. From the project dashboard, go to Basic Translations -> Free Form Text Translation in the ACTIONS menu.
  2. Enter text and click TRANSLATE.
  1. The translated output appears below.

Delete Translation Records

  • Use the vertical ellipses (⁝) for a single record.
  • Select multiple records, then click SELECTION → Delete in bulk.

Additional Functionality

Custom Document Translation

Custom Translations follow the same process as Basic, but require selecting a Model from a Translation Objective.

Exporting Translation Details

From the Translations search page, select Export Details (Excel) from the ACTIONS menu to download a file containing metadata of past translations.