Foundation objects reflect a company's basic information about the organization, pay, and job structure. This is fundamental data that appears repeatedly throughout the system not just for the Admin, but also for the employees.
Therefore it is important that this information can be shown in the user's language.
To achieve this, you can translate language-specific data of foundation objects, such as the name and description of the department, business unit, or job classification.
Depending on the type of the foundation object, the translation process is handled differently for:
● Job Classification foundation objects (technical name: jobCode)
● All other foundation objects (except jobCode)
Translating data for foundation objects is a 3-step process that includes the following steps:
1. Export or list the translatable foundation data 2. Translate the foundation data
3. Import the translations
What do you have to do before you can translate foundation data?
For jobCode foundation objects:
Set the role-based permissions:
1. Go to Administration Tools.
2. In the Manage Employees portlet, select Set User Permissions Manage Permission Roles . 3. Click on the corresponding permission role.
4. Click the Permission... button.
5. In the Permission settings dialog box, scroll down to the Administrator Permissions and click Manage Foundation Objects, then select the Import Translations checkbox on the right.
6. Click Done , and save your changes.
For all other foundation objects:
If you have followed the implementation sequence described in this handbook, you probably already have...
● Selected the checkbox Enable Translation of Employee Central Foundation Objects in Provisioning
● Enabled generic objects in Provisioning
You can find more information under How do you configure and manage generic objects? [page 89]
● Set up the Corporate Data Model
● Imported or created foundation objects
You can find more information under Importing Foundation Data [page 143].
How do you translate foundation data?
Note that the process differs depending on the type of foundation object.
For jobCode foundation objects:
1. Get a list with the jobCode data that you want to translate. Please note that you can only translate data that is used in the following jobCode fields:
● name
● description
● custom-string1–20
These are the HRIS-field IDs used in the Corporate Data Model for the jobCode HRIS element.
Note that you can also import the data and the translations before you import or create the jobCode foundation objects that use this data.
To get a CSV file that includes all translatable foundation data of existing jobCode foundation objects, you can create an ad-hoc report. You can find more information on how this is done in the EC Reports Handbook.
2. Translate the data:
1. You can send the list with the jobCode texts to the translator(s) to have the texts translated.
2. Create a CSV file in the following format and enter the texts in the company's default language as well as the translations:
Here's how to read the file:
● The first row contains the locale IDs of the languages you want to enter translations for. You can find the correct locale ID for each language in Provisioning under Company Settings (for example, en_US for US English, fr_FR for French, and so on).
● Add one column per language. The sequence of columns (that means which language to put into the first column, which into the second column, and so on) does not matter, but you have to include the default language that has been set in Provisioning under Company Settings in this CSV file. Note that you can only import translations for the language packs activated in Provisioning.
● The second row contains the names of the locales in English. This line is ignored when the data is imported.
● The data in row 3 and below will be imported. Here you enter the texts that appear on the user interface, as well as their translations. Only texts in the following HRIS fields for jobCode are translatable:
○ name
○ description
○ custom-string1–20
● You can only import translations for the language packs activated in Provisioning under Company Settings to be able to import the file.
● You do not have to enter translations for all activated language packs, nor do you have to enter translations for all texts you want to use in the translatable fields for jobCode.
● The sequence of the translatable texts does not matter.
● We recommend you use the character set UTF-8 for the CSV file.
3. Import the translations:
1. Go to Administration Tools. In the Company Processes & Cycles portlet, select Employee Files Import Translations .
2. In the Choose File field, browse for the CSV file you have created before.
3. Click the Import button.
For all other foundation objects except jobCode:
1. Export existing foundation data into a CSV file:
1. Go to Administration Tools. In the Company Processes & Cycles portlet, select Employee Files Generic Objects Import/Export .
