Localization

About Localization

Localization is the process whereby a user interacts with platform using their preferred language and data formats.

Working with Localized Values

Platform Settings

The Locale Settings determine a variety of data formats:

• My Settings > Locale Information - Formats chosen by the user for dates, times, and numbers, plus language.
• User Settings - Formats set for the user by the admin.
• Company Information Settings - Default user formats, and the Currency format, which can be changed only by an admin.

The Translation Workbench can be used to support additional languages.

Interface Interactions

When working with the platform GUI, data is typically displayed and entered in User Format, as determined by the user's Locale Settings.

There are exceptions, however. When specifying numeric values that will be used in a direct comparison against database data.
In those cases, the Database Format must be used:

• Entering Search data
• Specifying Filter Criteria for a View

Note: Dates and Times are always specified in the User's preferred format, regardless of context.

Rules and Imports

The Database Format for numeric values must be used when:

• Specifying numeric values for a Rule

Ideally, that format will also be used when:

• Supplying numeric data for an Import operation

Exceptions:

• In a Pre-import Rule, numeric data is not coming from the database. In that context, the raw data is available, exactly as it appears in the incoming data. If the numeric data is in localized form, the Java Localization Functions could be used to convert the numeric fields to Database Format. (A method needs to be defined to use them in a Java Class, The method can then be invoked by a Rule action to do convert the numeric data. Or you can save yourself the effort by ensuring that incoming numeric data is in Database Format.

• Incoming Data and Time values are always presumed to be in User Format

REST Programming

When using the REST API, all data is specified in Database Format:

Field	Format
Date, DateTime, Time	UTC Format
Currency, Number, Number with Decimal, Percent	No currency symbol or percent sign No grouping characters (e.g. commas) in whole-number portion A decimal point (.) before fractional portion Ex: 84954.32
Lookup	The Record ID of a record in the target object. Ex: 123A456B78
Multi Object Lookup	An Object ID, to identify the target object, a colon, and a Record ID. Ex: 849Z:123A456B78