# Office Suite

## Using Office Suite in an I18N Environment

| The Java client provides limited use in an I18N environment. Since this situation seems to cause a conflict, this document provides information about using the Office Suite in an I18N environment.
| ### Document Property Exchange
| Configuration in Agile e6
| Properties of Office files can be exchanged with the Office Suite in Agile e6. The following figures show the corresponding configuration list in Agile e6, highlighting the properties for Subject ('SUBJECT') and Title ('TITLE') in a Word document:
| Multi-lingual Properties?
| As shown in the figure above, the property 'SUBJECT' is mapped to a normal (single-language) attribute, while 'TITLE' is mapped to the attribute 'T_DOC_DAT.DOC_NAME', which is a multi-lingual attribute. Mapping a property to a multi-lingual attribute is technically correct, but has a significant drawback: properties in Office files are single-language! This means that the property in the Office file will be updated with the content in the corresponding attribute in Agile e6 for the current language.
| Corresponding Scenario: 1. Creating an Office File (in English). An English-speaking employee creates a Word file. Title and Subject properties are correspondingly entered in English, as depicted in the following screenshot: The Word file is checked into Agile e6, using the Office Suite functionality: Since the user language in Agile e6 is set to English, the Title is mapped to 'T_DOC_DAT.DOC_NAME_ENG': 2. Updating the corresponding Document (in German). After the Word file has been stored in Agile e6, a German speaking employee, who set the user language in Agile e6 to German, updates the document and enters a German Title in 'T_DOC_DAT.DOC_NAME_GER': If this employee (or any other person that works with Agile e6 and who set the user language to German) checks out the document, the property 'TITLE' in Word is automatically updated with the German attribute 'T_DOC_DAT.DOC_NAME_GER':
| Conclusion: As shown in this scenario the consequences are obvious: properties in Office files, which are mapped to multi-lingual attributes, may be updated with text in a different language. This can make the property unusable for many employees in the organization. For this reason, the following recommendations should be applied if different user languages are available in Agile e6 and Office Suite is used: Properties in Office files should only be entered in a standard language that can be understood by all employees. In many cases this would be English. Properties in Office files should be mapped to single-language attributes in Agile e6 only. If the Office Suite is configured in compliance with these recommendations, and if the standard language for properties in Office files is, e.g. English (or another language only containing Latin1 characters), then Office files written in languages such as Japanese or Chinese can also be checked-in and checked-out without a problem.
| ### Exchange of Non-Latin1 Properties
| Prerequisites
| Agile e6 must be configured for I18N support if it is mandatory to check in Office files and transfer properties that contain non-Latin1 characters (e.g. Japanese or Chinese text). The corresponding properties must be mapped to multi-lingual attributes in Agile e6, such as the 'TITLE' property mentioned in the previous chapter. The following scenario shows a possibility for checking in an Office file with Japanese properties.
| Non-Latin1 Properties in Office Files
| There may be limitations and situations where it is not possible for you to achieve the same results. Agile provides I18N Basic Support, and the following description does not represent an assured product capability.
| Corresponding Scenario: 1. Creating an Office File (in Japanese). Japanese-speaking employee creates a Word file. Title and Subject properties are entered in Japanese, as depicted in the following screenshot: The Word file is checked into Agile e6, using the Office Suite functionality (similar to the description in the previous chapter). The user language in Agile e6 must be set to a UTF-8 language (assuming LN5 is used for Japanese), so the Title is mapped to 'T_DOC_DAT.DOC_NAME_LN5', while the Subject is mapped to 'T_DOC_DAT.SUBJECT', which is a single-language field. If the Subject contains non-Latin1 characters too, the later mapping is wrong, as we will see later on. As depicted in the following figure, the Windows Client displays the content of 'T_DOC_DAT.DOC_NAME_LN5' in UTF-8 syntax. In this user language, the Title attribute ('T_DOC_DAT.DOC_NAME_LN5') is write-protected to avoid unintentional modification of the UTF-8 text. 2. Display Document in the Web Client or the Java Client.
| The Web Client will interpret the UTF-8 syntax and display the Title attribute correctly. In these clients it is also possible to update the content or to search in the attribute.
| Please remember that Subject ('T_DOC_DAT.SUBJECT') is a single-lingual attribute - as a consequence, the content of this attribute is lost! Remember that properties with non-Latin1 characters must be mapped to multi-lingual attributes in Agile e6.