¿Habla usted español? Enable additional languages in CRM Online 2011

Although English is undoubtedly one of the most widely used languages in the business world, not every company or CRM Online user prefers it. At the time of this writing, CRM Online supports over 40 languages, making it quite adaptable in today’s increasingly global business environment.

Before we start, let’s define some terms.

Base language = When a subscriber first creates a new Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2011 organization (an instance of the software), they are prompted to choose the base language. The “base language” is what the database, interface text, and help files are written in for that organization by default. It is the language that is used when automatic e-mail invitations are sent out to new users to give them access. It is also the language that any new customizations must be written in before being translated to other languages. Once the base language is chosen, it cannot be changed.

Additional language = An “additional language” is any language other than the base language. Unlike the base language, additional languages can be enabled and disabled as needed by anyone with sufficient privileges.

Display language = A “display language” is whatever language an individual user chooses to use. It can be the base language or any enabled additional language. Each user has two display languages, one for the interface and one for the help files. Both display languages are usually set to the same language but don’t have to be. Since display languages are personal options, different users can use different display languages at the same time on the same CRM Online organization.

Follow along below and we’ll show you how to enable an additional language and set your personal options to use it as your display language.

You must have a System Administrator Security Role or equivalent privileges to enable an additional language. You don’t need any special privileges to select your display languages.

Note: Each additional language uses about 18 MB (less than 1%) of your organization’s storage space, which you cannot recover by disabling the language. CRM Online comes with 5 GB of storage by default, unless you subscribe to more.

Let’s start by assuming we’re using a web browser to access a CRM Online organization that has a base language of English with no additional languages yet enabled. Our personal display languages automatically default to the base language, so what we see is in English.

Navigate to Settings > System > Administration (see below) and click Languages.

The Language Settings webpage dialog opens (see below). You’ll notice that the Status column shows that “Spanish” is currently “Disabled”. Check the box for each additional language you want to enable, “Spanish” in our example, and click Apply.

The Confirm Language Change webpage dialog opens (see below). Click OK. The dialog closes.

The Language Settings webpage dialog refreshes (see below), and the Status column now shows that “Spanish” is “Enabled”. Click Close to close the dialog.

Now that we have enabled Spanish as an additional language in Microsoft CRM Online 2011, we can choose Spanish as the display language in our personal options. (This will not affect what other users see.)

Open the File menu in the ribbon (see below) and click Options.

The Set Personal Options window opens (see below). Click the Languages tab, and set the User Interface Language and Help Language to your language of choice, “Spanish” in our example. After you have set your display languages, click OK to save your changes. The window closes.

After the main page refreshes, you’ll see that the CRM Online interface is using your selected display language (see below).

You can use this same method to enable additional languages other than Spanish.

If you are using the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2011 for Microsoft Outlook client, you will also need to download and install the relevant Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 language pack for each display language you would like to use. We will walk you through this installation process in the next article in this series, and we’ll then follow that up with an in-depth run-down of how CRM Online 2011 deals with additional languages in regards to customizations and configurations.

Changing languages is easy in CRM Online 2011, but not all Microsoft Dynamics CRM configuration and customization is this easy. If you’re looking for an expert in CRM Online 2011, xRM.com, a Microsoft Partner with competencies in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Hosting, has a team of experts.