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Configuring new Country/Region fields for MDF Foundation Objects

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to Configure new Country/Region fields for MDF Foundation Objects.

Country-specific fields

CSF Corporate Data Model

The CSF Corporate Data Model is used to configure country-specific fields for Legacy Foundation Objects.

Note that in the previous figure, Location: Business Address, you can see the Business Address fields for two countries. On the left, is information for the United States, and on the right, for China. The different fields are configured in the Corporate Address element of the CSF Corporate Data Model.

Deconstructing CSF Corporate Data Model

CSF for Metadata Framework based FO

Legal Entity is an example of an MDF-based Foundation Object that is typically configured to store country-specific fields.

In the following figure, Country-Specific Fields in MDF: Legal Entity, you can see ACE USA as a legal entity record in Manage Data. Whenever a new legal entity record is created in Manage Data, a country must be assigned to that record. That country assignment determines the country-specific fields that become visible.

Configuration of a Country-specific field for a legal entity

There are country-specific Legal Entity fields that are already preconfigured and are standard for some countries. For example, these fields are predelivered when you select the United States as the country of registration for a Legal Entity:

Federal Reserve Bank
Fed Reserve Bank District
EEO Company Code

These fields are standard when you select Germany as the Country of Registration:

Tax Unit
Social Accident Insurance
Social Accident Insurance Registration Number

But how do we add a country-specific legal entity field for countries that do not have any country-specific fields delivered by default? For example, we want to add fields specific to legal entities registered in the Philippines. The high-level steps consist of the following:

Creating a child Legal Entity object to store the country-specific fields.
Creating a composite association between the parent and child legal entity.
In the Association details, add the condition (countryOfRegistration.code) and condition values (the 3-letter ISO code of the country) to ensure the relevant country-specific fields will only show when the correct country is selected.

Additional resources

For more information about the concepts introduced in this unit, visit SAP Help Portal. Login with your SAP universal ID. The relevant guides are as follows:

Exercise: Configure the Country-specific fields for Foundation Objects

Business Example

ACE wants to expand its operation in France and open satellite offices around the country. In line with this planned expansion, they would like to customize the corporate address format for France. The company asks you to configure this based on this requirement.

Only make the requested changes highlighted in gold. Leave the other fields in the object definition as they are. When prompted to confirm warning messages (such as, "visibility of searchable field is set to not visible"), select YES.

Hint

SAP SuccessFactors uses the standard three-letter country codes (ISO 3166-1 alpha-3) for the country names in the Country-Specific configuration files, for example, FRA for France. In the CSF Corporate Data model, you cannot restrict the format of the fields. Instead, you use the field type (String, Long, Double, Date). You might not see the required fields for the local business address. If needed, you can copy the custom fields from an existing country.

Note

You must have completed Prepare an Instance (Unit 1) and Prepare the Data Models (Unit 2) exercises before completing this hands-on. This exercise activity is not required for completing succeeding hands-on exercises for this course.

Steps

Go to the Picklist Center to create the address type picklist for France. The picklist will contain four values: Physical, Mailing, Deliveries, and Other. You can use any code you prefer.
1. Go to Picklists Center.
2. Select Create New.
3. Add a Code and a Name.
4. Set the Effective Start Date to 01/01/1900.
5. Add the four values with the Labels: Physical, Mailing, Deliveries, Other. You can use any external code you prefer for each value.
6. Save your picklist.
Export the Country-Specific Corporate Data Model to update the corporate address element for France (FRA). Use the image for details. Replace the original entry with the highlighted values. Leave the other property as is. Ensure the picklist ID reflects the code created in the Picklist Center.
1. Log in to your instance and go to Import and Export Country Specific Corporate Data Model.
2. Select Export. Save the file in the folder containing the DTD files from the course files.
3. Open the CSF for the Corporate data model in your XML editor. (Optional) If you are using an XML editor that validates versus a DTD, update row 4 to a value of "country-specific-fields.dtd">.
4. Go to the country "FRA".
5. Use the figure, Corporate Address HRIS Element, to configure your corporate address for France. (Optional) If you use an XML editor that validates versus a DTD, run validation and verify the changes' validation properly.
6. Save a new version of the CSF Corporate Data Model.
7. Use the Action Search to navigate to the Import/Export Country/Region-Specific XML for Corporate Data Model tool.
8. Upload the CSF Corporate Data Model.
9. Navigate to Manage Organization, Pay and Job Structures.
10. Go to Create New → LocationSet the Country to France to verify that the Foundation Object meets the customer requirements.
Go to Configure Object Definition to update the Legal Entity fields for France. Use the image for details. Replace the original entry with the highlighted values. Leave the other property as is.
1. Go to Configure Object Definition.
2. Go to Search → Object Definition → Legal Entity France.
3. Choose Take Action → Make Correction.
4. Update the Legal Entity Object Definition based on the requirements highlighted in gold in the figure, Legal Entity Field Data.
5. Navigate to Manage Data.
6. Select Create New → Legal Entity. Choose France in the Country field to display the configured country-specific fields.

