There is a huge amount of programs, services and systems involved in the translation industry (CAT tools, apps, machine translation systems, etc.) for multiple users to interact with each other. API is an Application Programming Inteface thanks to which different apps and programs can communicate and understand each other.

In the translation industry, API helps relieve staff from the responsibility to send e-mails, track orders manually and reduce general amount of time spent on work. Thus, connecting your system via API helps address external services using certain kinds of software and not manually.

However, the number of used systems increases, as well as the number of interfaces, as each system has its own API. This variety makes enabling the system and its interaction between different kinds of services too expensive, since you would have to support as many different APIs as there are external systems, to which you wish to connect the APIs. This requires making changes to the user interface, which lead to changes of other APIs.

The more APIs you use in the industry, the more difficult it is to support them. Technology and business development, on the contrary, requires integration of different systems, automation of processes, and the opportunity to freely exchange data like never before.

For more details on TAPICC goals, please refer to the document "Goals of the project" posted on the GALA website at https://www.gala-global.org/publications/translation-api-class-and-cases-project-statement-tapicc

Serge Gladkoff, Logrus Global Company CEO, GALA Ambassador is one of the two co-authors of the document defining the purpose of the project.

How do you manage to follow the modern trends with so many APIs existing independently? TAPICC project that Logrus Global Company and partners develop with GALA (Globalization and Localization Association) offers a solution to this problem. TAUS and LT-Innovate together with Microsoft, SAP, Google, Mozilla and others also support the initiative.

TAPICC (Translation API Classes and Cases) is the project aimed at development of a universal API standard, which could be used by all participants of the translation services market thereby allowing for a seamless interaction between customers, services, providers and partners.

Thus, if you need to transfer data from your program to your partner system, your software will be able to use the universal API to communicate with it as if it was any other system within the same industry.

The goal of the project is to create the middleware to achieve operational compartibility of various software used by service providers, customers and industry tool developers. Such kind of ecosystem implies that each participant can work without worrying about issues of software compatibility, just making sure that their software conforms to the universal standard.

The attempts to set a single API standard have already been made in the past, but they failed either because of the insufficient scope or the low level of stakeholders' engagement. TAPICC founders approached the issue from a different perspective. One of their core objectives is to bring all participants of the translation industry together and focus them on the practical aspects of the matter. To this end, it is necessary to identify API classes and major cases of their application, combine them into a single catalog, collect data on all previous attempts of working out any API standards, set priorities and only then to begin a gradual process of the new standard development.

According to the project proponents, a standardized API will not only facilitate interaction between translation companies, clients and programmers through automation and integration of processes, but will also unite all participants in developing perfect cutting-edge standards.

Everyone is welcome to join TAPICC! Just join the GALA Connect group dedicated to the project:
https://www.gala-global.org/tapicc-translation-api-class-and-cases-initiative

Later on we are going to tell you more about the development of TAPICC, as well as about the conducted events and research results. New posts are on their way!