General Activities for Localization

Localization consists of these general activities:

• Translation. Taking all of the applicable strings that appear on-screen in the application user interface and translating them into the language used in the target country.

• Adaptation. The process of making sure the product is suitable for use in the target country. Example activities are:

  • Modifying the user interface to display language-specific elements, for example, hiding or displaying fields or modifying the position, height, and width of controls to accommodate the target language. For example, if a target country does not have a governmental equivalent to a state, then the State field might be hidden for the target country.

  • Modifying images used in the application to those appropriate for the target country.

  • Ensuring that the default configuration for the target country includes the right date format, currency, address format, salutations, names of provinces or states, and so on. User interface labels and master data might need to be modified.

    For example, a U.S.-specific term like SSN (Social Security number) is not translatable, but might be replaced with an equivalent term for the target country, such as national ID number.

    For another example, the State field is prepopulated with the names of the U.S. states. These values are incorrect in other countries that have states (or equivalent), such as Mexico and Brazil. Where applicable, replace the LOV containing state names with the list of states (or equivalent) for the target country.

    Addresses use a single format for each language, and there are more than 400 address applets across the applications. For each supported language, Siebel CRM predefines the address formats for the target country.

    For example, the address format for France is used with the French (FRA) language. French-speaking users in Canada will find that this is the wrong address format, so you will likely want to change it. Similarly, the U.S. address format, used for the U.S. English (ENU) language, is incorrect for English-speaking users outside of the U.S.

  • Changing from a left-to-right display to a right-to-left display. (The ability to support both left-to-right and right-to-left displays, referred to as bidirectionality, is an internationalization feature.)

  • Defining and implementing access control mechanisms that are appropriate for the users in the target country and the data they work with. Data might need to be visible in multiple countries or visible only in particular countries.