Tony JewtushenkoPrincipal Product ManagerApplications Development ToolsOracle Corporation

XLIFF at OracleApplication Localisation and XLIFF

Agenda

A Brief Look at XLIFF XLIFF and Oracle’s internal localisation

process Localisation Tools Overview Oracle’s Localisation Tools Strategy

A Brief Look at XLIFF

XML Localisation Interchange File Format:– A specification for the lossless interchange of localizable

data and its related information, which is tool-neutral, has been formalized as an XML vocabulary,and features an extensibility mechanism.

An emerging OASIS standard. Homepage: http://www.xliff.org Contributors: Alchemy Software, Bowne Global

Solutions, Convey Software, Ektron, Globalsight, HP, Lotus/IBM, Lionbridge, LRC, Moravia IT, Novell, Oracle, Microsoft, RWS Group, SAP, SDL International, Sun Microsystems, Tektronix

A Brief Look at XLIFF Spec Versions:

– 1.0 Committee Specification – April 2002– 1.1 Committee Specification – May 2003

Completed Public Review Oct 2003 Shortly to be submitted for review as formal OASIS

standard Commercial 3rd Party Tools Support

– XLIFF Aware: Alchemy Catalyst 5.0 (Visual Editor), Bowne Global Solutions Elcano, Heartsome XLIFF editor, IBM Domino Global Workbench 6, XML-Intl

– XLIFF Enabled: Passolo (with special configuration), – Trados with modified INI file– XLIFF Future Support Announced: SDL SDLX, Apple

AppleGlot

Who Localises Oracle Applications?

Oracle’s Internal Users– Applications Product Translation team:

e-business Suite Applications on demand patch sets

Oracle’s End Users– Custom application developers:

Oracle Forms Oracle Reports Oracle JDeveloper

A closer look at…

Oracle’s Internal Users– Applications Product Translation team:

e-business Suite Applications On-demand patch sets

Oracle e-business Suite Localisation Challenges: e-business Suite Applications:

– CRM, Financials, HR, Marketing, Supply Chain Management, Contracts, Supplier, Planning, Fulfillment, Projects, Procurement, Public Sector

On-demand patch sets– Automated patch process initiated by customer support

ticket– Web based patch distribution

Constraints:– 4M wordcount software strings– 30 language simultaneous releases– 13K localizable files– Localisation group in Dublin– 5,000 world-wide distributed development team

Oracle e-business Suite Localisation Process Objectives: 24 – 7, 100% automated process – no

exceptions Translation in parallel with development Translation begins at code check-in Translation “on-demand” – no more “big

project” model

“Translation Factory” Workflow

LeverageTranslationRepository

WorkflowManager

Developer

CodeCheck in

SourceControl

FTP

Vendor /PM

HyperHub

XLIFF Translation Kit

Repository contains string pairs for all languages

TF Workflow consists of 3 functions:1. Leverage file from repository2. Create translation kit3. Merge translated kit into repository

OraXLIFFOracle FormsOracle ReportsSeedata

100% TranslatedXLIFF Translation Kit

Merge

XLIFF Translation Kit

RequiresTranslation

Generate XLIFF Translation Kit

Oracle e-business Suite “Translation Factory” Metrics

Current through-put – 100,000 language checkins per month– 2 million files per month– 98% of words leverage– Average time to process a file: 45 seconds– Fully scalable “add a box model”

Business Benefits– Sim ship of all 30 languages– International version testing before US release– Reduced support costs– Number of release engineers reduced from 20 to 2 resulting in $

1 million saving per year– ROI positive within 1 year

How does XLIFF fit into TF? OraXLIFF files submitted directly to TF

– “OraXLIFF” checked-in by developer– “OraXLIFF” is Oracle’s XLIFF implemenation

Pure XLIFF 1.0 (but more narrowly defined vocabulary) Spec developed with development groups and published Custom resources handled by “prop-group” / “prop” extensions

– 1-2% of content in OraXLIFF

OraXLIFF Translation Kit archives– Generated by TF, downloaded by vendors, editable by HyperHub only

New resource formats encouraged to use OraXLIFF format Some legacy formats may be modified to save directly to OraXLIFF at

authoring point, others may develop converters

HyperHub and OraXLIFF

•HyperHub is Oracle’s internal translation tool•Data is imported from OraXLIFF Translation Kits•Only HH can modify OraXLIFF Translation Kits

HyperHub and OraXLIFF

Fuzzy Match suggestions – using XLIFF’s “alt-trans” constructs

XLIFF benefit to TF

With fewer formats to support, 24-7 automation breaks less frequently

Fewer files rejected due to invalid data or format. Unexpected changes to resource formats don’t delay

translation New resource formats can be processed by TF without

retooling Built in support for advanced features such as “alt-

trans” fuzzy matches and enhanced meta-data All the advantages of XML (i.e., XST, data validation,

XSL-FO etc.)

Implementation Considerations Focus on canonical representation of proprietary

resources in XLIFF– Survey as many resource formats as possible– Specify canonical rules for:

Structural / hierarchical representation ID generation for leveraging Mapping to repository data Representation of GUI elements Metadata for workflow GIGO…

Research established best practices– Decide on implementation architecture: Skeleton file v.

Transformation– Open source tools– 3rd Party Localisation Tools implementation specifications

And now a closer look at…

Oracle’s End Users–Custom application developers:

Oracle Forms

Oracle Reports

Oracle JDeveloper

Current Localisation Support for Oracle Apps Developers

TranslationHub is a productised version of HyperHub

– Released as a subcomponent of Oracle Forms and Reports, within Oracle IDS distribution

– Simplified subset of HyperHub functionality– Enhanced User Interface– Presently supports only Forms and Reports– XLIFF not supported at this time

TranslationHub

Navigator Preview

OutputAttributes

Terminology

Current Localisation Support for Oracle Apps Developers

TransX Utility:– XML based utility that supports translation of

Seedata and Messages Prepares strings for translation Loads translated strings into database Specifically optimised to transform easily into

XLIFF

– Released within Oracle9i XML Developer's Kits Download from http://otn.oracle.com

Localisation Support Strategy for Oracle Apps Developers Short Term

– Minor feature enhancements and bug fixes to TranslationHub– May add XLIFF support to TranslationHub– Publish Oracle XLIFF implementation guide– Provide means of converting between Forms or Reports formats and

XLIFF. Medium Term

– IDE’s to export localisable resources to XLIFF 1.1 and import the translated files supporting:

Oracle Forms Oracle Reports JDeveloper generated applications

– Publish Oracle XLIFF 1.1 implementation guide for 3rd party tools vendors and applications developers.

– Provide migration path for TranslationHub users to XLIFF 1.1

Advantages to Oracle End User Applications Developers: Productivity with Choice:

– 3rd party best-of-breed computer aided translation tools reduce translation costs and development time

– Applications developers can use their established proprietary localisation processes and tools to localise their Oracle applications.

Open standards improve ability to:– Develop custom localisation solutions– Integrate localisation data into workflow automation– Enhance project metadata for better tracking and control.

Contact Information

Contact Tony at <tony.jewtushenko@oracle.com> for more information regarding Oracle’s applications development and localisation tools.

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