New translation project management tool: we are looking for beta-testers!
Thread poster: Linguition
Linguition
Linguition
Local time: 01:25
Mar 17, 2013

Hello,

We are launching a new translation project management tool: Linguition.

What is Linguition?

Linguition tries to improve the way translations projects are managed.

Whether you are a translation agency or a freelancer, Linguition allows you to manage your translation projects in just a few clicks.

We keep track of your quotes, projects, invoices, purchase orders, etc. The simplicity of our user-friendly system me
... See more
Hello,

We are launching a new translation project management tool: Linguition.

What is Linguition?

Linguition tries to improve the way translations projects are managed.

Whether you are a translation agency or a freelancer, Linguition allows you to manage your translation projects in just a few clicks.

We keep track of your quotes, projects, invoices, purchase orders, etc. The simplicity of our user-friendly system means the communication between projects managers, experts and other people involved is clear and precise.

Linguition runs in a browser or can be installed as a desktop application. That way you can use it anywhere.
We want to offer an all-in-one easy solution. To achieve that, we take care of everything: server installation, updates, backup of your files, etc.

And because security and data integration are important, all the communication between you and the server is encrypted. Your files are versioned and backed-up every time you update them. We also copy them to another datacenter. The workload is distributed over multiple servers, allowing us to handle any trouble we might face.

Want to be part of the beta-test phase?

Linguition is a new product and to make it better, we need you!

Do you want to be part of our project? Go and register on our sign up page. You will then be able to access the application for a first 3 month period. You won’t be charged anything!

At the end of this 3 month period, we will decide whether we continue with beta-testing or we go live. If we choose to go live, you will have two options: you continue with us and you will then receive a new free period (the trial period of your subscription), or you prefer to stop and you won’t have to do anything.

Any question? We would be happy to help you! Please send an email to [email protected].


Regards,

The Linguition team

logo linguition

http://www.linguition.com
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Rolf Keller
Rolf Keller
Germany
Local time: 01:25
English to German
A cloud service is a cloud service, not a tool. Mar 17, 2013

Linguition wrote:

And because security and data integration are important, all the communication between you and the server is encrypted. Your files are versioned and backed-up every time you update them. We also copy them to another datacenter. The workload is distributed over multiple servers, allowing us to handle any trouble we might face.


Let me translate the above: "Our clients' data (including the data of our clients' clients) are stored & managed on our systems somewhere in the world. And they are inspectable by us."

Confidentiality? Reliability? NDAs? Country-specific laws? No problem. No problem?


 
Linguition
Linguition
Local time: 01:25
TOPIC STARTER
Linguition Mar 18, 2013

Hello Rolf,

It is a really good question, actually. In our Terms of Service, we have a chapter concerning the data protection:

1. Any personal data that we would collect shall be used for administration purposes only, including provision of the Service, billing, identification and authentication.
2. We use cookies to store some visitors' preferences, gather usage statistics and record session information.
3. All personal information we store can be viewed a
... See more
Hello Rolf,

It is a really good question, actually. In our Terms of Service, we have a chapter concerning the data protection:

1. Any personal data that we would collect shall be used for administration purposes only, including provision of the Service, billing, identification and authentication.
2. We use cookies to store some visitors' preferences, gather usage statistics and record session information.
3. All personal information we store can be viewed and updated at any time.
4. You retain all rights to your personal data even though some of the hardware, software, storage, networking and related technology belong to third-party vendors.

Concerning the fact that we could access your data, like we explain in the Terms of Service, we only access your data for administration. We don’t have any other interface that would allow a member of the team to see or access other data than the ones used for administration. You retain all the rights on them and you can remove them whenever you want. Finally, the file manager is not mandatory to work with Linguition, it is something we have put in place in order to make your life easier. If you think your files are safer on your personal computer and if you have good reasons to think so, I would say that you should continue this way.

If the server location is an issue for you, we can say that there are located in Amsterdam and the backup ones are located in Dublin. Like we explained, we have put that in place in order to handle troubles. Imagine there is an earthquake in Amsterdam, Dublin would automatically take it over, allowing you to continue working.

