Automatic Page Translator - FAQ

Automated translation

Why should I use the automated translation solution?

Manually translating intranet content is very time-consuming. This is where our solution helps to save time and therefore costs.

For example, automated translation is worthwhile if you need to translate into many different languages for which translators may or may not be available. It can be said that the more national languages are supported, the more worthwhile machine translation is.

The solution can also be worthwhile for a small number of languages because it relieves the manual translator of work and makes him more of a reviewer.

What does automatic translation of an article mean?

Automated machine translation of articles created in SharePoint Online. Their content is sent to a translator service in the Microsoft cloud, where it is analysed and processed. These translated articles can then be reviewed and published on the intranet.

Can specific words be excluded from the automated translation?

The translator service used must offer this function. In the case of Microsoft Translator, a so-called custom translator can be used for this purpose. However, additional training is required for its use.

What is the difference to browser plugins for translation?

Some browsers have functions or installable plug-ins for machine translation of displayed content for the reader.

Here, the content of the currently displayed article is sent to a translator service in the cloud by the reader manually calling up the function and is then machine-translated and displayed in the browser.

This does not change or add anything to the original article on the intranet!

Which translator service is used?

The solution uses Microsoft Translator. This is also used by Microsoft itself for automated translation in the services. More information on this can be found here on the Microsoft website. In particular, more details on the compliance of this service can be found here.

Can alternative machine translation services be used?

The solution is architecturally designed in such a way that it can work relatively easily with alternative machine translators if they offer an interface (API). One example is DeepL.

Are there any costs for machine translation?

Yes, good quality automated translation services are chargeable! The costs incurred are significantly lower than labour costs for manual translation.

Microsoft Translator charges per character based on the amount of text translated. This means that for the word „OTTO“ with 4 letters in 2 foreign languages, 8 characters are charged.

Microsoft Translator currently offers a free entry-level version with a monthly free quota of 2 million characters. Assuming a text length of 800 words per intranet article, this amounts to 8480 characters in the German language (according to Duden, an average of 10.6 letters per word). If we add the punctuation marks here, as these are also processed, and round up to 8,600 characters per article, the free quota is sufficient for approx. 116 articles in two foreign languages.

What is important here in relation to data protection?

Names of employees are usually published on the intranet. These are personal data within the meaning of the GDPR. Therefore, the intranet must be included in the record of processing activities (Article 30) even without automated translation.

A semi- or fully automated translation of these articles on the intranet in an external translation service in the cloud also constitutes so-called order processing (Article 28).

Therefore, please consult your data protection officer!