2. In the Download Data Import File Template field, select FoTranslation.
3. In the confirmation popup that asks if you want to fill the download template with existing data, select Yes.
4. Go to Administration Tools. In the Company Processes & Cycles portlet, select Employee Files Monitor Job .
5. Open the download template that starts with FoTranslation_MDFExport by clicking Download Status.
This is a sample for what the downloaded CSV file looks like:
If the downloaded CSV file contains only the first two rows, the initialization of the
FoTranslation object has probably not finished yet. This initialization process is started when you activate foundation object translation in Provisioning, and it can take up several hours, depending on the number of foundation objects existing in the system.
The first two rows are the column titles. The columns define the following:
● externalCode: This is a specific external code that the system assigns all instances of foundation objects that exist in the system. This is not the external code the Admin has created or imported, but it is the FoTranslation-specific external code that is created when you enable the foundation object translation in Provisioning.
● foObjectID: This is a specific ID that the system assigns all instances of foundation objects that exist in the system. This ID is created when you enable the foundation object translation in Provisioning.
● foType: This is the type of the foundation object, for example, businessUnit, jobFunction, company, and so on.
● foField: This column contains the HRIS-field ID for all translatable fields (typically name and description).
● value.*: The remaining columns that begin with value. and that are followed by the locale ID for the corresponding language (for example, value.en_US for US English, value.fr_FR for French) represent one language.
The texts that the Admin has entered for the name and description of existing foundation objects are contained in the corresponding language column.
All other language columns are determined by the language pack activated in Provisioning. You have to enter the translations into these columns.
2. Translate the foundation data:
1. You can now send the CSV file to the translator(s) who can edit the file offline.
2. Consolidate the translations for all required languages in one CSV file.
There is no incremental upload for foundation object translations supported. That means if you have already uploaded translations before, the latest CSV file upload will overwrite the previous one. Therefore it is important that the consolidated document contains all translations that are required, even if the translation is a shared process of different translators.
This is an example for a translated file, the translations are highlighted:
3. Import the translations:
1. Upload the CSV file that contains the translations in Administration Tools. In the Company Processes &
Cycles portlet, select Employee Files Generic Objects Import/Export . 2. In the Import portlet, in the Type field, select FoTranslation.
3. In the File field, browse for the translated CSV file.
4. In the File Encoding field, select the character set that is appropriate for the languages that you want to import to guarantee that all special characters of the languages are displayed correctly.
5. In the Purge Type field, select Full Purge.
6. Click Validate to make sure the file has no formatting errors.
7. If there are no validation errors, click Import.
After the import, the system decides in which language a foundation object is displayed in this sequence:
1. The system checks whether the foundation data is available in the logon language of the user.
This is the language the user has selected under Options Change Language .
2. If there is no translation in the logon language, the system shows the default language that has been set in Provisioning under Company Settings Default Language .
3. If there is no translation in the default language, the system looks for a translated term in US English.
Adding or changing translations
For jobCode foundation objects:
Follow the same steps as described before under How do you translate foundation objects?
There is no option to add or change translations for jobCode directly on the user interface.
For all other foundation objects (except jobCode):
If you want to add or change translations after you have already imported translations for foundation objects (except jobCode), you have two choices:
1. Export and import translations as described above under How do you translate foundation objects?
This is recommended if you want to translate a high number of new or changed fields in multiple languages.
2. Add or change translations on the user interface
This is recommended if you want to add or change only a few terms, for example, when you want to correct single terms that have not been translated appropriately.
To do this, you have to:
1. Go to Administration Tools. In the Company Processes & Cycles portlet, select Employee Files Manage Organization, Pay and Job Structures .
2. In the Search field, select the type of the foundation object (for example: Legal Entity), and the specific foundation object (for example: Company USA) for which you want to add or change a translation.
3. Click the Translations icon next to the translatable field as shown in this example:
4. Enter or change the translation directly in the popup:
5. Click Done.
6. Click Save.
Limitations
The translations of foundation objects are not shown in the Employee Profile. The Employee Profile reuses foundation object data for basic organizational information, such as division, department, and location.
Within Employee Central, there are two areas where the Employee Profile is used and where the foundation object translations are not shown: