IBM Maximo Multi-language capabilities

Background

Multi-language support prior to Maximo Asset Management release 6

• Replicate screen changes in each language file
• Redo screen changes in each language file when upgrading to the next version
• Database administrator had to create views for each language
• Screens needs to be configured for data entry
• Needed a Maximo server for each language

Multi-language support now: Common approach to UI and data

• Languages stored in the database (supports Unicode)
• Screen configurations are language independent
• Easy to add more languages
• One Maximo server
• No database view creation needed

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.
• Users can select their language when logging in
• If Maximo does not find data in the user's language, it will display the data in the base language

 

Single Database - Multi-languages

 

Database platform support

• DB2 and Oracle databases supports UNICODE for Maximo
• Any language combination is supported (for example, 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 tables

• Non-Base language data for the system tables (e.g. Maxlabels, synonymdomain etc.) will be created automatically when adding languageLanguage tables can be added in the Database Configuration application.

Add a language table in the Database Configuration application

Enable multilanguage use in the Database Configuration application

• Select the Multilanguage in Use check box
• The Multilanguage Supported checkbox must also be selected

Adding more languages

• During installation, from the launchpad, select a language to add

Enable multi-language support

After installation, run TDToolkit manually.
From a command prompt, go to maximo_root/tools/maximo
TDToolkit _addlanglang
Note: language values can be found in LANGUAGE.MAXLANGCODE_
For more information, see the TDToolkit_Overview.doc in the following directory: 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, the 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

• Users can select a 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 or update is done, run the scripts.
  • Or update translations in XLIFF files. After upgrade or update is done, run TDToolkit to re-import them to overwrite default values.

 

Adding unsupported languages

• For example, 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.

 

Sharing data in a user's language

• The same data can be shared in different languages
• Key values always stay in the base language
• Descriptions can be in multiple languages
• Some of the system values such as domain description, messages, and UI labels are already enabled for multiple languages.

Example 1: Data created by base language user

Example 1 (continued)
 

Example 2: Data created by secondary language 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 item number with no description.
• Another different secondary language user will also see the blank description.
  Example 2 (continued)

Example 2 (continued)

• Log in as a base language user - description field is empty.

Example 3: Domain description

The following example illustrates how to show the description in an application.
First create a relationship in the application where you want to display the description, as shown in the following example in the Preventive Maintenance application.

You can use the preceding example as a template. Just make sure that you specify the appropriate domainid and field.

Then go to the Application Designer and bring up PM. Add a new Column and specify the Description from the new relationship.

Save the record, log out of Maximo, and log in with a different language.

Summary

• Languages are stored in the database.
• For system data, translations are provided with the product. For user data, the user of the language provides the translation.
• Plan carefully
  • Once the base language is set to non-English, switching the base language is difficult.