A Glossary is a wxrks terminology asset — a set of approved terms and their translations that Augmented Translation, linguists, and reviewers can rely on. This article walks through creating a Glossary from scratch and connecting it to an Organizational Unit and a Project so it actually gets used in translation work.
💡 Who is this for? This guide is for Project Managers and Account Admins who need to create a Glossary and connect it to an Organizational Unit or Project within the wxrks platform.
1. Creating a Glossary
On the sidebar, open Context and click Glossaries. Then click Add Glossary.
Fill in the glossary's basic information:
Name: the Glossary's name.
Organization: the Organization that owns this Glossary. Required, and permanent — see the note at the end of this section.
Languages: every language this Glossary needs a reference for. At least two are required.
Notes: free text for anything about the Glossary's usage or origin.
Domain: an organizational category for the Glossary — marketing, legal, medical, and so on. This is metadata only; it doesn't affect the Glossary's terms or behavior.
Subdomain: a more specific category under the Domain (for example, Digital under Marketing). Also metadata only.
Organizational Units: optional — link the Glossary to one or more Organizational Units right away, so projects in those Units can use it as soon as it's created. See Linking Organizational Units below.
Custom Attributes: optional metadata fields you define yourself, used later to classify and filter the Glossary's terms.
Domain and Subdomain are searchable selects scoped to the Organization you picked — you can select an existing one or type a new value to create it on the fly.
Linking Organizational Units and choosing their settings: a project can only use a Glossary that is linked to its Organizational Unit. You can make that link here, while creating the Glossary, instead of opening each Unit afterward as described in step 3.
The Organizational Units field stays disabled until you choose an Organization, and it lists only that Organization's Units. Open the dropdown and pick the Units one by one, or click Select All at the top of the list to pick every Unit at once. Select All disappears once every Unit is selected.
As soon as at least one Unit is selected, a Settings block appears below the field. These settings apply to every Organizational Unit you selected. Hover over the info icon next to each option to see its description.
Default (on by default): the Glossary is pre-selected automatically for every new project created in these Units. Turn it off to make the Glossary available without pre-selecting it.
Enable Learning Terms (off by default): lets these Units' projects add terms to this Glossary automatically as content is translated. See Learning Terms.
Augmented Term Lookup (off by default): makes the Editor recognize inflected forms of the Glossary's terms (for example, playing matching play). This option appears only if your account has the Augmented Term Lookup feature. See Augmented Term Lookup.
ℹ️ Note: Default doesn't replace a Unit's existing default Glossary — a Unit can have several. For example, if the Marketing Unit already has a default Glossary and you leave Default on here, every new Marketing project starts with both Glossaries attached. Turn Default off if the new Glossary should only be added by hand.
Need different settings per Unit? Create the Glossary with the settings most Units need, then adjust the exceptions in each Unit's Context tab (step 3). UI Term Replacement isn't set here either — it stays in the Glossary's Advanced Settings on the Unit's Context tab. See How to Configure and Use UI Term Replacement Based on a Glossary.
Linking Units at creation uses the same permissions as linking them from a Unit's Context tab: Add Glossary, Edit Glossary Settings, and Organizational Unit Update for each selected Unit, in addition to Glossary Create.
Setting up a Custom Attribute: click Custom Attributes to expand the panel, type an attribute name, choose a type (SINGLE_VALUE, SINGLE_SELECT, or MULTI_SELECT), then click Add.
The new attribute appears in a table below, where you can switch a Single Value attribute to render as a boolean toggle (the shuffle icon) or remove it (the trash icon). Once the Glossary is created, these same attributes become fields you can fill in on every term you add to it.
Click Create. wxrks creates the Glossary, links it to the selected Organizational Units with the chosen settings, and opens the new Glossary's page.
If wxrks can't link or configure one of the selected Units — for example, because you're missing one of the permissions above for it — the Glossary is still created, and a warning names the affected Units:
"Glossary created, but it could not be associated with: …" — those Units aren't linked. Link the Glossary from each Unit's Context tab (step 3).
"Glossary associated with …, but the selected settings could not be applied" — those Units are linked, but your choices in Settings weren't applied. Open each Unit's Context tab and check Default, Enable Learning Terms, and Augmented Term Lookup there.
Note: it isn't possible to change a Glossary's Organization after creation. wxrks doesn't support moving foundational asset details like this, to protect data integrity and to stay aligned with SOC 2 Type 2 requirements.
2. Adding terms to your new Glossary
A freshly created Glossary has no terms yet. From its own page you can add them one at a time, or import a batch from a .tbx or .xlsx file via the Import button.
For the manual flow, see How to add new concepts to glossaries. If you're importing an .xlsx file, its columns need a specific structure — see How to Format Your XLSX File for Glossary Import before you upload. .tbx files generally import without extra formatting.
The Terminology Flow toggle on this page controls whether new terms route through the Terminology Board for review before they're added, and wxrks can also learn terms automatically as translation happens — see Learning Terms. For the full page layout (search, filters, the Actions menu's Edit/Export/Import to Board/Clear/Delete), see All about Glossaries, and for exporting see How to Export a Glossary.
3. Linking a Glossary to an Organizational Unit
A Glossary belongs to an Organization from the moment it's created, but a project can only use it once it's also linked to an Organizational Unit. One Organizational Unit can have multiple Glossaries linked to it. This step needs Account Admin permissions.
Open the Organizational Unit and go to its Context tab. Scroll to the Glossary table and click Add.
Select the Glossary (or Glossaries) to link — only ones already tied to the Organizational Unit's Organization appear here — then click Add Glossary.
Once linked, the Glossary's row gets a Default switch. Turn it on and this Glossary is automatically selected for every new project created under this Organizational Unit — turn it off and it's still available, just not pre-selected. The same row also has Enable Learning Terms (see Learning Terms) and an Advanced Settings gear for further configuration.
4. Linking a Glossary to a Project
With a Glossary linked to an Organizational Unit, any project created under that Unit can use it. When you create a new project, the Glossaries field sits in Step 1 (Configuration), alongside Translation Memory — it's pre-filled automatically if a Default Glossary is set for the Organizational Unit, and you can add more from the ones already linked.
To change which Glossaries a project uses after it's already created, open the project and go to its own Context tab, where a Glossaries section lets you add or remove Glossaries the same way as at the Organizational Unit level.