I hope I have replied to your concerns.

Have a nice day,

C.
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wotswot
wotswot  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 01:25
Member (2011)
French to English
You miss the point Mar 18, 2013

Location of hosted data is what matters most to freelancers like us.
Ideally it should be hosted locally, not in the cloud.
I work wih a few large agencies who assure me their TMS is hosted locally (i.e. in their premises). I refuse to work with any agency that relies solely on the cloud.

And most freelancers worth their salt don't want anyone else to do their billing!


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 01:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Are we not businesses? Mar 18, 2013

wotswot wrote:
Location of hosted data is what matters most to freelancers like us.


For me, it really doesn't matter, as long as I have a local backup and as long as service outages are quickly fixed. And as long as the online service offers benefits over doing things offline.

If you live in a region with stable, reliable internet, there is no reason why you should not use an online service for critical aspects of your business. Some say "your internet might go down", yes, but so might your electricity supply, and that is no reason not to use a computer.

And most freelancers worth their salt don't want anyone else to do their billing!


This is, in my opinion, quite an illogical thing to say. Freelancers are translation businesses, and businesses make use of outside services for a variety of things. There is nothing wrong with using an outside company to take care of your billing and office management. In fact, if you can integrate your business with such a service, you can do more translation work.


 
Stanislav Pokorny
Stanislav Pokorny  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
Local time: 01:25
English to Czech
+ ...
Indeed Mar 18, 2013

wotswot wrote:

Location of hosted data is what matters most to freelancers like us.
Ideally it should be hosted locally, not in the cloud.

That's why I like my Projetex: the Firebird server is installed in my home-based server and I can use the Projetex client to connect to the server from any of my machines and from any location.

No cloud, no data hosting, no confidentiality issues...


 
Linguition
Linguition
Local time: 01:25
TOPIC STARTER
Data management and Invoicing Mar 18, 2013

Hello wotswot,

wotswot wrote:
Location of hosted data is what matters most to freelancers like us.
Ideally it should be hosted locally, not in the cloud.
I work wih a few large agencies who assure me their TMS is hosted locally (i.e. in their premises). I refuse to work with any agency that relies solely on the cloud.


Like I said in my previous post, the files manager could be seen as a « plugin », it is not mandatory to use it. Now not everybody can invest or has the IT skills to buy and configure servers with upgrade, maintenance, backup, etc.
We want to provide a solution which is handling all these aspects for you.

wotswot wrote:
And most freelancers worth their salt don't want anyone else to do their billing!


We think invoicing is a time-consuming task. Linguition offers to manage that for you by creating the invoices according to the settings you define for your customers: time zone, language, taxes, timing (at the end of the project, at the end of the month or after a certain amount). It also manages multi payments, tracks the unpaid invoices, manages reminders, credit notes, etc.
We don’t send the invoices with a preformatted email for you. We generate an invoice in pdf and you can then handle it the way you want (send it by email, mail, fax or any other format).


 
wotswot
wotswot  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 01:25
Member (2011)
French to English
@Stanislav, @Samuel Mar 18, 2013

Stanislav,

Sounds great, tell us more about Projetex!

Samuel,

I beg to differ.

First of all, I've written my own back office program, which does all my admin. in just a few clicks, billing in particular. On average I issue 20 bills a month. My program prints them out locally (for my accountant) IN MY FORMAT (French leglislation is particularly strict in this respect, and doing this via a third-party tool would simply duplicate the process and
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Stanislav,

Sounds great, tell us more about Projetex!

Samuel,

I beg to differ.

First of all, I've written my own back office program, which does all my admin. in just a few clicks, billing in particular. On average I issue 20 bills a month. My program prints them out locally (for my accountant) IN MY FORMAT (French leglislation is particularly strict in this respect, and doing this via a third-party tool would simply duplicate the process and waste time, since I have to do it locally anyway) then e-mails them to the customers and books them in my sales ledger, all in under 5 minutes.
If one follows your logic, agencies will soon be offering to do our book-keeping!!!

Secondly, different agencies have different TMSs! I work for five large agencies, each of which has its own online TMS (different formats, different procedures, etc.).
A real waste of time.

