Training the trainer for memoQ

On March 4, 2010 on the day before the memoQfest 2010 conference, Kilgray held a special day of training for memoQ experts to help them better understand the many changes in the latest version of the translation environment tool. Trainers from around the world - Canada, the USA, Germany France, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Finland, the UK and elsewhere - came to learn about the latest advances and key developments to come.

Topics covered included (in a more logical order than in this list):

• permissions management
• offline synchronization
• online projects
• termbase rights
• licensing and license management
• project workflows for translation and review
• project management reporting including post-analyses
• notifications for online project participants
• RTF tables for translation and review
• memoQ resources for settings, etc. and how to share and publish them for online and offline projects
• multilingual project configuration
• online project forums, messaging and chat
• PM through handoff packages and delivery
• splitting large files and selecting portions in online projects using views; local views exported as MQ bilinguals for the online project
• setup a local project and publish it to the server (publish ONLY views is possible)
• filtering strategies using views for project management efficiency, locking out matches, etc.

The event was held in Kilgray's new offices in a beautiful old building whose electrical circuit breakers were severely challenged by over 20 translators plugging into a single circuit in the training room.

The delivery was informal and flexible with plenty of opportunities to clarify situations encountered in real situations with clients. The long lunch break also provided an excellent opportunity for networking and discussion with colleagues and the Kilgray team as well as great food. The presentation was made in roughly equal parts by Gabor Ugray, Kilgray's head of development, and Gergely Vándor, the Kilgray lifecycle manager.

Denis Hay, who recently joined Kilgray and works remotely in support from southern France made numerous valuable contributions to the discussions as he has always done as an expert user of DVX and memoQ software. His creative, user-oriented approach to problems is a perfect fit with Kilgray's philosophy and long-term practice. His occasional comments on possible applications added a lot to what was learned.

A representative from Kilgray's office in Austin, Texas shared news in the breaks and at the party later that evening of developments on the US market and communication issues there. Angelika Zerfass, one of Germany's premiere trainers for CAT tools and a noted expert for SDL systems also shared interesting perspectives on the German market. Agencies and corporations in the German-speaking countries have an excellent resource in Ms. Zerfass if they want a neutral, competent overview of this technology. Her English is also superb, so communication with clients in that language is no problem at all.

Overall, the day provided memoQ experts with a lot of valuable material to assist their clients and employers in planning and managing their translation projects. I left with many ideas for guidelines and training materials to assist my readers and clients with this user-friendly, cost-saving, efficiency-boosting technology. And I'm looking forward to tomorrow's pre-conference workshops.