Auto-translation settings

Auto-translation Settings

The Auto-translation Settings screen is your central control panel for keeping every piece of DPMS content available in all the languages your organisation uses. Instead of manually translating hundreds of records — processing activities, vendor entries, tasks, DPIAs, and more — you can trigger machine-translation jobs for any or all element types from a single table and watch progress update in real time. This screen is exclusively for platform superadmins: it sits inside IT Settings and works hand-in-hand with the language and AI provider configuration you have already set up elsewhere.

How to open it

Navigate to IT Settings in the left-hand sidebar, then click Auto-translations in the IT Settings sub-navigation. You will land on a summary card labelled "Auto-translations Job."

Heads up: This screen is only visible and accessible to users with the superadmin role. If a colleague with DPO or IT-admin rights reports they cannot find it, that is by design — it is not a misconfiguration.

What you see

The Auto-translation Settings experience consists of two connected views. When you first arrive, you see a clean summary card — a single "Auto-translations Job" heading with an Edit button. Its only purpose is to confirm you are in the right place and to give you the entry point into the job management table.

Clicking Edit takes you to the job management view, which looks noticeably different. There is no element sidebar or status selector here; instead, the entire page is dominated by a wide data table listing every DPMS element type — Records of Processing Activities, Vendors, Tasks, DPIAs, Incidents, and so on. Above the table sits a prominent blue Autotranslate All button. A small back arrow in the top-left corner returns you to the summary card at any time.

Each row in the table represents one element type. You can see at a glance how many records exist, how many are missing translations in at least one of your configured languages, how many have already been sent to the translation engine, when the last job ran, and what the current job status is. The status column is the most visual: coloured icons tell you instantly whether a job is queued (hollow grey circle), actively translating (spinning blue circle), waiting for results from the external service (blue globe icon), or fully up to date (green tick).

Working with this screen

Translating all content for the first time (or after adding a new language)

This is the most common reason to come here. Suppose you have just added French as a target language in IT Settings. Every existing record now has a missing translation, and the "Missing Translations" column will show large numbers across all rows.

• From the summary card, click Edit to open the job management table.
• Do not select any checkboxes — leave all rows unchecked.
• Click the blue Autotranslate All button at the top of the table.

The button briefly dims and becomes unclickable while your request is sent. Once it re-enables, the system has queued jobs for every element type. Within seconds, the table begins refreshing automatically every five seconds: status icons change from blank to Open, then to In Progress or Sent as the translation engine works through each type. You do not need to stay on the page — the jobs run on the server whether you are watching or not. When you return, any element type showing the green No Missing icon is fully translated.

Re-translating a single element type after adding new records

Your compliance team has entered thirty new vendor records this week. Only the Vendors element type needs fresh translations — running a full system-wide job would be unnecessary.

• Open the job management table via Edit.
• Find the Vendors row. Confirm the "Missing Translations" column shows the expected count.
• Click the per-row Autotranslate button on the far right of that row.

The button disables briefly, the request is sent for Vendors only, and within the next polling cycle (up to five seconds) the Vendors row status changes to In Progress. No other rows are affected. Once complete, the Vendors row shows No Missing and the missing count drops to zero.

Translating a specific subset of element types

After a compliance review, new risk scenario and DPIA records have been added. You want to translate just those two types.

• Open the job management table.
• Check the checkbox on the left of the Risk Scenarios row and the DPIA row. As soon as you select even one checkbox, the bulk button at the top changes its label from Autotranslate All to Autotranslate Selected (2), confirming your selection count.
• Click Autotranslate Selected (2).

The request is sent for only those two element types. The checkboxes clear automatically once the job is triggered — this is intentional. If you need to re-run the same subset later, simply re-check the rows. Both selected rows will progress through their status icons independently until each reaches No Missing.

Monitoring a translation job that is already running

A colleague triggered a full translation run earlier. You want to check progress without triggering anything new.

• Open the job management table.
• The table begins polling automatically on load — no action required. Within five seconds you see current statuses for all rows.
• Rows showing Sent or In Progress are still being processed by the translation engine. Rows showing No Missing are complete.
• Polling continues every five seconds as long as at least one row is active. Once every row reaches a terminal status, polling stops on its own.

You can confirm a full run is complete when every row shows the green No Missing icon and every "Missing Translations" cell reads zero.

Field reference

The job management table has the following columns. None of these fields are editable — they are read-only status indicators.

• Element Type — The human-readable name of the DPMS element category (e.g. "Records of Processing Activities," "Vendors," "Tasks"). Displayed in whatever language you have configured for your account.
• All Records — The total number of records of this type currently in the system. Gives you a sense of the translation workload. A zero means no records of this type exist yet.
• Missing Translations — The count of records that are missing translated content in at least one of your configured target languages. A value of 0 means this element type is fully translated. This number rises automatically whenever new records are created or a new target language is added in IT Settings.
• Sent to Auto-translate — How many records were submitted to the translation engine in the current or most recent job run. Useful for confirming a job is progressing or for auditing what was processed.
• Last Triggered — The date and time when the most recent translation job for this element type was started. Empty if no job has ever run for this type.
• Status — The current state of the translation job for this element type. Four possible values: Open (queued, not yet started), In Progress (actively translating), Sent (content sent to the external translation service, awaiting results), or No Missing (all records fully translated).

How this connects to the rest of DPMS

Auto-translation Settings sits downstream of two other IT Settings screens that must be configured before translation jobs will have any effect.

First, the AI / translation provider credentials must be set up in a separate IT Settings screen. This is the external service that performs the actual machine translation. If no provider is configured, the Autotranslate All button will still appear clickable — jobs will be created and status icons may briefly show Open or In Progress — but no translations will be generated. Always verify your translation provider is active before running jobs.

Second, the Language settings screen defines which target languages the platform translates content into. Every time you add a new language there, the "Missing Translations" counts on this screen will rise across all element types immediately. That is your signal to come here and run a full Autotranslate All job.

Once translation jobs complete successfully, the translated content surfaces automatically wherever DPMS records are displayed. A French-speaking user opening a ROPA record will see the machine-translated French text rather than a blank field — no manual work required on their end.

There is no deep-link to this screen from other DPMS modules. The only path in is through IT Settings → Auto-translations in the left sidebar.

Tips & common pitfalls

Tip: After adding a new target language in IT Settings, come straight to this screen and run Autotranslate All. Missing translation counts will have spiked across every element type and a single bulk job is the fastest way to catch up.

Heads up: If the translation provider is not configured in IT Settings, triggering jobs from this screen will appear to work but produce no translated content. The button will not warn you — always check your provider settings first.

• "No Missing" does not mean perfect quality. The status only tracks whether a translated field exists — not whether the machine translation is accurate or natural. Human review is still recommended for public-facing or legally sensitive content.
• Selecting checkboxes and clicking Autotranslate Selected clears your selection automatically. After the job is triggered, all checkboxes reset. If you need to re-run the same subset, simply re-check those rows. This can be surprising the first time.
• The per-row Autotranslate button and the bulk button can be used independently. Clicking a per-row button while a bulk job is running is technically possible, but may produce unpredictable results if the same element type is already being processed on the server. When in doubt, wait for an active bulk job to complete before running individual rows.
• The page polls automatically — you do not need to refresh. As long as at least one row shows Open or In Progress, the table updates itself every five seconds. Polling stops automatically when all rows reach a terminal status.
• Non-superadmin users will see a "Forbidden" page if they navigate to this URL directly. The IT Settings sidebar item may still appear for users with general IT Settings access, but loading the page will show a 403 error rather than the auto-translation content. This is not a bug.