Creating a new job

Nov 5, 2019

This guide describes how to create jobs in Whooshing Deadlines. The functions and features of the numbered elements shown on the left below are described next to their corresponding numbers.

Whooshing Deadlines offers two basic options for creating translation jobs: a) the New job button in the top left corner of the Calendar view, and b) clicking on the day or days of the week.

a) Clicking on the New job button opens a new window for entering assignment-related data. The default job start date is the current date and the deadline is set in seven days.

b) If you want to create a new job for Monday and Tuesday, for example, place the mouse cursor over Monday (in the example, over ’15 Monday’), drag it horizontally towards Tuesday until both days are painted and then release the mouse button. A Job entry window opens with Monday the 15th as the start date and Tuesday the 16th as the end date.

In both cases, you can modify the dates by clicking on the respective field (see No. 2 below).

1. You can name the job freely using, for example, a project number and a customer identifier, or copy it from the customer’s email, purchase order or similar.
Select the customer, the correct language pair and possible specialization from respective drop-down menus (menus are generated based on the data you have saved in basic settings).
Invoicing unit is the unit set as the default in the basic settings but you are free to change it from one assignment to the next.
To change the job’s colour code, click on the coloured square below the specialization. The job will show in this colour in the Calendar view.

2. Use the calendar icon and time fields to adjust the job’s start date and end date. To change dates, click on the date field and then the appropriate date on the calendar. For hours and minutes, use the plus and minus buttons to add or subtract (15-minute increments).
Remaining available working hours for the selected days is displayed below the dates. In the example, the time zone saved in Customer data is Eastern Standard Time (usually 7 hours behind the time in Finland). Agreed deadline is noon Eastern Standard Time. The correct end time is easy to enter using the time displayed by your computer’s clock as both the zones are shown simultaneously.

3. Enter the scope and price of the job. If the saved customer data contains a price for the selected language pair and invoicing unit, the system exports it to respective fields. Working speed is also automatically retrieved from the settings if defined for the selected language pair in the selected invoicing unit. Any data can always be supplemented or modified by keying in the correct information. The scope of job and the working speed are the only mandatory data and must be entered separately if they cannot be retrieved from the settings. Once entered, the Job completed checkbox appears (3a – see Editing and completing the job for more information).
You can set a difficulty level or a time factor for the assignment upon creation or as the work progresses. If you believe the job is more time-consuming than your average projects, use a time factor greater than 1. If you think you can complete the assignment faster than you normally do, use a factor starting with 0. The time needed to complete the job changes accordingly. The time factor can also be defined in the settings by specialization.

Click on the Calculate total price button and Whooshing Deadlines quickly calculates the total price for the job based on its scope and unit price. Calculate job scope button reverses the action: click on it, and the system calculates a weighted word count if the job is subject to translation memory discounts (total price divided by unit price).
If the customer has been set a minimum price, the Use minimum price button appears in the job creation window. If the price based on volume and unit price or time is lower than the minimum price agreed with the customer, clicking on the minimum price button imports the minimum price to the Total price field.

4. A More information field is available for any additional data you deem necessary or it can be left blank. To open the field, click on the down arrow or the More information text line. Any entered elements will appear in job data and reports. If the field contains no text, the system disregards it.

5. Whooshing Deadlines calculates the estimated total hours needed to complete the job and divides them by available working days within the defined period. Both calculations are displayed at the bottom of the New job window, as is the longest estimated working day in hours when all the assignments booked for the said days are taken into account. If the longest workday exceeds the daily working time specified in the basic settings, Whooshing Deadlines draws your attention to it with red overtime! text.

Finish by clicking on Accept, and the job appears in the Calendar view as a coloured block, the height of which corresponds to the daily worktime required by the translation over the chosen period. Faded block on Tuesday indicates that the job is scheduled to end that day. If there is no fade, the assignment rolls over to the next available working day.

Job tracker

Jul 30, 2018

Whooshing Deadlines’ Job tracker allows you to track the time spent on each assignment. To open, select a job in the Calendar view with right mouse button (right-click). The job tracker field appears at the top of the page, to the left of the clock. Tracker name field appears in the same colour as the job that is being tracked. The running of the tracker is indicated with a text and a flashing red ball at the top of the tracker window. To pause the tracker when taking a break, for example, press the button with two vertical lines. Corresponding text and an orange ball appear. To close the tracker, press the X button. The system stores the time in the job data.

Tracked time is displayed at the bottom left of the job editing window (opens by clicking on the said job in the Calendar view). To change the time, click on the hour or minute field and key in a new value. This is a useful feature should you forget to start the tracker or pause it when taking a break. The tracker count can also be included in reports.

A job or Whooshing Deadlines settings cannot be opened with the tracker running. After pressing X, a pop-up window appears asking for a confirmation. Select Yes to stop the tracker and to perform the other action. Otherwise, press No. Using the tracker does not prevent you from performing other operations, such as creating new jobs, finalizing tasks or reports.

Tip:

Consistent tracking of your hours across all jobs combined with up-to-date price information allows you to compare the profitability of your work by customer or other variable. Both time and price data are displayed in reports. If you want to find out, for example, your hourly earnings from a particular customer’s jobs in the past year, simply divide the total price with the total tracker count. These average earnings may prove useful in a situation where you need to weigh between two potential projects and do not have time for both.

