The new release of miniTPMS just rolled out to your server, so let's check some cold hard facts about it.

First of all, check if you have the good release, if not, please contact support immediately and we'll fix your instance.

Remember that in miniTPMS everybody gets a whole instance of a server, it's not all one database one server, so this is why it's important to check this out. Like, rightnow.

Let's dive in.

Major updates

You might argue if this is major, but in our mind it is, because it took us too long to do it, and also, it pretty much affected the database, so there might be some actions needed from you. 

Every Workflow Task Got its Own Numbers

What does that mean? It means that unlike before, where you had three or four steps in the Workflow (for example: translation, editing, proofread, courier delivery), but only one set of "client numbers" for each component (for example, 5,000 words for translation), now you have the opportunity to set separate numbers for each step: 

- 5,000 words to translate, 5,000 words for editing, 5 hours of proofread and a fix amount for courier delivery

Why is this important?

Firstly, because sometimes clients DO pay for extra activities. Like legal review, or courier delivery. Now you will be able to set separate values for this and have them (soon) appear in the billable part of your finances. 

While TEP is maybe charged just as one price to your client, maybe the Courier Delivery in our example needs an additional EUR 10 or something. 

Do I really need to do something?

If you are using the reporting feature to create reports for your customers right now, then yes. I know it's not ideal, but life is hard 🙂 And until we don't have the appropriate finances in motion, I still prefer using this "simple stupid report" to send to my clients and let them approve our costs.

So, if you do this, then you need to "fix your numbers", but if you are not using the reporting feature for Clients then just skip the next couple of paragraphs!

What action should you take?

This database update affected the way the projects are represented in the reports, because the numbers were copied into each and every task in the language pair of one Component.

If you don't have it in your head (and why would you if you have miniTPMS with you), You should run your client reports - for those clients where your workflows consist of more tasks - from the start date when you started using the software, until "today". 

Check for duplicate rows,  such as: 

As you can see, in this instance your client ELLIE will be shown 3x the numbers in the summary, because all of the workflow steps now have the same wordcount in them. Fix it like this: Go into the appropriate component, and tweak the numbers. For example, put 0 for Client numbers for Edit and Review parts. Then when you create the next report, the summary will be OK. 

Of course, if you charge separately for all three tasks, then leave it like this. 

Is this a problem?

No, because now you know how to fix it, and only need to fix it if it affects you.

And it won't be a problem in the future either, because once we roll out the Finance module, only "billable" tasks will be shown on the reports (actually, you will have the options to show all or only billable)

Also, this only affects client reports, so there is no action needed on the vendor side. 

The Component Language-Pair Main Page got Rearranged

And now it is much nicer, check it out: 

What happened? 

Smaller updates

Let's move on to the small things. 

Announced tab on Dashboard has been renamed to "Other". Small change, but serves a greater purpose. Because when you change the status of the component to any of the new statuses. 

Tasks Dashboard Change

Old Screen looked like this, it had separate tab for Announced projects, but we realized it's not really useful. The one for Unassigned is very useful, though, especially for us, PMs who forget to give out work to appropriate people: 

So after a little thinking, we created the New Screen. All the tasks that are "On Hold", or "Announced", or "Cancelled" (like, those dead projects just before deletion) are in this tab... and the unassigned ones remained where they are. Because they were on a good place. 

And now it all looks like this: 

Then there is this one more little thing with announced tasks or those that are set to be done in the future.

For now, the tasks that are upcoming in the future are shown in the Active tab, but with a small clock showing, time is of factor here, and time meaning, it starts in the future.

Now that I have completely confused you, here's a screenshot that can help you see what was being said (check at "Vendor Start Date")

Changes to Speed up Data Entry

Finally, something to take away redundancy in our jobs. This - speeding up project entry - is something we will be working on constantly, since it's kind of a mission of mine to make data entry as fast as humanly possible.

So... if you are working in a system where you always get a completely new project (new customers each time) then this is not for you. But many localization companies  have their new "projects" being a part of one bigger, well, project (and that is why we call these small things "Components"). So you get a small chunk of the same material with a lot of redundant data. A Component of one bigger project.   

This is why from the beginning we have created a system where you can enter a client (be it LSP or end-client) and an end-client separately (if you are working for LSPs) and group them within Project Code Names, and then and only then the Component starts. 

And now, for each new project that you create and you know that it is a part of a "bigger deal" you can setup the following two things at the project level: 

And you need to set it up only once.

For example, choose TEP as a default workflow for one particular project, and choose a Default Input Group for them too. 

Next time you are creating a Component for this project, you will have TEP offered (pre-populated) at the time of creation. If you want to change it, feel free to do so, and if you forgot to change it but still need to make some tweaks, you can do it later within component. 

Same goes for the Input Group. Pick the one that suits your needs, and it will always be automatically pre-populated when you are creating new numbers for your language pairs. If the next task in the workflow is in a different unit, just pick a different input group for that workflow task.