On top of which, I find this trend of "hand-holding", "spoon-feeding" by agencies really pathetic. Of course we freelancers are businesses, but in using such systems the agencies treat us like children, not like grown-ups who are proud to be self-employed and who control the whole production chain, from order-taking to billing and book-keeping.

You appear to have a very different view of small business. I believe the less we rely on outside services, the better it is for us in the long run. As I've demonstrated, these cloud-based systems agencies use waste far more of my time than my own system. My billing takes me five minutes a month, far less time than if I had to log on to 20 different agency portals to calculate and upload the bills I've already calculated, issued and e-mailed myself!
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wotswot
wotswot  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 01:25
Member (2011)
French to English
@Linguition Mar 18, 2013

You too miss the point!!!

I don't want you to do all my billing. That would be tantamount to giving you the details of ALL MY CLIENTS, and notwithstanding your assurances of confidentiality, etc., there is no guarantee that in the future some unscrupulous employee or part-time worker you hire would not steal all this information.

My home-made system (admittedly I have the necessary computing skills) does everything you offer. So you are obviously targeting translators w
... See more
You too miss the point!!!

I don't want you to do all my billing. That would be tantamount to giving you the details of ALL MY CLIENTS, and notwithstanding your assurances of confidentiality, etc., there is no guarantee that in the future some unscrupulous employee or part-time worker you hire would not steal all this information.

My home-made system (admittedly I have the necessary computing skills) does everything you offer. So you are obviously targeting translators who don't necessarily have the time or computing skills to set up their own bullet-proof system.

But more importantly, systems like yours are (maybe unwittingly) preying on the vulnerability of translators who (imprudently in my humbe opinion) let themselves be seduced by online cloud-based solutions that are too good to be true and that insidiously open the door to breaches of privacy. Have you not followed all the scandals surrounding Facebook, a much larger organization than yours I suspect?

I don't doubt that you are acting with good intentions. But I feel that you haven't really thought things through. You may well win over a few people (probably the under-30s), but I don't think you'll win over many seasoned freelancers who are all too aware of the risks involved in entrusting their personal and business data to the cloud! Call me old-fashioned, I don't care! For me, the cloud = nebulous, obscureness, etc.
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 01:25
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@wotswot Mar 18, 2013

wotswot wrote:
If one follows your logic, agencies will soon be offering to do our book-keeping!!!


I'm afraid I don't see how "my logic" leads to such a conclusion. Note that although the tool can be used by agencies, it can also be used by freelancers, and my comments relate to its use by freelance translators who have multiple clients that do not use this system.

Secondly, different agencies have different TMSs! I work for five large agencies, each of which has its own online TMS (different formats, different procedures, etc.). A real waste of time.


Yes, but that is not relevant here. Whether agencies have different TMSes or all use the same TMS does not affect the usefulness of job-and-invoice tracking software for translators. The fact that different agencies have different TMSes does not affect your self-designed system either, does it?

You appear to have a very different view of small business. I believe the less we rely on outside services, the better it is for us in the long run.


I believe that freelance translators should do the tasks that they are capable of doing themselves themselves, and decide or determine which tasks can be done better or cheaper by someone else, and then pay for that service. This applies to everything from cleaning your office to fixing your computer to fetching children from school to doing bookkeeping to filing taxes to managing data backups to... etc.

If you can do something yourself, better and cheaper than if you had paid someone to do it, then do it yourself. But if you choose to do something yourself, make sure that the reason for that is that you had deliberately decided to do so, and not simply because you were unable to figure out whether it is better for you to do so, or because you have an independence complex.

As I've demonstrated, these cloud-based systems agencies use waste far more of my time than my own system. My billing takes me five minutes a month, far less time than if I had to log on to 20 different agency portals...


Isn't the assumption here that you would not be logging on to 20 systems but to just one?


 
Ambrose Li
Ambrose Li  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 20:25
English
+ ...
Really? Mar 20, 2013

wotswot wrote:

And most freelancers worth their salt don't want anyone else to do their billing!



This is news to me. Might be true for translators, but for freelancers in general this is certainly untrue.


 


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