This is one of the basic reference data lists, which contain all units you work with. These units are used to measure jobs you perform. For example, translators use words, hours, pages as measure units.
When a new Unit is added, you specify the following attributes:
Name. This is the name of the unit displayed throughout the app and printed in documents.
Base unit. When base unit is specified, price pickup mechanism will take it into account, trying to determine default price for selected base unit and applying multiplier specified in the Adjustment factor field. For example, you may have the following units: Default page, Page 1600 symbols, Page 1500 symbols with spaces, etc. In such case, you may select Default page as a base unit for Page 1600 symbols and Page 1500 symbols with spaces. And, while defining prices for your customers, specify prices only for Default page. In a real project, when you select one of dependent units, the system will pickup a price for base unit and apply adjustment factor to a detected price.
General adjustment factor. Default value for this field is 1. It is used to express all volumes in some 'average' unit, allowing to see weighted quantity for all jobs in a single table column regardless of units used in job tasks. In other words, no matter if you count your jobs by words or by hours. Adjustment factor allows to get weighted volume of all jobs. You are free to choose which unit will be a "base unit" - it will simply be that unit whose adjustment factor is set to 1 (in a case when Base unit field is empty). For example, if base unit is "words", set adjustment factor for Words unit to 1. And then estimate adjustment factors for other units knowing that one (1) is used for Words. For example, if one line is 55 characters, which is approximately 11 words, set this value as adjustment factor for Lines unit. If you translate 300 words per hour, use this value as an adjustment factor for Hours units.
When you generate charts, Adjustment factor allows to make it possible to include quantities in different units into a single chart. Additionally, Translation job list table contains Weighted volume column, which allows to summarize values in this column.
Note. Weighted volume value, calculated using Adjustment factor, is intended only for estimation purposes, and shows average volumes for your convenience, allowing to quickly estimate how 'large' particular job is.
Flat rate. You can check this setting when the unit supposes to enter final amount in the job task instead of its calculation using "Price x Quantity" formula. When this option is used, you enter corresponding volume in the Quantity field (for statistical purposes), Price field becomes un-editable, and then you enter fixed amount in the Amount column. Is time. This checkbox allows to specify that current unit is used to count time. Otherwise, this unit is used to measure volume. It affects on price list generation - SDL BaccS will apply fuzzy factors only to those units which are used to count volumes, not time.
Is time. Flag which signals that a particular unit is used to measure time.
In the unit editing window you can specify Adjustment factors per work types. As you can see (see image above), it is possible to apply another adjustment factor for Translation service type. This will influence on the mechanism of weighted volume counting. We know that proofreading of the same word count is 3 times faster than translation. Detailed adjustment factors allow to help the program to correctly estimate job volumes and correctly build stats data and predict work time for the newly created jobs.