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GlobalLink is a cloud-based, vendor-agnostic technology platform that optimizes translation management for Enterprise and SMB companies. It helps users in delivering and maintaining multilingual websites quickly and affordably. GlobalLink provides a comprehensive solution for creating, managing, and delivering multilingual content across various platforms.

With the GlobalLink Enterprise app for Blackbird, you can automate your translation workflows by creating submissions, uploading files for translation, monitoring submission statuses, downloading translated content, and integrating these operations with other business processes.

Before setting up

Before you can connect to GlobalLink Enterprise through Blackbird, you need to make sure that:

  • You have a GlobalLink account with appropriate access permissions
  • You know your GlobalLink API endpoint URL
  • You have a valid username and password for authentication
  • You have a Basic Auth Token for API access

Connecting

  1. Navigate to apps and search for GlobalLink Enterprise
  2. Click Add Connection
  3. Name your connection for future reference e.g., ‘My GlobalLink’
  4. Fill in the following fields:
    • Base URL: Your GlobalLink API endpoint (e.g., https://api.globallink.com)
    • Username: Your GlobalLink username
    • Password: Your GlobalLink password
    • Basic auth token: Your GlobalLink API Basic Auth token
  5. Click Connect
  6. Confirm that the connection has appeared and the status is Connected

connection

Actions

Submission management

  • Create submission: Creates a new translation submission with specified source and target languages, project details and due date.

Important: When creating a submission, you can set the Target format parameter. By default it’s set to TXLF, which is GlobalLink’s recommended format. This converts supported files to TXLF format (XLIFF 1.2 with GlobalLink extensions) which you’ll receive when downloading source files. If you prefer to work with original file formats, set Target format to Non parsable.

  • Get submission: Retrieves detailed information about a specific submission using its ID.
  • Start submission: First analyzes and then starts a submission, initiating the translation workflow process.
  • Claim submission: Claims a submission for processing at a specific phase.

File management

  • Upload source file: Uploads a source file to a submission for translation.

  • Upload reference file: Uploads a reference file to a submission on submission level. Reference files provide context for translators.

  • Upload target file: Uploads a translated file to a submission and waits for the process to finish successfully.

    Important: The file name must not be modified in any way. It is encoded in the filename and is essential for the upload process to work correctly.

  • Download source files: Downloads source files from a submission at a specific phase.

  • Download target files: Downloads translated files from a completed submission.

Events

GlobalLink Enterprise app provides polling-based events for monitoring submissions:

  • On submission created: A polling event that periodically checks for new submissions. This event triggers only for submissions with the status Active that have been claimed by the user, ensuring they’re ready for translation processing.
  • On submission completed: A polling event that periodically checks for completed submissions. If completed submissions are found, the event is triggered.

Translation workflow automation

A typical GlobalLink Enterprise translation workflow in Blackbird might include:

  1. Creating a submission with appropriate source and target languages
  2. Uploading source content files to the submission
  3. Optionally adding reference materials to assist translators
  4. Starting the submission to begin the translation process
  5. Claiming the submission for processing
  6. Using polling events to monitor the submission status

For effective automation, you’ll typically need to use next polling events:

  • First bird (or checkpoint): Triggered by On submission created event

    • Download source files
    • Translate them using your preferred translation app (e.g., DeepL)
    • Upload the translated files back to the submission

  • Second bird (or checkpoint): Triggered by On submission completed

    • Download the finalized translated files
    • Process them as needed (e.g., upload to a CMS, notify stakeholders)

This workflow allows for fully automated end-to-end translation processing with minimal manual intervention.

Example

Here’s a simple example of how to set up a translation workflow with GlobalLink Enterprise and Contentful CMS:

Part 1: Submission creation and source upload

Submission creation and upload

Part 2: Starting the submission and translation processing

Translation process with OpenAI

Part 3: Delivery to CMS

Downloading and pushing to Contentful

This bird uses On submission completed checkpoint to trigger once the translation is finished. It downloads the translated files and pushes them to a Contentful CMS.

Feedback

Do you want to use this app or do you have feedback on our implementation? Reach out to us using the established channels or create an issue.