Multi-language in Enterprise PDM Data Cards

In a recent post I gave you some ideas on supporting multiple languages in Enterprise PDM. There are two ways you can “filter” your data cards so users only see the language they speak.

You can make different data cards per language and save them in different locations within your vault. (i.e. save the English card in a root folder that only English users will work in, save the French card in a root folder where only French users will work…) This works well as long as your folder structure is setup on a per language basis.

If users of any language may be working in any location in the vault, and you do not want to confuse your users by seeing a foreign language…

You can create an Enterprise PDM group per language you support. Add your users into the groups accordingly.

Then create a tab control on your data card. Each tab corresponding to each language. English text on the English tab, French text on the French tab, etc. (Don’t forget you can copy/paste controls and their format from one tab to another – this can be a big time saver.)

Instead of showing all three tabs, have the tabs controlled by the variable: “<Name of group>”

Now, depending on which group the user is in, he will only see the controls in the tab of his own language.

1. If a user is a member of more than one language, Enterprise PDM will only display the first tab it the list (so there is no reason to add people to more than one language group.)

2. Being a member of more than one group type does not affect the tab displayed. i.e. if he is in the “German” group and also is a member of the “Design” group, the “Design” group membership is not used to determine the displayed tab -he would see the “German” tab.

Did this help? Need more questions answered about Enterprise PDM? Let me know in the comments section below!