This morning, did you wake up earlier than the time set on your alarm clock? Do you feel slightly out of your normal rhythm? Then you are probably a victim of the time change.
For our international customers using our system in different time zones, changing the time is quite an every-day topic. Hence, data and information are incorporated into our system respecting the local time of the user. However, data and information need to be reported on correctly also in another time zone.
For this reason, working with all time-related information on the C-platform always occurs in universal time (UTC). Consequently, all data has got a common denominator in the Data Base, i.e. the universal time. As the relation to local time needs to be maintained at any rate, every object contains an information regarding the original time zone. During all further reporting and analyses, all data will automatically be displayed in its original local time or also in the time zone of the respective user.
An internationalization, however, does not mean to consider just time zones. It also affects different languages, units and possibly workflows as well as requirements on processes specific to the respective country. Also in this context, the C-platform is perfectly ready to respond to all these types of requirements.
All standard objects, attributes and catalogs are delivered in English, French and German. It is very easy to add additional languages, thus our customers are using Russian or Japanese versions already. There is a standard language assigned to every user which he may change easily by just one click in the GUI.
Further localization to the conditions of a specific country comprises the technical units, currencies, catalogs and mandatory regulations as well as the country-specific flows within processes. All units are kept in respective catalogs that contain the various conversion terms. According to the user’s individual preferences, the representation of areas is carried out in square meters or square feet, for instance. And as a matter of fact, the user has no worries about the conversion itself. When dealing with currencies and other variable conversions, we proceed in a quite similar way; however, the conversion factor will be updated depending on the time.
Any additional country-specific requirements such as mandatory regulations, process flows and the like can be incorporated thanks to the widespread configuration options the C-platform definitely provides, without any changes to the actual software code.