1. Using Procurement
  2. Considerations for Translating Agreement Lines Through Agreement Loader

Considerations for Translating Agreement Lines Through Agreement Loader

Items on a Blanket Purchase Agreement can be broadly classified into two types:

  • Master items: Items that are defined in item master

  • Description-based items: Items that aren't defined in item master but rather are created as part of a Blanket Purchase Agreement line creation. They don't have an item number but have a description.

Note: Translation of Blanket Purchase Agreement lines is discussed from the point of view of the aforementioned types.

Use the loader to load translations for some of the attributes of the item on an agreement line. The translatable item attributes for all items are:

  • Item Description

  • Long Description

  • Manufacturer

  • Alias

  • Comments

Note: No other catalog attributes are untranslatable.

During the upload process, if the loader encounters a line in the upload file that already exists in the agreement, and whose language is different from the language of the already-existing line, it interprets this line to be a translation.

In an upload file, language can be specified at the line level (CIF and cXML file formats), or at the file level (XML and TXT file formats). A language at the line level applies only to that line, whereas a language at the file level applies to all the lines in the file.

Language is specified as a two-letter language code defined in the ISO 639 standard, followed by a dash, then a two letter country code defined in the ISO 3166 standard, for example, en-US, ko-KR.

Before loading translations for items, the line must first exist in the created language of the Blanket Purchase Agreement. If this condition doesn't hold true, an error is returned.

When a master item is first created in item master, a record of the item is automatically created for each installed language in the Application (record replication). These automatically created records are populated with data from the original record (the one created by the user).

Example:

  • Installed Languages: English (EN), French (FR), Korean (KR), Arabic (AR)

  • User creates a new master item in English with the following data:

Item

Description

Comments

Manufacturer

Alias

Language

1000

Laptop Case

For 13" Laptop

Computer America, Inc.

CAI

EN

Item

Description

Comments

Manufacturer

Alias

Language

1000

Laptop Case

For 13" Laptop

Computer America, Inc.

CAI

EN

1000

Laptop Case

For 13" Laptop

Computer America, Inc.

CAI

FR

1000

Laptop Case

For 13" Laptop

Computer America, Inc.

CAI

KR

1000

Laptop Case

For 13" Laptop

Computer America, Inc.

CAI

AR

A user can then manually sign in to the application in a different language and update the translatable attributes to use the correct language-specific term. For example, a user can sign in to the application in Arabic and enter the Arabic term for Laptop Case for the item description. This is known as a translated record.

When a master item is added to a Blanket Purchase Agreement, the item details for the Blanket Purchase Agreement language are copied over from the item master record to the Blanket Purchase Agreement. For example, if the Blanket Purchase Agreement is created in English, then when a master item is added to the Blanket Purchase Agreement, the English record of the item is copied over to the Blanket Purchase Agreement. Whether the records for the other languages are copied over to the Blanket Purchase Agreement is dependent on the Profile: Load items in all languages (PO_LOAD_ITEMS_IN_ALL_LANGUAGES). There are four possible values for this profile. Before discussing the values and action of the profile options, let's discuss Agreement Loader and translation.

Agreement Loader and Translation

When a user runs an agreement loader job to create lines on a Blanket Purchase Agreement, the agreement loader does one of the following depending on the value of the Profile: Load items in all languages.

  • Example A: Profile Value is Set to None

    • Description-based items: When a description-based item is first uploaded to a Blanket Purchase Agreement in the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language, the translatable attributes aren't loaded in all the installed languages in the application. The line exists only in the language in which the Blanket Purchase Agreement was created.

    • Master Items: When a master item is first uploaded to a Blanket Purchase Agreement in the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language, translated records of the master item are copied over from the item master. Untranslated item master records are ignored.

  • Example B: Profile Value is Set to Description-Based Items Only

    • Description-based items: When a description-based item is first uploaded to a Blanket Purchase Agreement in the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language, the translatable attributes are loaded (replicated) in all the installed languages in the application.

    • Master Items: When a master item is first uploaded to a Blanket Purchase Agreement in the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language, translated records of the master item are copied over from the item master. Untranslated item master records are ignored.

