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Author's profile photo Troy Cronin
Troy Cronin
April 27, 2017 4 minute read

EP: Portal Language – Selection Via Personalization Dropdown

Portal Languages

When using the SAP Enterprise Portal (EP) within an NW Environment in a large organizational landscape business requirements may require different linguistic and language settings for multiple user bases.

The language that the portal is displayed in depends on the following hierarchy, with the languages at the top of the list taking precedence over those at the bottom.

  1. Component (iview) language (defined in the portalapp.xml)
  2. Portal Mandatory language (defined in the prtDefault.properties)
  3. User language (defined in the user#s profile).
  4. Request language (defined by the browser).
  5. Portal Default language (defined in the prtDefault.properties)
  6. System Default language (default locale defined by the OS).

So for example, if you have your portal user language (as in point 3) set to German, but the language of the iView that is the logon page (as in point 1) set to English, that logon page will be displayed in English.

Enabling Personalization for Users

The locale service properties determine what languages comprise the master language list, to which languages the UI strings may be translated, and which languages are available for translation to users logged on to the portal as anonymous users.

If you want the iViews to be specific for a region or a “set user base” then you will need to maintain their particular iview properites and i.e. Logon Language,Master Language. There is no standard function or transaction which can set the region as this is achieved directly through property maintenance.

If you want to let users gain access to the Personalization dropdown and provide them with the ability to change the language themselves in a Portal session there are some important points to highlight and consider.

You can follow the official guidance documentation and help WIKI outlined below which provides a comprehensive overviewing on setting up personalization:

In terms of the drop down in the masthead to update the language this can be achieved for accessing the portal with the anonymous user. Please see the following link:

From the Masthead section:

“If you have configured your portal to accept anonymous users, you can add the language personalization dropdown list to the masthead, by selecting the Show Dropdown List in Masthead: Language Personalization for Anonymous Users property in the masthead iView. At runtime, anonymous users can change the portal language. If the anonymous user logs in as an authenticated user, the dropdown list disappears from the masthead, and the portal appears in the language defined for that user.”

If you follow the documentation steps outlined above you should now have the option of availing of several languages (installed) within the “Forced Language Request” value.

There is an important snippet I would like to refernece here from within SAP Note: – SAP KBA: 2279017 – Language Personalization for Anonymous Users classic/Ajax[VIDEO].

To reference the note directly: “If the portal is configured to use anonymous users, you can add the language personalization dropdown list to the masthead iview, by changing the property Show Dropdown List in Masthead: Language Personalization for Anonymous Users in the Masthead iView to Yes. At runtime, anonymous users can change the portal language. If the anonymous user logs in as an authenticated user, the dropdown list disappears from the masthead, and the portal appears in the language defined for that user.”

– NOTE:The dropdown list for anonymous users is available only for classic frameworkpage, for Ajax frameworkpage it was not implemented”

If the translation is still not appearing kindly implement the steps in the following resolution KBA:

– SAP KBA: 2286897 – Language missing from user profile even after configuring the supported language

If you have followed SAP KBA: 2286897 and your desired language is still not appearing in the dropdown this would leave me to believe that there is a discrepancy in the configuration caused by one of the following:

  • The system has not been restarted correctly (in full as highlighted in the KBA). After the language has been added the full service needs to be restarted
  • You need to also ensure that there are no “SP Level” mismatches in your component information if patching has been performed. It is encouraged to check that all Components are currently operating on the same SP Level.

Language Maintenance, Installation & Setup

For official guidance material I have outlined a comprehensive SAP WIKI below which provides a detailed overview on how to set the language for the Enterprise Portal.

The default language for the portal is maintained through the following path.

  • System Administration ->System Config -> Service Config->Portal Runtime.

The mandatory language for the portal is defined through the PRT. If you want to explore different language installations and setups the documentation guides outlined below are a core reference point.

Mandatory Language Settings.

If the language is not appeared after reproducing the steps required for its intended installation kindly follow and implement the following documentation fix:

  •  SAP Note: 1789373 – Language defined in the locale service is missing at runtime

 

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      Author's profile photo Sebastian Canepa
      Sebastian Canepa

      I read your post and not sure If its me or the answer i need is not here, I have the following case

       

      People log in to their portals and the Language under Personalization tab for for example "Leave request" is in English which doesnt work with out system because the list and combo box are in spanish therefore the list is not shown. I need to find a way to force the iView language of that tab for any user that logs in and goes to Leave Request inside Portal.