Understanding Locale-Based Formatting

The locale-based personalization architecture in the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture provides a flexible framework for formatting locale-sensitive data. Three levels of personalization settings drive the formatting of locale-based data in the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture:

  • User-specific (My Personalizations page).

  • Locale-specific (from the browser).

  • System-wide.

These levels ensure that each user can specify how to format locale-based data, such as numbers, dates and times, while maintaining an intelligent set of default formats for users who don’t set specific preferences.

When determining how to format these types of data, PeopleTools checks for formatting preferences at each of these levels in the order of user-specific, locale-specific, and finally system-wide.

For example, a first-time user may sign in to the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture as a French user and having fr set in the browser as the preferred language. Because the user is a first-time user of the system, PeopleTools does not have any personalization information specific to that user. Next, PeopleTools checks the personalizations tables to see if a locale-specific formatting setting exists for the browser preference code of fr. If locale-specific settings for fr users are found, the system formats all numbers, dates, and times for that session using the settings defined by the system administrator for French users.

However, it is possible that the user, even though signed in using the French language and having fr set as the browser preferred language, might prefer another type of formatting for number separators. To register a user-specific preference, the user opens the My Preferences page, accesses personalization options for regional settings, and overrides the Digit Group Separator field value. Whenever that user accesses the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture, the decimal separator is that custom value, regardless of session language and browser language preference. All other preferences are read from the locale-specific personalizations mapped to the browser settings.

If a user signs in to the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture using a language for which locale-specific personalizations have not been set up by the system administrator, PeopleTools uses system-wide defaults.

When running a batch program such as an Application Engine program, the browser locale defaults are not available, so there are only two levels of settings: user preferences and system defaults. Therefore, if the user running the Application Engine program has their formatting preferences set (from My Preferences), then the output of that program will be consistent with other outputs for that user.

Using the personalizations system in PeopleTools, the system administrator can restrict which personalization options are driven by a locale and which can be overridden. In certain organizations where a corporate-wide policy exists for formatting numbers, dates, or times, the system administrator might disable the locale sensitivity or user overrides for locale-sensitive data formats. In this case, the system-wide defaults take effect for each personalization option disabled by the system administrator.

Note:

If user-specific formatting is not set, locale-specific formatting will be used, even if the Locale Based check box on the Define Personalizations page is not selected. If locale-specific formatting is not set, system-wide formatting defined on the Define Personalizations page is used.