Download ppt - IBM Maximo Asset Management © 2007 IBM Corporation Tivoli Technical Exchange Calls Aug 31, 2010 1 Maximo - Multi-Language Capabilities Ritsuko Beuchert

IBM Maximo Asset Management

Tivoli Technical Exchange Calls Aug 31, 2010 © 2007 IBM Corporation

1

Maximo - Multi-Language Capabilities

Ritsuko BeuchertMaximo Globalization, Tivoli


© 2007 IBM Corporation2 Tivoli Technical Exchange Calls 08/31/10

Background

Multi-Language prior to release 6

– Need to replicate screen changes in each language file.

– Redo screen changes in each language file while upgrading to the next version.

– Db admin should create views for each language

– Screens needs to be configured for data entry

– Maximo Server for each language



Common approach to UI and Data

Languages stored in Database (supports Unicode)

Screen configurations are language independent

Easy to add more languages

One Maximo server

No Db admin



Methodology

Upon installation a base language is identified.

The base language data is stored in the main table.

The non base language data is stored in a language table.

User can select the language before login

If Maximo does not find data in the user’s language it will display the data in the base language



5

Single Database - Multi-languagesSingle Database - Multi-languages



Database platforms

DB2 and Oracle databases supports UNICODE for Maximo

– Any language combination is supported (e.g. English as base language and Japanese and Arabic as secondary languages)

SQL Server does not support Maximo's implementation of UNICODE

– Limited language combination is supported (e.g. English as base language and French and German as secondary languages)



Language table

Non-Base language data for the system tables (e.g. Maxlabels, synonymdomain etc.) will be created automatically when adding language.

Language table can be added in the Database Configuration.



Language table (continued)



Adding language table

Go to Database Configuration



Enabling multi language in DBConfig

Turn on 'Multilanguage Use? Flag

– Only when 'ML Supported?' is checked!



11

Adding more languagesAdding more languages



Adding more languages

During install

– - Select a language to add in the launchpad.



Enable multi-language Support

After install

– Run TDToolkit manually.

– From command prompt, go to {maximo_root}/tools/maximo

TDToolkit -addlanglang

*lang values can be found in LANGUAGE.MAXLANGCODE

TDToolkit_Overview.doc

– {install_dir}\tools\maximo\classes\psdi\xlate\TDToolkit_Overview.doc



Supported Languages

German, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish

Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese

Arabic, Hebrew,

Turkish, Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Slovenian



Language, Locale and Calendar settings

In Maximo, language, locale (number/date format) and calendar are independent. For example, a French user can have French language, Swedish locale and islamic calendar. The settings can be changed in the Profile.



Login Page

User could select language at login



Profile > Default Information



Customizing translations

How can I customize and preserve the translation?

– It's possible your customized data are overwritten on upgrade or applying patches.

– You could create update scripts to customize data in database. After upgrade/update is done, run the scripts.

– Or update translations in xliff files. After upgrade/update is done, run TDToolkit to re-import them to overwrite default values.



Adding unsupported language

For instance, I want to enter data in Thai....

– Even though there is no Thai GUI, you can enter Thai data as long as your database is Oracle/DB2 Unicode.

– Or have a local vendor or partner do the translation. Translatable strings are stored in XLIFF files. XLIFF is an XML file with specific tags for the translation process.



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Sharing Data in User's languageSharing Data in User's language



Sharing Data in User's language

Same data can be shared in different languages

– Key values always stay in the base language

– Description can be in multiple languages

– Some of the system values such as domain values, messages, UI labels are multiple language enabled by default.



Example 1

Data created by Base Lang user



Example 1 (continued)



Example 2

Data created by Secondary Lang user

– Key value is stored in the main table but the description goes to the language table (e.g. L_ITEM.DESCRIPTION).

– Base language user will see the itemnum with no description.

– Another different secondary language user will also see the blank description.




Data created by Secondary Lang user




Log in as a Base Lang user – description field is empty.



Summary

Languages are all stored in database.

For system data, translations are provided out of the box. However, user data are language users responsibility to provide translations.

Plan carefully

– Once base language is set to non-English, switching the base language is difficult.



References

Maximo Asset Management System Adminiatrator Guilde

– http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/tivihelp/v3r1/topic/com.ibm.mam.doc_7.1/pdf/mam71_sys_admin_guide.pdf

TDToolkit Overview documantation

– {install_dir}\tools\maximo\classes\psdi\xlate\TDToolkit_Overview.doc

XLIFF specifications

– http://www.oasis-open.org/home/index.php