How The Translation Team eliminated manual handoffs between Phrase and XTRF
Joshua Velásquez built a Phrase → BeLazy → XTRF automation that ended hundreds of monthly manual handoffs—without rebuilding the systems TTT had already chosen.
300–400
small projects managed per month
$51,300
in annual time savings identified
2 weeks
from setup to live automation
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Summary
From hundreds of manual handoffs to a fully automated pipeline
To meet the growing demand for faster and more flexible translation workflows, The Translation Team implemented BeLazy’s automation platform to connect Phrase and XTRF. This automation reduced project setup time by 30–45 minutes per project—saving over $51,000 annually—while increasing productivity and adaptability. BeLazy’s metadata-based setup and integration with Make.com gave The Translation Team the flexibility to automate without losing control, ensuring scalability for future growth.
Context & Challenge
Hundreds of projects a month, every one handled by hand
Before BeLazy, TTT ran Trados Studio Professional for translation and XTRF for business management, with nothing between them. Projects and packages were prepared in Trados and shared into XTRF by hand. XTRF’s Smart Projects didn’t bridge the gap, so every project request—and there were hundreds a month—passed through a person.
The interesting decision came next. When TTT replaced Trados with Phrase, the obvious move was XTRF’s native Phrase connector. They went the other way.
Where projects start: Phrase
Clients submit through the Phrase submitter portal, or projects are set up in Phrase directly. Phrase is the system of record for the work itself.
What BeLazy does: keeps XTRF in sync
BeLazy reads project metadata from Phrase and maintains the corresponding project in XTRF—statuses, vendor assignments, and outsourcing. Vendor assignment runs off metadata rather than a vendor manager’s judgement call on every job.
The extension layer: Make.com
For the cases BeLazy doesn’t cover out of the box, TTT calls the BeLazy app from Make.com to combine data across sources—enriching system-generated data with analysis output or file logs, and applying their own evaluation criteria.
Implementation
Six steps that took two years to get right
TTT’s rollout looked nothing like a quick deployment, and that’s the point—most of the work happened before BeLazy was involved.
1
Where projects start: Phrase
Clients submit through the Phrase submitter portal, or projects are set up in Phrase directly. Phrase is the system of record for the work itself.
2
Replacing the TMS
Trados Studio Professional gave way to Phrase as the primary translation management system. XTRF stayed. This decision set the direction of the integration that followed.
3
Getting the data in order
TTT arrived at automation with clean, organised data—not as a result of the project but as a precondition for it. This is the step most companies skip and then blame the tooling for.
4
Standardising templates in XTRF
Standardised project templates were implemented so every project followed a consistent framework. This reduced variability, simplified onboarding for new team members, guided client data input—and, critically, made the BeLazy connector possible at all. Without a predictable structure on the XTRF side, there’s nothing stable to map metadata onto.
5
Connecting Phrase, then XTRF
BeLazy was set up to sync from Phrase into XTRF, with metadata mapped to TTT’s client-specific requirements and vendor assignment rules built on top.
6
Adding Make.com
Once the core connection was running, TTT layered Make.com on for data enrichment and specialised evaluation criteria—refinement rather than foundation.
What We Learned
Two lessons that apply to every automation project
Clean data isn't preparation for automation. It's the automation.
TTT’s data was in good shape before we arrived, and their XTRF templates were already standardised. That’s the entire reason the connection went in without a fight. Where data hygiene is poor, an automation project becomes a data project first, and everyone discovers this at the same time—usually late.
Ask each project manager where their time actually goes.
Joshua’s team mapped what he calls the “time/energy thieves”: fillable fields, small manual calculations, files being moved, copied, renamed, converted. None of them look expensive on their own. Together they were costing over thirty minutes on a standard project. Mapping that digital footprint—then asking which systems could talk to each other, directly or through an integrator like Make—is where the $51,300 came from.
BeLazy supports you throughout the journey — from simple to complex. It adapts to your current context and specific needs. Every incoming job and customer can generate projects to be executed in every specific way.
Joshua Velásquez
Solutions Architect · The Translation Team
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About
The Translation Team operates under a B2B business model, working directly with clients ranging from medium-sized businesses to large corporations. Their focus is on providing Language Service (LSP) solutions for companies requiring multilingual services and large-scale translation.
Headquarters
Arizona, United States
Fields
Tags
Key Integration
XTRF
Phrase
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