Oracle E-Business Suite supports running multiple languages on the same instance simultaneously.

Multi-Language Support is certified on 64 bit linux for 12.1.3 for ebiz suite and all platforms certified for US version more globaly MLS is not dependant of the platform and operating system as it contains no binaries, so only one version is available for download on all platforms and Operating system.

When MLS is enabled you can notice the number of rows in Base Table(xxxx_B) and Translation Table (xxxx_TL) Base table row contains language-independent attributes

That means for each row in base table, N rows exist in translation table corresponding to the N installed languages One row for each installed language contains translated textual attributes.

Regional Preferences that we call as Locale

These are typically consist of

Profile Settings :Some of the regional preferences (locale) is controlled via Profile . The setup can be done by administrators at various level like Site,Application,Responsibility & User. Setup for aech user can override default setting with preferred values

• Site Level Profile Options :ICX: Client IANA Encoding is used for IANA character encoding determines character set of HTML based
  UI on client tier (Browser), this should be set to an IANA encoding equivalent to database character set. Recomebded is to set at site level
• User Level Profile Options : These are the some
  1. ICX: Language : This is defaulted to application language if no language is selected at login time. This profile determines language of email notifications, which can also be set to user’s preferred language
  2. ICX: Territory : This profile should be set to user's territory (country), if this correctly setup , then it is used in conjunction with language code to pick the correct translation resources such BI Publisher templates .
  3. Client Timezone : R12 of Oracle E-Business Suite includes as standard a feature called User-Preferred Time Zone Support. In most existing E-Business Suite implementations, all users interact with the system in the “corporate time zone”, which will normally be the time zone of the headquarters of the implementing company, and the time zone in which the database runs. This means that remote users have to be aware of the time difference between their location and that of the corporate headquarters.This should be set to user's Timezone.

     Users see date-with-time fields in their preferred (local) time zone, and can enter dates with time in this time zone.

     The data in the database continues to be stored in the standard corporate time zone

  4. FND: NATIVE CLIENT ENCODING : This is used to set the client (user) PC encoding, this also determines character encoding of file name and content. The will be used while exporting/importing spreadsheet data, uploading/downloading text files. Its Recommended to use the pre-set default value
  5. ICX: Date format mask : This can be set to user's preferred date format
  6. ICX: Numeric characters : This is used to get any of these support combination.
     • Comma / period (10,000.00)
     • Period / comma (10.000,00)
     • Space / comma (10 000,00)
     • Space / period (10 000.00)
     • Single quote / comma (10’000,00)
     • Single quote / period (10’000.00)

Oracle Application Can be translated into languages mentioned below:

• Arabic,
• Brazilian
• Portuguese,
• Canadian
• French,
• Croatian,
• Czech,
• Danish,
• Dutch,
• European
• French,
• European
• Portuguese,
• Finnish,
• German,
• Greek,
• Hebrew,
• Hungarian,
• Icelandic,
• Italian,
• Japanese,
• Korean,
• Latin American Spanish,
• Lithuanian,
• Norwegian,
• Polish,
• Romanian,
• Russian,
• Simplified
• Chinese,
• Slovak,
• Slovenian,
• Spanish,
• Swedish,
• Thai,
• Traditional Chinese
• Turkish

Introduction:

 Multi Language Support (MLS) is a feature in Oracle E-Business (EBS) Suite of applications that enables users to run their applications in many different languages. MLS has opened the doors for global rollout of Oracle EBS with users in different countries able to use the application in their own language at the same time.

Difference with NLS:

 National Language Support (NLS) refers to the ability of Oracle EBS to run in any one of the supported languages other than American English. However, MLS refers to the ability in which the instance can be run in as many as languages as are supported at the same time.

Entering and viewing data in local language:

 When a user wants to use the MLS features of an instance which is MLS enabled, then he/she would change the language parameter in the Preferences after logging in. This would make the forms to appear in the language selected and give other MLS capabilities.

What can be seen and entered in local language in MLS:

Just because MLS is enabled, not every bit of information can be seen and entered in the local language of choice. The following are the items that are MLS compliant: ? Boiler-plate text in the Forms (the text next to the user-enterable fields in the selfservice and core applications forms) will show in the local language. ? Chart of Accounts description, Item description, Asset description and lookups can be translated and entered into local languages. The data thus entered is stored in separate translation tables in the database. Then when a user changes his preference to a local language and enters EBS, the data is fetched from these translation tables and the local language descriptions and lookup values would be displayed in the relevant forms, reports etc. ? Some of the Oracle seeded documents like Bill of Lading, Sales Order Acknowledgement, Print Invoice Notice, Printed Change Order report etc.

Making an instance MLS:

 Making an Oracle EBS instance MLS involves applying a lot of patches and some system administration tasks. Care has to be taken to test thoroughly the important transactions before moving these changes into production.

Alternatives to MLS:

 If the end users who use self-service responsibilities like iExpense, iProc etc., can read English and if the finance users who use core application responsibilities can understand seeded reports like trial balance etc., in English then there is no need to make the instance MLS. Some APAC countries however need external facing documents like customer invoice, PO etc., to be in local language. In order to fulfil this requirement, you can make the backend database as UTF-8 enabled, which would allow multi-byte character set. The users can then use segments in descriptive flexfields to enter the names in the local language for supplier, customer etc. The documents like customer invoice or PO can then be customized to pull the local language names from these segments for these specific countries. In this way, English names can show up for the English speaking countries and local names can show up for others

Oracle E-Business Suite Translation Synchronization Patches:

The Translation Synchronization patch (TSP) feature allows you to synchronize your existing translations with the American English file versions or to install new languages on your Applications instance. By applying just one patch for each language, you will be able to bring your translations up to your Applications patch level. You can also choose to get the latest translations to bring your translations up-to-date. 

The basic concept involves preparing a single manifest file for your Applications instance.  This manifest reflects the language software content for all the active languages on your current Applications system.  The manifest will be used to generate customized patches for your system.

This feature reduces the installation time and complexity for synchronizing language installations. It also provides a simple way for you to update your existing translations. However, it only provides translations to your language software, it does not provide Online Help translations.

Useful Metalink Notes:

R11i / R12 : Requesting Translation Synchronization Patches (Doc ID 252422.1)
NOTE:788053.1 - Oracle Applications NLS Release Notes, Release 12.1
NOTE:1314621.1 - Oracle E-Business Suite NLS Release Notes, Release 12.2
NOTE:316804.1 - Oracle Applications NLS Release Notes, Release 11i (11.5.10.2)

NOTE:252422.1 - R11i / R12 : Requesting Translation Synchronization Patches
How To Add A New Language In R12 (Doc ID 1511692.1)