The most important part of the localization infrastructure is the i18n key. This is a unique value assigned to each element that is subject to localization in the entire application. Examples of such elements are:

• Labels (of tabs, push buttons, fields, etc.)
• Lookup table entries
• Category names
• Messages
• Other static text on the page

Note: User-entered data is not localized. For example, if an Appointment record is named "North Hills Partners Settlement Conference," that is the text that will be rendered to the Name field of every end user's Appointment web page, regardless of their locale. But the static label next to that field might say "Name" or "Nom" or "Nombre," depending upon the end user's locale.

The first step in localization is to register all the locales that TeamConnect must support. For details, see Working with Locales. After those locales are registered, you can export your application's design element resources.

All elements that have i18n keys can be exported to a spreadsheet. The sheet contains a column for the i18n key (Message Key), a column for Default Value (the static text, in the system default locale), and an additional column for each other locale that has been registered by the system administrator. To localize the application, enter static text in other languages in those additional columns, then import the edited spreadsheet to the application. For details of these procedures, see Working with Locales.

Design elements that are already unique will have their i18n key generated automatically. For example, a custom field name (when combined with its object definition's unique code and its category) is already guaranteed to be unique. But some design element names are not required to be unique - for example, a report name. In cases like these, the solution developer must assign a value to a Unique Key field in that design element. The Unique Key will be used as part of the automatically generated i18n key. Unique Key fields are found in several places in Designer, as well as in report design pages. Design elements that have empty Unique Key fields will not be exported to the localization spreadsheet.