Creating a multilingual system

You can create a single system that largely appears in the language of the current user. You can add translations for certain pieces of metadata and for certain pieces of operational data. The types of metadata that you can configure to appear in the language of the current user are:

  • object titles
  • process titles
  • process statuses
  • process actions
  • window labels
  • titles of queries
  • column titles in queries

The types of operational data that you can configure to appear in the language of the current user are:

  • configuration items
  • knowledge articles
  • categories
  • reference lists
  • ordered lists
  • shortcut groups and items

If you delete a multilingual instance of one of these items of operational data, the translated versions are also deleted. You cannot add translations for the language that Service Desk or Asset Manager was installed in - to change text that appears in the default language, use the standard designers and components.

You can prevent users from adding translations to specific attributes on the Article object or Configuration Item objects by setting the property Is Localised? to False for that attribute in Object Designer. For more information, see Attributes.

In addition to the designable parts of your system appearing in the user's culture, the Web Access and Ivanti Workspaces application interfaces appear in the culture of the current user, provided that their culture is one of the cultures that Service Desk or Asset Manager is localised into.

For more information on how the system determines the language of the application interface, see The application interface language.

The procedure for creating a multilingual system is:

  1. Enable multilingual support (see below)
  2. Add the required translations (see Adding translations)
  3. Assign cultures to users (see Assigning cultures to users)

Enabling multilingual support

Not all systems need to be multilingual, so there is a system setting that enables you to enable and disable the display of translated values. Disabling multilingual support also simplifies the user interface for those systems that do not want to add multilingual functionality by hiding the ability to add translations. By default, multilingual support is disabled. There is also a privilege you can set in the Administration component to limit which roles can add translations.

To enable multilingual support:
  1. On the Settings menu, click System.
    The System Settings page appears.
  2. Under Multilingual Settings, set Enable multilingual support to True, then click Save icon.

This System Setting enables and disables the display of translations and also enables and disables the addition of translations for a multilingual system. If your system contains translations for a multilingual system, then disabling this System Setting DOES NOT remove any translations that you have added. If users have a culture set (see Assigning cultures to users), the application interface will match their culture.

To set the Enable addition of translations privilege:
  1. In the Administration component, display the User Management tree and select the role that you want to set the privilege for.
  2. In the Actions tree, click Privileges.
    The Privilege tree appears.
  3. Set the Configuration Components\Configuration\Edit MultiLingual Data privilege to Privilege is available icon.

For more information about privileges, see Privileges.