About Languages and Repository Data

In addition to supporting multiple languages within Picklists, the Siebel CRM application supports displaying the user interface in multiple languages using the same repository. A brief description of how this works at the repository level is provided in this topic. For more information, see Siebel Global Deployment Guide.

From the point of view of globalization, repository data comes in two flavors: Language Neutral and Language Specific.

Language neutral repository objects share the same definition across all languages. Generally speaking, they are those objects that have no user interface aspect to them. For example, a BusComp or a BusComp field definition is the same regardless of the language in which the user is working. The Account BusComp is always the Account BusComp, regardless of the user's language choice.
Language specific objects need different definitions to support each user's language choice. For example, an English-speaking user would like to see an Account applet with the Accounts caption with columns such as Name or Location, while a French user would like to see that same applet rendered with Comptes as the caption and Nom de compte and Site columns.

To accommodate this behavior, many of the object types stored in the repository consist of parent object types that define the neutral components and child object types that contain the language specific aspects. Any attribute that can be translated, such as captions, labels, or column headers, are stored in the repository as symbolic strings, rather than hard-coded strings.

For example, consider the definition of the Account Form Applet in the following image where the Title-String Reference attribute value is SBL_ACCOUNT-1004224420-0HD.

Account Form Applet Definition: This image is described in the surrounding text.

This attribute value is used to look up the language-specific string at runtime based on the user's desired language.

Note: The Title field shows the value of the string for the current language. In this example, Siebel Web Tools is running in English, so it shows the English value, Account.

If you navigate to the symbolic string object and search for the SBL_ACCOUNT-1004224420-0HD attribute value, you will see a child record for each language. The following image shows the results of the SBL_ACCOUNT-1004224420-0HD attribute value search. In this image, a record exists for the following languages: ARA, CHS, DAN, DEU, ENU, ESN, FIN, FRA, ITA, and so on.

Symbolic Strings Object: This image is described in the surrounding text.

At runtime, the Siebel CRM application renders the applet using the symbolic string for the user's desired language. The following image shows the symbolic string when the user’s language is English. In this image, all field names and input values are in English.

Symbolic String for the User's Desired Language: This image is described in the surrounding text.