  • Example C: Profile Value is Set to Master Items Only

    • Description-based items: When a description-based item is first uploaded to a Blanket Purchase Agreement in the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language, the translatable attributes won't be loaded in all the installed languages in the application. The line will only exist in the language in which the Blanket Purchase Agreement was created.

    • Master Items: When a master item is first uploaded to a Blanket Purchase Agreement in the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language, both the translated and untranslated records are copied over to the Blanket Purchase Agreement.

  • Example D: Profile value is Set to Description-Based and Master Items

    • Description-based items: When a description-based item is first uploaded to a Blanket Purchase Agreement in the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language, the translatable attributes are loaded in all the installed languages in the application.

    • Master Items: When a master item is first uploaded to a Blanket Purchase Agreement in the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language, both the translated and untranslated records are copied over to the Blanket Purchase Agreement.

Note: When a Blanket Purchase Agreement is viewed online, only the lines in the same language as the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language are visible on screen. Translated and untranslated records aren't visible online, but they do exist in the Database.

Example of Translating Agreement Lines Through Agreement Loader

Scenario:

  • Installed Languages: English, French, Korean, Arabic

  • Master item is created in English.

  • User specifically creates a French translation for the master item.

  • Blanket Purchase Agreement Language is English.

  • Upload file contains two lines: One master item, and a description-based item.

  1. Profile is set to None:

    • Description-based item: There's only one record of this item in English.

    • Master Item: There are two records of this item. One in English, and the other in French.

  2. Profile is set to Description-Based Only:

    • Description-based item: There are four records of this item. The French, Korean, and Arabic versions carry the values loaded for the English line.

    • Master Item: There are two records of this item. One in English, and the other in French.

  3. Profile is set to Master Items Only:

    • Description-based item: There's only one record of this item in English

    • Master Item: There are four records of this item. The Korean and Arabic versions carry the values loaded for the English line. The French version has the French translation (created in Item master).

  4. Profile is set to Description-Based and Master Items:

    • Description-based item: There are four records of this item. The French, Korean, and Arabic versions carry the values loaded for the English line.

    • Master Item: There are four records of this item. The Korean and Arabic versions carry the values loaded for the English line. The French version has the French translation (created in Item master).

  5. User first loads the lines in French.

    • The upload is successful for the Master Item because a French translation for the line exists.

    • The upload fails for the Description-based item because there is no existing version of the line in the creation language of the Blanket Purchase Agreement (English).

  6. User first loads the lines in Korean.

    • The upload is successful for the Master Item because an English translation for the line exists (because the item was created in English).

    • The upload fails for the Description-based item because there is no existing version of the line in the creation language of the Blanket Purchase Agreement (English).

  7. Master Item is created in French; a Korean translation is also created.

    • User first loads the lines in French.

    • The upload fails for the Master Item because the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language is English and there is no English translation for the item. (The Item was created in French and a Korean translation of it was created).

    • The upload fails for the Description-based item because there is no existing version of the line in the creation language of the Blanket Purchase Agreement (English).

If a user attempts to load item master items to a Blanket Purchase Agreement whose created language isn't one of the languages in which the item has been translated (or created) in item master, an error is returned to the user.

Considerations for Translating Agreement Lines Through Agreement Loader

Some points to consider and tips are listed below:

  • Since CIF and cXML files support line-level languages, you can upload Description-based items in the agreement creation language and other languages in the same upload job. For example, using a CIF/cXML file, you can create a line whose line language is the same as the Blanket Purchase Agreement creation language and a second line with a different line language containing the translated value for the previous line.

  • While loading translations, if you change the values for a non-translatable attribute (in the upload file), this new value overwrites the existing value in the application. For example, if a Manufacturer URL already exists for a line in English and while loading a French translation the user specifies a different Manufacturer URL, this new URL overwrites the existing Manufacturer URL for the English version of the line.

  • Line uniqueness criteria are used to determine which line is being translated. As such, you should not change the values for any attributes used in line uniqueness identification during a translation upload. For example, in the absence of an Item ID, the supplier Item Number is used for line uniqueness identification. If a line with supplier ID, ABC-01 already exists in English and, while loading a French translation for the same line the user changes the supplier ID to ABC-02, the loader won't be able to match this line to the existing line with supplier ID ABC-01.