Language-specific fields are special global additional fields that are tied to the languages your organization supports. They can be used to store information needed to ensure that mailings sent to different countries are presented correctly according to the language and customs of the country.
For example, this lets you enter the Dutch-specific job title for a Dutch contact, and the German-specific job title for a German contact. When creating a mailing, users can use the correct version of the field on the label or envelope.
Each language-specific field is available for each preferred language defined in your environment. Therefore, if you have five preferred languages, there will be five versions of every language specific field, one for each language.
Out-of-the-Box Language-Specific Fields
Enabling the language-specific contact information feature adds four out-of-the-box language-specific fields:
- Language-Specific Job Title
- Language-Specific Salutation
- Language-Specific Suffix
- Language-Specific Title
In addition to these, you can define as many fields as your organization needs.
About Entering Data in Language-Specific Fields
Language-specific fields are displayed on the Name Formats view in the Windows Client. Note that these fields are not available on the normal Additional Fields view and are not available in the Additional Field views in the Web Client, although Web Client users can export these fields when creating mail merges.
See the InterAction for Data Stewards and Marketing Users for details about entering data in these fields.
Defining Language-Specific Fields
You use InterAction Administrator to define language-specific fields. You cannot delete an existing field, but you can inactivate a field. This logically deletes the field by hiding it from users.
Avoid creating a large number of language-specific fields, as this causes confusion when entering the data and creating merge templates. Limit the fields to those that are necessary for your organization’s mailings.
When naming your fields, it is recommended that you use a naming convention that clearly identifies these fields as language-specific. This makes it easier when users are selecting fields for building salutations and creating mailings. For example, you can use the out-of-the-box convention of prefixing the name with “Language-Specific.” Alternatively, you can form your own naming convention.
See the following topics:
- Create a Language-Specific Custom Field Definition
- Edit a Language-Specific Custom Field Definition
- Inactivate (Remove) a Language-Specific Custom Field Definition
Create a Language-Specific Custom Field Definition
- 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 Fields to open the Manage Custom Language-Specific Fields dialog box.
If the Fields button is disabled, the feature may not be enabled. See Enabling Language-Specific Contact Information.
- Choose New. The Add Custom Language-Specific Field dialog opens.
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Enter the Name for the field.
It is recommended that you use a naming convention that clearly identifies these fields as language-specific. For example, you can use the out-of-the-box convention of prefixing the name with “Language-Specific.”
- Enter a Description for the field. This should provide end users with information regarding how to fill in the field.
- Make sure the Status drop-down list is set to Active.
- Click OK to save the new field.
Next time you open the Windows Client, the new field is available on the Name Formats view for each contact.
Edit a Language-Specific Custom Field Definition
You can change the Name, Description, or Status of an existing language-specific field.
- On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Language Configuration in the entity list.
- Choose Fields to open the Manage Custom Language-Specific Fields dialog box.
- Select the field to change and choose Edit.
- Change the Name, Description, or Status fields as needed.
- Click OK to save your changes.
Inactivate (Remove) a Language-Specific Custom Field Definition
A language-specific field can be active or inactive. Active fields are available to end users in the Windows Client. Inactive fields are hidden from end users.
If you added a field that you no longer need, you can make it inactive. Changing an active field to inactive hides the field from end users for all contacts. Note that this does not delete existing field values, so if you change the field back to active later, the hidden values become available as well.
- On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Language Configuration in the entity list.
- Choose Fields to open the Manage Custom Language-Specific Fields dialog box.
- Select the field to change and choose Edit.
- Change the Status to Inactive.
- Click OK to save your changes.