Translation of foundation data when multiple languages are used by the customer

Foundation Data Translation

Foundation objects reflect a company’s basic information about the organization, pay, and job structures. This information is fundamental data displayed repeatedly throughout the system for administrators and employees. It is, therefore, important that this information can be shown in the user’s language.

To display information in the user’s language, you can translate the language-specific data of foundation objects, such as the name and description.

This lesson will only focus on translating the legacy foundation data. The MDF foundation records and any generic record translations are included in the import template for the object.

Translation of legacy foundation data

Add or change translations on the UI. We recommend this if you want to add or change only a few terms. For example, when you want to correct a single term that hasn't been translated appropriately. Use the following steps to complete this action:
1. Go to Manage Organization, Pay, and Job Structures.
2. In the Search field, choose the type of foundation object (for example, Event Reason) and the specific object (for example, New Hire) you want to add or change a translation.
3. Choose the Translations icon next to the translatable field (as shown in the previous figure, Modification of Translations).
4. In the Translations dialog box, enter or change the translation directly.
5. Choose Done and then Save.
Import translations. This is used for translating mass legacy Foundation data. Translation Process using Import Method. The following steps highlight the general translation process:
1. Go to Import and Export Data → Action to Perform: Export Data → Select Generic Object: FoTranslation
  1. Select Export
  2. Select View Result
  3. In Scheduled Job Manager, select View Details. Click Download Status.
    The figure, Downloaded CSV File, shows the downloaded CSV file.
    The text that the Admin has entered for the name and description of existing foundation objects is contained in the corresponding language column. The language pack activated in Provisioning determines languages in the other columns. Enter the translations into these columns. Send the CSV file to the translator, who can edit the file offline. Then, consolidate the translations for all required languages in one CSV file.
    Note
    There's no incremental upload for the supported Foundation Object translations. If you have uploaded translations before, the latest CSV file upload overwrites the previous version. Therefore, the consolidated document must contain all required translations, even if it is a shared process of different translators.
2. Translate the Foundation Data The following figure is an example of a translated file; the translations are highlighted in column H.
3. Import the Translations
  1. Go to Import and Export Data.
  2. In the Select the action to perform dropdown menu, choose Import Data. Select the CSV File radio button. In the Select Generic Object dropdown menu, choose FoTranslation.
  3. In the File field, browse for the translated CSV file. In the File Encoding field, select Unicode (UTF-8).
  4. In the Purge Type dropdown menu, choose Incremental Load. If necessary, choose the format that matches your locale.
  5. Choose Validate to ensure that the file has no formatting errors. If there are no validation errors, choose Import.
Note
This action guarantees that all special characters of the languages display correctly.
After the Import
After the import, the system decides which language a foundation object displays in the following sequence:
1. The system checks whether the foundation data is available in the user’s logon language. This is the language the user has selected under Settings → Change Language.
2. If there is no translation in the logon language, the system shows the default language set in Provisioning under Company Settings → Default Language.
3. If there's no translation in the default language the system looks for a translated term in US English.
Translation Testing
To test your translations, log on in the desired language and validate the translation information. From the home page, choose Settings → Change Language → (desired language).
Translation Validation
The system returns to the home page. You can then check the labels and navigate to different areas to validate that the translation occurred. Repeat the import process if necessary.