Oracle Utilities Opower Multilingual Configuration Guide
Oracle Utilities Opower products can be configured to support multiple languages so that customers can view content in their preferred language. When a customer selects their preferred language, both the language and units of measure (such as dates, numbers, and energy use units) will display according to the customer’s locale.
In this guide:
Supported Products
Multiple language selection is currently supported in the following products:
- Energy Efficiency Web Portal
- Digital Self Service - Energy Management Widgets
- Customer Service Interface
- Home Energy Reports
- Email Home Energy Reports
- Weekly Energy Updates
- High Bill Alerts AMI
Requirements and Limitations
The following requirements and limitations apply to the Oracle Utilities Opower multilingual capability.
- Single Sign-On (SSO) Required for Seamless Implementations: Some utilities have a seamless implementation of the Energy Efficiency Web Portal, which means that the product assumes the visual appearance of the utility’s web site and is more integrated with the utility’s web pages. As a result, customers can browse seamlessly between Oracle Utilities-hosted content and utility-hosted content. To support multiple language selection, utilities that use the seamless implementation must also support SSO and must allow their customers to set their language preference on the utility web site. This is because Oracle Utilities relies on SSO to know what language to display when a customer navigates from a utility-hosted page to an Oracle Utilities-hosted page.
- Locale Parameter Required for Embeddable Widgets: Utilities that embed widgets on a web page must define a locale parameter for the widget to reflect a customer's change to their language preference that occurs after they are signed in to the Energy Efficiency Web Portal. This parameter has no effect on a customer’s locale preferences for other communications, such as email and print reports.
- Data Transfer and Language Preference Conflicts: A customer can set their preferred language in the Energy Efficiency Web Portal, but this preference may be overridden by a utility data file import if the file import comes later and specifies a different preference.
- Multilingual Across Products: There is no option to selectively enable or disable multilingual to a subset of applicable products. Ensure that all applicable products are configured for the supported locales.
- Supported Locales: Locale support is product-specific. Contact your Oracle Utilities sales representative if you need to confirm whether a specific language is available for your applicable products as part of this functionality.
- User Names: The display of user names in Oracle Utilities Opower products will not change based on language preference. For example, if a customer switches from Chinese to English in the Energy Efficiency Web Portal, the user name that is displayed in the interface when the customer is logged in will remain in Chinese.
Specifying Customer Language Preferences
When a language preference is specified and communicated to Oracle Utilities, it is stored centrally and used to communicate to the customer in that language across all applicable products. Language preferences can be specified through the following methods:
- Data Imports
- Energy Efficiency Web Portal
- Digital Self Service - Energy Management Widgets
- Single Sign-On
- Customer Service Interface
Note: It may take an additional report cycle for the language preference update to be reflected in Home Energy Reports. For example, this may happen if the next batch of reports has already been generated and sent to the printer when the update was made.
Data Imports
Utilities can specify customer language preferences as part of the standard utility data import process. Specifically, utilities can fill in or update the language_preference field in the data files transferred to Oracle Utilities. This field sets the language preference for all Oracle Utilities Opower products that support multiple languages. See the Oracle Utilities Opower Legacy Billing Data Transfer Standards for more information.
If an unsupported language is passed in the import file, the change will not be imported, and the previous language setting will be retained. If the value in this field is empty or NULL, then the default language code that is configured for the utility will be used for the customer.
Energy Efficiency Web Portal
Language preferences can be specified through the Energy Efficiency Web Portal for utilities that do not use SSO. Specifically, customers can update their preferred language through a language selector in the product user interface. The language displayed in the interface then switches from the utility default language to the customer’s new preferred language. In addition, the language preference is updated for all other Oracle Utilities Opower products that support multiple languages.
- If the customer is not logged in when updating their language preference, the new language preference is saved temporarily to the user’s browser session. The preference will only be saved to the database if the customer logs in.
- If the customer is logged in when updating their language preference, the new language preference is saved to the Oracle Utilities database immediately.
Digital Self Service - Energy Management Widgets
Specifying a language preference in Digital Self Service - Energy Management varies depending on whether the widget is embedded or not. If a utility uses an embeddable version of Digital Self Service - Energy Management, language preferences can be specified in the following ways:
- Customers can update their preferred language through a language selector for the global utility web site. The language displayed in the interface then switches from the utility default language to the customer’s new preferred language. Any changes made by the customer are not saved to database, meaning that a customer's language preference for other Oracle Utilities Opower products are not updated.
- Utilities can send a customer’s preferred language in a SAML assertion as part of the SSO process. See Single Sign-On (SSO) below for details.
- If a utility uses a stand-alone version of Digital Self Service - Energy Management, language preferences are specified in the same manner as the Energy Efficiency Web Portal, as outlined in Energy Efficiency Web Portal above.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
SSO allows customers to sign in once at their utility web site to access a number of interconnected services. This means that customers do not have to create a separate account when they arrive at the Energy Efficiency Web Portal.
For utilities that use SSO, a customer’s language preference can be specified and sent to Oracle Utilities in a SAML assertion, specifically through the use of a <sso_user_properties> or <language_preference> tag. The code is different depending on whether the Energy Efficiency is set up to support customers with single accounts or multiple accounts. See the Oracle Utilities Opower SSO Configuration Guide for details about how the code may look.
When the language preference is sent through SSO, it is checked against the language preference that is stored for the customer in the Oracle Utilities database. If the language preferences are different, then the language preference received through SSO takes precedence and is stored to the database. The language preference is then updated for all other Oracle Utilities Opower products that support multiple languages.
Customer Service Interface
Customers may call their utility support center and request an update to their preferred language. In such cases, Customer Service Representatives can log in to the Customer Service Interface tool, find and open the customer’s account, and update the customer’s preferred language in the customer’s account settings. This is supported as long as the language is available or supported by the application. The language selector becomes visible once multiple languages have been enabled for the application.