Your organization can define a list of preferred languages. Adding a preferred language does the following:
- The language is available as a list item in the Preferred Correspondence Language field. Users can select from these list items when entering a contact’s preferred language. Users can then filter on the language when preparing a mailing.
- Each language-specific field configured for InterAction becomes available for that language. Windows Client users can enter data in each of these fields for each preferred language.
For example, suppose you add two preferred languages:
- Dutch (Netherlands)
- German (Germany)
When editing a contact, users can select one of these two languages for the contact’s preferred language as described in About Entering Data in the Gender and Preferred Correspondence Language Fields. Furthermore, all language-specific fields defined in InterAction become available for both of these languages. For instance, this creates both a Dutch version and a German version of the Language-Specific Job Title field. For most contacts, only one of these fields is relevant, but all of them are available.
See Creating and Editing Language-Specific Custom Fields for details about language-specific fields.
Language-Specific Fields are Available for All Preferred Correspondence Languages
[A] Because both Dutch and German have been added as preferred languages, the Language-Specific Job Title field is now available for both Dutch and German.
About Adding Preferred Languages
You add preferred languages using InterAction Administrator. When you add a language, you actually select the language from a list of supported languages/locales available in InterAction.
You must enable the International Correspondence feature before you can add preferred languages. See Enabling Language-Specific Contact Information.
Note that every language-specific field defined in InterAction is available for every language you add to the list of preferred languages. Although users in the Windows Client can filter the view to a particular language, you should still limit the number of preferred languages you add. Only add languages that your users need for their international mailings.
Once you add a language to the list of preferred languages, you cannot delete it. However, you can inactivate it. Inactive languages do not appear as list items in the Preferred Correspondence Language field and they are not used for language-specific custom fields.
Add a Preferred Language
- On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Language Configuration in the entity list. The Language and Version Options dialog opens.
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Choose Languages to open the Manage Preferred Language dialog box.
If the Languages button is disabled, the feature may not be enabled or you may not have activated the field. Make sure that the global field is active and that the feature has been enabled. See Enabling Language-Specific Contact Information. Alternatively, you may not have any fields active for global international correspondence.
- Choose New.
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Select the language to add from the Language drop-down list.
Note that previously-added languages are not included in the list.
If the language you want to add was previously added, but then made inactive, you can re-activate it. Edit the language and change the Status drop-down list back to Active.
- Make sure that the Status is set to Active.
- Choose OK.
Inactivate (Remove) a Preferred Language
A preferred language can be active or inactive.
- Active languages are available as an option when setting the language for a contact. All language-specific fields defined in InterAction are also available for each active language.
- Inactive languages are not available as list items in the Preferred Language. Language-specific fields defined in InterAction are not available for inactive languages.
If you added a language that you no longer need, you can make it inactive. Changing an active language to inactive hides the language-specific fields for that language.
- On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Language Configuration in the entity list.
- In the Language and Version Options dialog choose Languages to open the Manage Preferred Language dialog box.
- Select the language to change and choose Edit.
- Change the Status to Inactive.
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Choose OK to save your changes.