Regional Settings

In the User definition page (Management > User Setup > Users > User <name>), administrators can select a set of regional settings for a user for interacting with dates or numbers in WorldServer. Dates and numbers will then display in the format of that region. Users can change this setting in Tools > Personal Preferences.

This setting has no relationship to the “User Interface Display Language” you choose. These are likely to be different because WorldServer currently supports only two User Interface languages, but many regional settings. The regional settings support is based on the Java runtime environment that WorldServer is running under and may vary from version to version in Java (newer versions of Java are likely to support additional locales).

In addition, there is no relationship between your operating system settings and your regional settings in WorldServer. For example, you might have your Windows operating system regional settings set to German, but this has no affect on your WorldServer regional settings.

Your regional setting does not affect the time zone setting in your user preference. Time zones affect what time is displayed, but not how they are displayed.

Among the things your Regional Setting affect are the following:

The formatting of a date including the order (month, day, year or day, month, year) and the delimiters between these fields
Whether two-digit or four-digit years should be displayed
Whether a 12-hour or 24-hour clock is used
The names of the months of the year (for example, “January,” “February,” and so on)
The names of the days of the week (for example, “Sunday,” “Monday,” “Tuesday,” and so on)
The first day of week that appears at the beginning of a week on a calendar display (for example, “Sunday” or “Monday”)

Date and Time Display

Your Regional Setting is used anytime a date or time-related piece of information is displayed in the User Interface:

All date displays are formatted according to your regional setting.
All time displays are formatted according to your regional settings.
All month names are appropriate for your regional settings.
All day of week names are appropriate for your regional settings.
The first day of the week is appropriate for your regional settings.

Date and Time Input

In addition to controlling how WorldServer should display dates and times, the Regional Settings controls how you input new date or time information.

For time- or date-based fields, you can manually type a value in the appropriate format. For example, if your regional setting is German, you can type the value 31.12.2006 19:25 to indicate 7:25 PM on the last day of 2006. The actual date and time formats that are acceptable are determined by your Regional Setting.

Note: UTC date and time formats are always allowed.

If you enter a format incompatible with your regional setting, you get a message like the following:

The value "32.12.06 19:25" for the attribute "Custom Date" is not a valid date. Please try again using the correct format, for example: "27.04.98" or "27.04.98 19:25".

You can also set the value for any time- or date-based attribute using a “date picker” interface. Selecting a date via the date picker sets the date to a value that is appropriate for your regional setting.

Note: The date picker does not allow you to select a time for the attribute. However, you can manually enter the time after using the date picker.

If you do not specify a time, WorldServer will display the time 5:00 PM in your time zone of your regional setting.

Date and Time in Custom Attributes

WorldServer only has a single custom attribute type called Date that is used to display both dates and times. The most typical use of this field is to get and set date values. However, the attribute type also supports times as well.

If you entered only a date and did not enter a time, then the user interface does not display the time. If you explicitly entered a time, the time is displayed.

Number Format Display

The following characteristics of numbers are affected by your Regional Setting preference:

The character used as the “decimal separator”. In U.S. English this is a period (that is, “.”) whereas in many European countries this is a comma (that is, “,”). For example, to represent the number that is halfway between two and three a U.S. resident would write 2.5 while a resident of Spain would write 2,5.
The character used as the “thousands separator.” In English (United States), this is a comma (that is, “,”) whereas in many European countries, this is a period (that is, “.”). For example, to represent the number that is halfway between two thousand and three thousand, a U.S. resident would write 2,500 while a resident of Spain would write 2.500.
The actual rules of number formatting can even be more complex than this. Some languages do not use the “thousands separator” every 3 digits and instead have complicated rules on when to use it. The Regional Settings would impact how this is displayed.

WorldServer uses the following rules to determine whether your Regional Setting preference should be used to format numbers displayed:

WorldServer does not display all numbers as formatted numbers. Sometimes WorldServer displays integer numbers without formatting (for example, 123456); if the number is an ID or some other numeric string where the numeric value isn’t really significant, it is not formatted.
If a number is used to count elements (for example, a count of entries in a field) the number is formatted properly.
Integer-type custom attributes are presumed to contain values treated as meaningful numbers and are displayed with formatting.

