What is the memoQ Content connector?

If your organization is a translation company, you need to access a folder that your client sets up. There are two options to arrange this. You need to agree on the setup with your client before you configure the memoQ content connector and memoQ server:

1. Your client places the contents in a shared folder – either they upload the documents by FTP, or they share the folder through a cloud storage system such as Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive. In this case, there will be a copy of this folder on your system, too. Whatever your client copies in the folder, it will appear on your end – and whatever you place in that folder, it will be copied to the client. You can then set up the memoQ content connector on your own system to watch this folder – and then the file sharing system will take care of part of the automation. In fact, it's the memoQ content connector that will place items in the folder on your behalf. This is the more reliable solution because the memoQ content connector and memoQ server can run on the same computer.
2. The folder is on a system that is run by your client. In this case, the content connector can also be set up on the client's system – because memoQ server can access the memoQ content connector over the Internet, too. However, this is the less preferred solution.

If your organization is an enterprise – for example, a software maker – that caters for its own translation needs, the setup will be easier. Both the translatable content and memoQ server will be on your end. There is no need to arrange the transfer of documents from one end to another. The memoQ content connector and memoQ server will definitely run on the same computer.

If your organization is a software maker (or has a similar activity), there will be a different challenge: the contents you need to translate will not simply be documents in file folders -- so it won't be as easy as setting up the content connector and forgetting it. The contents will probably be stored in a version control system (Subversion, Git, or CVS), or a content management system. If this is the case, you need additional software to get the contents out of the system – in the form of files, and into a folder – and put the translated contents back into it.

There is one exception: Subversion. If you store your materials in a Subversion repository, the memoQ content connector can directly connect to it. In all other cases, you will either need the automated file export/import feature of your content management system (if it has one), or you need a custom-developed module – also called a middleware module – that will get files out of the system to a folder, and that will put them back.

The memoQ content connector synchronizes two places: the document source and one or more project(s) on a memoQ server.

The most important task of the memoQ content connector is to watch for changes in the document source, and let memoQ server know when there are any changes.

There are two methods to do that:

• Poll: A passive or poll connection means that the content connector does not reach out to memoQ server. Instead, memoQ server asks the content connector periodically (say, once every hour) if there are any changes, and if there are, it is memoQ server that downloads new and changed documents. By default, both the content connector and memoQ server work this way.
• Push: An active or push connection means that the content connector sends a message to memoQ server every time there is a change in the document source. When memoQ server receives this message, it will call back to the content connector, and – again – download new and changed documents.
• In a single content connector, you can set up several different connections to several different content sources. For every connection, you can choose to use poll or push.

There are limits: Some connection sources, such as SubVersion, cannot use the Push method.

The memoQ content connector contains logic to communicate with specific content sources. memoQ server interacts with the memoQ content connector to retrieve source-language text. Through the content connector, memoQ server can also send back finished translations to the content source. memoQ server will always use the same logic to interact with the content connector, regardless of the nature of the actual content source. In other words, the memoQ content connector hides the technical specifics of the content source from memoQ.

In memoQ server, you set up content-connected projects to work with the content source. When you set up a content-connected project, you choose a specific content connection using a particular content source. The content source is essentially a folder (or another type of container) in the content provider, containing items of source-language text. When a content-connected project is created, memoQ automatically picks up new and updated items in the content source. If there are new items in the content source, they are automatically added to the content-connected memoQ project. If some items are changed, the updated items are re-imported in memoQ, and pre-translated with translation that might already be written for the previous version of the same document.

Always use templates in memoQ server: To fully automate the processing of source text, always create content-connected projects from project templates. In template-based projects, you can set up automated actions.

In the content connector, you specify content connections. A content connection more or less corresponds to a project, and specifies the following:

• Folder (or another type of container) where the source-language items are stored;
• Source language and target languages for the translation;
• Types of documents to import from the content source. The content connection can use memoQ import configurations;
• Path to the folder (or another type of container) where the finished translations are saved.

In memoQ, content connections correspond to a translation project. However, you can create several projects from one single connection

Template wins over content source: In a content source, you can set up document filter configurations for the various different documents in the source folders. However, if the template also contains filter configurations, memoQ will use the ones from the template, and not from the content connector.