[Resolved] Translation manager accessibility problems

We have a custom post type “People“ on our website. We have a translation manager, that we want to be able to assign the work to a translator, then when translator finishes the job, we want our translation manager to review translated post, and if everything is fine, to publish it. We manage to get it to work somehow, but the accessibility of the translation jobs from a view of translation manager is not so great, so we were wandering if there is something we can do about it, that’s integrated inside WPML settings.

OK let’s start from the beginning.

We want the scenario when translator finishes job, the newly translated post is not published, until translator manager reviews it.

The only way we manage to achieve this is by selecting “Save the translated post as a draft“ on “When you receive completed translations“ section. But this also means that when translator manager translates the page, or edit translated page, it also goes to draft. It would be really useful if we would have an option when translator finishes the job, status of that post inside Translation Management → Translation Jobs tab, goes to something like “Needs review“, and then when translator manager reviews it changes the state to publish. I saw that there is something similar in documentation, but we couldn’t find anywhere the way for our translated post to reach that status. After the job is done by the translator side, the status always goes to “Completed“. Can we also somehow make translated posts go to drafts only when assigned to a translator?

It’s hard to review translated posts from the Translation Jobs tab

At the moment for all our translated jobs, when you hover over it there is only one option - to view the original post. There is no other action that could be taken from there. This means that our translator manager needs to go to the original post, then add language extension to the page, then review the post, then edit the post, and finally publish it from the edit page backend. This is very impractical. We tried to make this cycle a bit shorter by adding a preview button into Translation jobs button Action column, which adds a language extension to the post, and opens translated version of a post.

php

// Enqueue JS on Translation Management pages only for allowed users
add_action('admin_enqueue_scripts', function($hook) {
   if (strpos($hook, 'tm/menu') === false) return;

   $current_user = wp_get_current_user();
   if (!in_array('administrator', $current_user->roles) &&
       !in_array('translation_manager', $current_user->roles) &&
       !is_super_admin($current_user->ID)
   ) {
       return;
   }

   wp_enqueue_script(
       'custom-wpml-actions',
       get_template_directory_uri() . 'https://cdn.wpml.org/assets/dist/js/wpml-job-actions.js',
       ['jquery'],
       '1.0',
       true
   );
});

// AJAX handler to return current user roles
add_action('wp_ajax_wpml_get_current_user_roles', function () {
   $current_user = wp_get_current_user();
   if (!$current_user) {
       wp_send_json_error(['message' => 'No user']);
   }
   wp_send_json_success([
       'roles' => (array) $current_user->roles,
   ]);
});

JS

jQuery(document).ready(function ($) {
   console.log("[WPML DEBUG] Custom script loaded");

   const langMap = {
       spanish: 'es',
       german: 'de',
       french: 'fr',
       italian: 'it',
       portuguese: 'pt'
   };

   const allowedRoles = ['administrator', 'translation_manager', 'super_admin'];

   // Check if user is allowed
   $.get(ajaxurl, { action: 'wpml_get_current_user_roles' }, function (response) {
       if (response.success) {
           const userAllowed = response.data.roles.some(role => allowedRoles.includes(role));
           console.log("[WPML DEBUG] User allowed:", userAllowed);
           if (userAllowed) setupButtons();
       }
   });

   function setupButtons() {
       function injectButtons() {
           $('tr.ant-table-row').each(function () {
               const row = $(this);
               const actionsCell = row.find('td.wpml-actions .ant-space');
               if (!actionsCell.length) return;
               if (actionsCell.find('.custom-preview-post').length > 0) return;

               const originalLink = row.find('td.wpml-title-column a[href]').attr('href') || '';
               const targetLangText = row.find('td.wpml-language-column .wpml-target-lang').text().trim().toLowerCase();
               const langCode = langMap[targetLangText];
               if (!originalLink || !targetLangText || !langCode) return;

               // Get status safely
               const statusText = row.find('td.wpml-status-column').text().trim().toLowerCase();
               if (!statusText.includes('completed')) return;

               // Build Preview URL
               let previewUrl = originalLink;
               if (/\/[a-z]{2}\//.test(originalLink)) {
                   previewUrl = originalLink.replace(/\/[a-z]{2}\//, '/' + langCode + '/');
               } else {
                   const urlParts = originalLink.split('/');
                   urlParts.splice(3, 0, langCode);
                   previewUrl = urlParts.join('/');
               }

               // Add Preview button
               const button = $('<button>')
                   .addClass('ant-btn ant-btn-primary custom-preview-post')
                   .text('Preview')
                   .on('click', function () {
                       window.open(previewUrl, '_blank');
                   });

               actionsCell.prepend($('<div class="ant-space-item">').append(button));
               console.log("[WPML DEBUG] Added Preview button →", previewUrl);
           });
       }

       // Initial run
       setTimeout(injectButtons, 200);

       // MutationObserver for dynamic updates
       const targetNode = document.querySelector('.ant-table-tbody');
       if (targetNode) {
           const observer = new MutationObserver(() => setTimeout(injectButtons, 100));
           observer.observe(targetNode, { childList: true, subtree: true });
           console.log("[WPML DEBUG] MutationObserver active");
       }
   }
});

But we are sure that there must be a way to make this better from the WPML setup console. Could you help us to get there?

Translator manager couldn’t tell from the Transaltion jobs tab which posts are reviewed and published and which one are drafted and needs to be reviewed.

All posts have the same status “Completed“ and translation manager could not tell which ones are finished and which ones are awaiting for a review. Is there something we can do to make this more accessible? And how we can make translated posts out of the queue? We don't want a translator access to the translation version of the post, and to be able to edit it, once the job is finished. Also how can we remove it from the translation jobs tab as well for translator manager.

If you need anything let me know.

Thank you,

Denis