Global Deployment Guide > Overview of Global Deployments > Global Deployment Terminology >

Locale


A locale is based on the language, country (territory), and the character set. Siebel applications cannot control the character set supported by the database and do not have the concept of a country, so the locale is primarily based on the language. However, locales are defined in the Siebel seed data and can be associated with Application Object Manager components.

The locale includes a collection of user profile inputs, including keyboard layout and the formats used for numbers, dates, currencies, and times.

The Siebel Web Client adopts the locale settings in effect for the Application Object Manager component on the Siebel Server.

The Siebel Mobile Web Client and Developer Web Client adopt the locale settings defined in the client operating system's regional settings.

For more information about locales defined in Siebel applications, see the Applications Administration Guide.

Different types of locales are described below:

  • User locale. The current language and country settings active for this session.

    You can set a locale to provide data to users in their native format, including the formatting of numeric information such as numbers, times, dates, and currencies. Typically, user locales contain the symbols for the thousand separator, decimal point, negative number representation, time separator, short data format, long data format, and currency symbols. A country specification is often used to select default values for user locale settings.

    Both the Siebel Database and the Siebel application have locale settings, which are independent of the operating system (except for the Siebel Mobile and Developer Web Client).

  • Input locale. The current language used for entering data from the keyboard.

    The input locale affects the layout of keys on the keyboard, and for some languages, the way in which those key entries are then processed before entering the data into the current form on the screen. It is used to describe the language being entered and the input method, which could be a particular keyboard layout or a speech-to-text converter.

    Keyboard layout is a defined input locale that correlates the keys on the keyboard to their subsequent character definition mapping within the code page of the operating system.

  • System locale. If you are using a Microsoft Windows operating system, this is a systemwide setting that designates which code page is used as the default for all users on the system. If you are using a UNIX operating system, the settings for formatting and code page locales are not systemwide. These code pages and fonts allow non-Unicode applications to run as they would on a system localized to the language of the system locale.

    For more information about specifying the system locale on UNIX, see the Siebel Installation Guide for UNIX: Servers, Mobile Web Clients, Tools.

    NOTE:  If you are using a Windows operating system, you must restart the system after changing a system locale.

Locale Usage

You can use locale rules to vary the appearance of data for different regions of your implementation. Typically, this data would include dates and times, numbers, and currencies.

For example, the date and time thirty minutes past four in the afternoon on May nine, year two thousand-and-five can appear differently depending on the locale. It may appear as:

  • 05/09/05, 04:30 PM, if the locale used is English American.
  • 09.05.2005, 16:30, if the locale used is German.

Locales specify thousand separators and decimal symbols for numbers. They determine the position of the currency symbol in relation to the currency amount.

Locales also guide what characters are available through the computer keyboard. Users can remap their keyboards through the locale setting to get access to additional characters when typing.

Global Deployment Guide