What are the benefits of TPX?

By providing a standardized way of presenting the services, skills, experience, rates and other information in a translator's profile or CV, TPX will make the process of locating and qualifying language professionals more efficient for LSPs. It will also make the process of marketing oneself, and keeping information such as availability up to date among existing clients, easier for language professionals.

TPX will make it possible for LSPs to request and share translator data in a standardized way. This will enable companies to effectively connect their vendor management systems together, transferring vendor data from one system to another using automated tools.

Because of the standardized format, it will be possible for LSPs to process applications more efficiently than they can now. Automated tools will be able to extract, display and search whatever data is of particular interest or need to a given company. A peripheral benefit of having a standard set of fields is that completeness of data will be encouraged.

One possible application in which the TPX standard would be useful is in checking on the current availability of known translators. Many translators maintain their availability data at ProZ.com now, but can not be expected to maintain availability data with all the customers for whom they work. A TPX standard will define a way for LSPs to query ProZ.com's servers to check the availability of known translators when new projects arise.

Another possible application in which TPX would be useful is from within desktop tools such as project management software. A project manager working from within one of these tools could ask for a list of translators working in a certain pair and field. The software could query ProZ.com's servers for a list of appropriate professionals.