Tony Jewtushenko
Principal Product Manager
Applications Development Tools
Oracle Corporation
XLIFF at Oracle
Application 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:
–
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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
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–
–
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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
–
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Automated patch process initiated by customer support
ticket
Web based patch distribution
 Constraints:
–
–
–
–
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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
Generate XLIFF
Translation Kit
OraXLIFF
Oracle Forms
Oracle Reports
Seedata
XLIFF
Translation Kit
Requires
Translation
Code
Check in
HyperHub
FTP
Leverage
Translation
Repository
Merge
Developer
Source
Control
Vendor /
PM
Workflow
Manager
Repository contains string pairs for all languages
TF Workflow consists of 3 functions:
1.
Leverage file from repository
2.
Create translation kit
3.
Merge translated kit into repository
100% Translated
XLIFF
Translation Kit
XLIFF
Translation Kit
Oracle e-business Suite
“Translation Factory” Metrics
 Current through-put
–
–
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–
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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
–
–
–
–
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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
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–
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“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 “alttrans” 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
–
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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
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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
Attributes
Output
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
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Released within Oracle9i XML Developer's Kits
Download from http://otn.oracle.com
Localisation Support Strategy
for Oracle Apps Developers
 Short Term
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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
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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:
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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:
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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.