Työn kopiointi

Jul 30, 2018

Jos teet usein samanlaisina toistuvia töitä tai esimerkiksi useita samalla projektinumerolla tehtäviä käännöksiä, voit kopioida aiempia töitä sen sijaan, että syöttäisit työn tiedot aina uudelleen. Avaa haluamasi työ napsauttamalla ja paina avautuvan työn muokkausikkunan alalaidassa olevaa Kopioi työ -painiketta (ks. Muokkaa työtä -ikkunan kuva edellä). Kaikki edeltävän työn asetukset lisätietokentän sisältöä myöten kopioidaan uuteen työhön yksi yhteen – mutta uuden työn deadlineksi ehdotetaan viikkoa myöhäisempää aikaa kuin edeltävällä työllä. Tee tarvittavat muutokset esimerkiksi kopioidun työn toimitusaikaan ja laajuuteen, ja hyväksy työ tavalliseen tapaan, niin se ilmestyy lukujärjestysnäkymään.

Creating finalizing tasks

Jul 30, 2018

Whooshing Deadlines’ finalizing task function is intended for projects where an editor, a proofreader or the customer will send your translation back to you for additional work. The function allows you to take this additional time into account when planning your schedule without having to re-create a new job from scratch.

The handiest option is to create the finalizing task in the Edit window while marking the translation as completed. The Create finalizing task button activates once the job has been marked as completed (see top image). Press the button and a new window appears, ready for you to enter necessary details (see second image from the top). The finalizing task’s customer, language pair, specialization and colour are copied from the finished assignment. The word ‘finalizing’ is added in front of the assignment name but you are free to edit or delete it.

By default, the app suggests the deadline of 2 pm on the following day, but you can change it as necessary, especially if the next day is not a working day. As with other jobs, the deadline must fall on a day marked as a working day. The default price is zero, because these type of ‘review rounds’ are often included in the price of the actual translation. If this is not the case, you can enter the total price when creating the job or modify the job data accordingly. In Whooshing Deadlines, finalizing tasks are always time-based, meaning that you need to estimate the time required to the nearest 15 minutes. Use the plus/minus buttons next to the hour and minute boxes to edit the duration of the job. If you like, you can use the Job tracker to monitor the time used.

You can also create finalizing jobs in the Calendar view by clicking on the New finalizing task button in its upper-left corner, but in this case, you must enter all job data from scratch.

Finalizing tasks are displayed in the Calendar view with an orange border around them (see second image from the bottom). The ‘height’ of the task depends on its selected duration. Please note that finalizing tasks are intended to be completed within a single workday and cannot be stretched into several days.

Finalizing tasks are completed the same as other jobs: click on the task in the Calendar view to open its edit window (see the bottom-most image). In the edit window, you can mark the task as finished and invoiced, or modify any of its details. Click on Accept to save the changes or undo them by selecting Cancel. You can also delete the task. (See also Editing and completing a job.)

Finalizing tasks appear in reports like all other jobs.

Tip:

If you do not receive a separate compensation for the finalizing task, you can omit it by clicking on Delete task once completed instead of marking it as completed. This way, the task does not appear in reports as a separate job. To avoid any time distortions, you can include the time used on finalizing the assignment in the original translation work. Simply go to the Calendar view, open the original job and add the finalizing task’s Job tracker count to that of the original job in the edit window (see Editing and completing a job).

Tip:

Finalizing tasks are intended for minor corrections done within a day. In the event of large projects and more extensive revisions that take several days to complete, create a new job as usual. Finalizing tasks cannot be stretched into more than one day.

Editing and completing a job

Jul 30, 2018

To change the details of a job you created, or to mark it as completed, open the job by clicking on it in the Calendar view. If the Job tracker is running, Whooshing Deadlines asks if you want to stop the tracker and open the job for editing. Answer Yes and the tracker count is saved in job data and the edit window appears. Edit window resembles the New job window with a few additional features including the Job completed field and the Copy job and Delete job buttons.

Edit the information you want and click on Save to exit. Changes related to the duration or scheduling of the job are exported to the graphic Calendar view and the modifications are saved.

To mark a job as finished, open it by clicking on its name in the Calendar view and check the Job completed box in the middle of the window. The default completion time is the current time but you can change it, if necessary, with plus/minus buttons. When you exit the window by pressing Save, the job shrinks to a single cell with a green border displayed in the Calendar view on the day of its completion (see 26 Tuesday in the adjacent image).

You can mark jobs as completed only during working days. Therefore, if you work on a day marked as Not available, the app offers the next available morning as the time of completion. If you insist on marking a Not available day as the day of completion, you must first change it to a working day by clicking on the weekly grid in the upper-right corner of the Calendar view.

If a finished translation will be returned to you after, for example, a review round or layout, you can create a finalizing task.

Once the job has been marked as completed, the Job invoiced checkbox appears in the edit window. You can mark jobs as invoiced one by one or in a batch by going to the Report view and pressing the Mark all as invoiced button. Invoiced jobs are displayed in white on a green background (see Monday in the adjacent image).

Tip:
Thanks to its customization features, Whooshing Deadlines provides a handy tool for initial planning and scheduling of jobs. As negotiations progress, new, more precise project details are easy to add, or the assignment can be altogether deleted. All job-specific information can be edited at any stage, even after the job is marked as completed or invoiced. For example, if during the translation process you notice that the work progresses faster or slower than anticipated, you can modify the time factor, that is, the difficulty of the job. Once the updated time factor has been saved, Whooshing Deadlines recalculates the time needed to complete the job and calibrates the height of the respective column in the Calendar view. The same happens if you change the deadline or the scope of job in either direction.
Tip:
If you frequently work on similar assignments or, for example, do several translations under a single project number, you can copy earlier jobs instead of re-entering the same information. Click to open the job you want to work with and then press the Copy job button at the bottom of the edit window (see edit window above). Whooshing Deadlines copies all existing settings, including the content of the More information field, to the new job with one exception: the suggested deadline is a week later than that of the previous job. Modify the deadline, the scope of work, any other job details as needed and save it as usual. The job appears in the Calendar view.