Working With Language-Sensitive Application Data

This chapter provides an overview of data editing in related language tables and base tables and discusses how to edit data in multiple languages.

Understanding Data Editing in Related Language Tables and Base Tables

When a user changes data on a language-sensitive page, the system responds by changing the contents of the base table, the related language table, or both, depending on the language of the user and which field was modified. The following table explains at the database table level the actions that are performed when you work with language-sensitive tables.

Action	Signon Language	Result
Translate a language-sensitive field. (The base language field has never been translated.)	Non-base	Adds a new row to the related language table that is keyed to the current sign-in language.
Edit a language-sensitive field.	Base	Changes a field in the base table without affecting the related language table.
Edit a language-sensitive field.	Non-base	Changes a field in a row of the related language table that is keyed to the current sign-in language. Doesn’t affect the base table.
Edit a non-language-sensitive field.	Base	Changes a field in the base table without affecting the related language table.
Edit a non-language-sensitive field.	Non-base	Changes a field in the base table without affecting the related language table. As the related language table contains only language-sensitive fields, no changes to this table are necessary.
Add a row (new key).	Base	Adds a new row to the base table without changing the related language table.
Add a row (new key).	Non-base	Adds a new row to the base table and a new row, keyed to the current sign-in language, to the related language table. This could introduce non-base language descriptions into the base language table.
Insert a row (effective-dated).	Base	Adds a new effective-dated row to both the base table and related language table. Add a new effective-dated rows to the related language table for each language for which translations exist for the object. Any updates to language-sensitive fields are applied only to the base table.
Insert a row (effective-dated).	Non-base	Adds a new effective-dated row to both the base table and the related language table for all languages for which translations exist for the object. Any updates to language-sensitive fields are applied to the current language in the related language table and to the base table.
Delete a row.	Base or non-base	Deletes the base table row and all dependent rows in the related language table.

Editing Data in Multiple Languages

This section provides an overview of multi-language entry and discusses how to:

Enable multi-language entry.
Enter data in multiple languages.

Understanding Multi-Language Entry

There are two methods of maintaining translations of application data.

By logging into the system in a language other than the database's base language and updating a field that is language-sensitive.
By using the Multi Language Entry option.

This section provides an overview of the Multi Language Entry option.

Using the Multi Language Entry option provides significant benefits over simply changing the session language and overwriting existing base language descriptions with their translations. It allows you to:

Enter or edit data in multiple languages during the same session without changing the sign-in language.
View all translations of a row of data in a single session, which may be important for multilingual implementations that need to describe data in a different language.
Easily recognize which fields on a page are language-sensitive and which are language-neutral.

Multi Language Entry makes it more intuitive for a multilingual user, such as a Canadian operator who is proficient in both French and English, to maintain data in several languages before saving a page.

Multi Language Entry is active if both of the following are true:

The Multi Language Entry option is enabled for the user operator.
The current page contains a record that has a related language record.

Enabling Multilanguage Entry

Multilanguage entry makes it more intuitive for a multilingual user to maintain data in several languages before saving a page.

To enable multi language entry:

Select My Personalizations on the navigation menu from your homepage.

The Personalizations page appears.
Click the Personalize Options button on the General Options line.

The Option Category General Options page appears.
Change the value in the Multi Language Entry Override Value dropdown list to Yes.
Click OK.

Entering Data in Multiple Languages

Once you have enabled Multi Language entry in My Personalizations, the page display changes in two important ways.

A Data Language dropdown list appears at the top of each page. The Data Language dropdown list indicates in which language the language-sensitive fields on the current page are being maintained. You can switch the display of the page between different data languages and maintain translations in each, by changing the selected language in the dropdown menu.
Any fields that are language-sensitive (that is, they are translatable as they exist both on the base language and related language records and are not keys) appear with a pale green shaded background. This makes it very easy to determine if the changes you make to the data will take effect in the current language only, or take effect across all languages in the database.

For example, in the previous graphic, the Subject field is language-sensitive. A different translation of the subject can be entered for each language enabled in the database, but the Email ID field is not, so any changes to the Email ID will be visible to all system users.

To translate this data into another language, simply pick a new language from the Data Language dropdown list. If translations exist for the current row of data in the new language, those translations will appear. If not, the base language values will still be displayed, and you can translate these into to the new language selected.

Note. Changing the data language of a page using Multi Language Entry only changes the language of application data; it does not change the language of the user interface of the page such as field labels and help text. The language of the user interface is controlled only by your sign-in language preference.

As changing the data language does not change the labels and other user interface elements of a page, it is also useful to determine terminology in different languages. For example, if Department descriptions in your Department table have been translated into several different languages, you can view the description of a department in each language simply by navigating to the Department table page and changing the data language. Because this only changes the language of the application data and not the user interface, you can "look up" terminology in other languages without needing to be able to navigate or use a page that has been translated into that language.

To enter data in multiple languages:

Enable the Multi Language Entry function.

See Enabling Multilanguage Entry.
Navigate to the page on which the data is to be maintained.

Any language-sensitive fields on the page are highlighted in green to make it easy to identify fields that permit data maintenance in multiple languages.
From the Languages menu, choose a target language.

The language that appears on the page remains the same; only the language-sensitive data is reloaded in the selected language.
Enter or edit data in any language-sensitive fields in the target language.
When finished editing the multilingual fields, save the page.

The system updates the base and related-language tables for the page.