WorldServer supports the Regional Settings preferences when displaying percentages; if a fractional percentage is shown, the decimal separator is appropriate to your regional setting. In addition, the your regional settings may control the precision of the percentage display (for example, how many fractional digits to show).

Numeric Data Entry

Generally, when you enter numeric data into a field in WorldServer, you do not use formatting. For example, to type the number halfway between two thousand and three thousand, you would enter 2500. However, you can enter values according to your Regional Settings. For example, if your regional setting is U.S. English, you can enter 2,500. If your regional setting is German, you can enter 2.500. Both are interpreted as if you typed in 2500. If you enter a numeric value that is not valid based on your Regional Settings, you get an error message like the following:

The value "123,456" for the attribute "Custom Number" is not a valid integer between 0 and 2147483647. Please try again using the correct format, for example: "123456” or “123.456”.

Monetary Information Display

To properly display monetary information—for example, in Cost Models—WorldServer draws on two different sources.

Your Regional Settings are used to determine the following aspects of the display:

What thousands separator (for example, “,” or “.” or “”) to use
What decimal separator (for example, “.” or “,”) to use
How to represent negative numbers (for example, with a leading “-” or by surrounding the number in parenthesis)
Where the currency information should be displayed (for example, in front of the number or after the number)

The selected currency is used to determine the following aspects of the display:

The minimum number of decimal places to show in the number

The selected currency and your Regional Settings are combined to determine the following aspects of the display:

The representation of the currency information (for example, “$” or “USD”)

WorldServer displays monetary information in a fully formatted display based on your Regional Settings and the currency being used.

Monetary Information Entry and Issues

There are a few locations where you are allowed to enter monetary values. For example, in the Cost Model definition page, you type in costs for each range in the selected scoping configuration. In the Cost Model Rule definition page, you type in the cost for the charge or discount being applied.

In each location where you are allowed to type in monetary values, WorldServer does not display currency information. However, WorldServer does follow all of the other rules for monetary information display. For example, a setting that would normally be displayed as $1234.50 would be displayed as 1234.50.

When WorldServer presents the results of applying a cost model to a scoping report, the column called Cost Estimate displays the ISO-standard three-letter abbreviation for the currency in the column header and, to save space, WorldServer does not display the currency information in the rest of the column.

When you define a Cost Model Rule, you specify the numeric value for the discount or charge, but you do not specify a currency. Instead, the currency is inherited when you associate that particular Cost Model Rule with a specific Cost Model (which does have a currency). Because of this, you could have a single Cost Model Rule that when applied to one cost model means to add a surcharge of $10.00 but when applied to another cost model means to add a surcharge of 10.00 €.

To avoid this problem, the only time a Cost Model Rule will show currency information is when it has been combined with a Cost Model; anytime a Cost Model Rule is presented in isolation, it cannot display currency information.

Entering Currency Values

When you type costs into a cost model, the values are parsed according to their regional settings.

For example, if your regional setting is U.S. English, to enter a value of 50 cents, you would type 0.50 whereas a German user would type 0,50.

You do not need to put in a thousands separator when typing in a value, but you can, so long as the separator you use is appropriate to your regional setting. For example, if your regional setting is U.S. English, to enter a value of 5000, you could either type 5000 or 5,000 whereas a German user could type 5000 or 5.000.

Exceptions to the Application of Regional Settings

There is no way to pass the regional setting information onto JasperReports, the reporting engine shipped with WorldServer, for it to use. Therefore, you must control the formatting in JasperReports separately through the functionality it offers.

The WorldServer log files do not conform to your regional setting; the format of the times in the log file is controlled by the log4j settings in general.properties. Therefore, if you view the log files through WorldServer, you may see a different time and date format than you expected from your regional setting.