2576546 - Using the Manage Language Feature to Change Labels in SuccessFactors

Symptom

Is that possible to change a specific label in SuccessFactors?
SAP SuccessFactors Languages and Locales
How to customize labels in SuccessFactors?
Updating UI Text Through CSV Import
Modifying UI Text in Manage Languages
SAP Help Portal | Updating UI Text Through CSV Import
How to set custom names in some specific system labels?
Is there any feature to manage the labels in the system?
How to change a label in a specific locale that is not available in Text Replacement functionality?
Impacts on disabling the Language Packs feature

Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite

Resolution

The Manage Languages tool allows you to customize system text to better reflect your company’s culture or brand. It also lets you update wording that can’t be changed using the Text Replacement tool.

In 2H 2025, the customers now have two options in customized the UI labels via Manage Languages tool.

Updating UI Text Through CSV Import | SAP Help Portal - The process is to download the system’s CSV file with all UI labels, update it with your custom labels, and then upload the updated file back to the system.
Customizing UI Labels of a Locale | SAP Help Portal - It is now possible to customize labels directly through UI edits, making the process more user-friendly.

With this new feature release, we highly recommend customizing labels through UI edits. To do so, ensure you have completed the prerequisite steps first mentioned below:

Prerequisites

Your company must have Enable the Manage Languages tool in Provisioning under Company Settings. Since customers can’t access Provisioning, please contact your implementation partner or LOD-SF-PLT-LAN to enable this for you.
You have the Administrator Permissions > Manage System Properties > Text Replacement permission.
Run the Check Tool and look for the check ID LegacyTodoTileRename. It has the description: There are no custom labels from the legacy Rename To-Do Tiles tool. If you see the error, you aren't able to customize to-do names with the Manage Languages tool. Clean up legacy renaming using the Migration tab in the Check Tool for the checkID.

How to Customize the Label Through UI edits?

Determine whether the locale (language) your system uses is a built-in or extended AI locale.
- Find out what language your system uses at Profile Menu > Settings > Change Language.
- Go to the Manage Languages page and find which tab the language is on: Built-In Locales or Extended AI Locales.
Select the current translation package of the locale to enter the Translation Revision page.
- For built-in locale: On the Built-In Locales tab, choose the custom translation for the locale.
  
  If no custom translation exists for the locale, select Create Custom Translation from the Actions menu. It will take few minutes for the system to prepare the data before you can work on it. If this option isn’t available, a custom translation already exists for that locale.
  ***Please note:An initial loading process is required for the 2H 2025 release to prepare all existing custom translations of built-in locales for customization. As a result, users may need to wait up to 30 minutes before they can begin editing a custom translation. ***
  - For Extended AI Locale: On the Extended AI Locales tab, choose the translation revision for the locale.
    Note: Extended AI Locales feature is a premium AI feature. Make sure you've purchased the AI units license. For more information about the AI units license, please contact your Account Executive. Enabling the Extended AI Locales Feature | SAP Help Portal
Customize translated UI labels in the locale using the following methods.
- Edit translations on UI.
  - Modify one or multiple translations directly on UI. To update multiple labels at once, select their checkboxes and then choose Modify at the top of the list.
    
    Tip: Selecting the checkbox in the table header selects all items already loaded. As you scroll and more items load, you'll need to clear and re-select the checkbox to include the newly loaded items.
  - Search or sort to locate translations for editing. You can search for terms contained in a message key, source U.S. English label, label in the target locale, or custom translation. Alternatively, if you want to browse labels for update, use the sorting feature to cluster labels.
  - Discard customized translations no longer needed.

Log in to SAP SuccessFactors, go to your personal settings, and switch to the language you edited. Then browse the app to check your changes. Keep in mind, it may take up to 24 hours for updates to appear.

Important Notes:

To save a custom label, you must enter at least one space character in the field. If you intend to keep the custom translation as a blank value, the space character is still required. Leaving the field completely empty and saving will remove any existing customization for that message key
If you change the same label using both Manage Languages and Text Replacement, the system will use the Manage Languages version. So if your Text Replacement isn’t showing, check Manage Languages to see if it was changed there.
Translations updated through UI edits or file import are listed under the Customized tab. You can further review or modify them.
If you notice placeholders like {0} and {1}, these are predefined by the system and can be replaced with custom text or links. In Translation Revision > Find & Modify, you'll see some sentences containing these placeholders. You can update them directly in the UI by following the steps outlined above. (e.g. Default Labels: {0} Quick Links are listed. In Custom Translation: User Quick Links are listed. Note these changes are dynamic).
It is recommended to use the new version format (4 columns) for file uploads, or alternatively, make modifications directly in the UI, rather than through file uploads. Following is our documentation on this for further info - Updating UI Text Through CSV Import | SAP Help Portal.
It is also recommended that customers search for the labels that need to be modified in the UI, and then download them. This way, you can obtain the necessary correct template file for uploading.

For more information, kindly review this help guide: Modifying UI Text in Manage Languages - Overview | SAP Help Portal

Legacy Manage Languages

Use the Manage Languages tool from within the Admin Center to overwrite UI label values in any supported language (KBA 2269945).

This feature can be very useful in the following situations:

You want to change default values of UI text (e.g., system text) to better reflect your particular business practices and culture.
There is an issue with system text (e.g., grammar, syntax, or key terms). Manage Languages allows a quick workaround while waiting for the system text to be updated in a subsequent patch or release.
The Manage Languages page allows you to activate and deactivate locales, create locales with custom label values, and download both custom and default label values.

Note:

If you identify that there is a default system label incorrectly translated, please engage Product Support for further support.
After release b2311, the Manage language page is redesigned. See further Redesigned Experience of Managing Languages | SAP Help Portal.
As of 1H 2024 release, there is a new feature called Automatic Audit for Custom Translation.
This feature will auto-check periodically the existing custom translation file and indicate if it has incorrect keys
For more information about this enhancement, please check the help guide Validation and Automatic Audit

Prerequisites

Enable “Language Packs” option should be enabled for the instance in Provisioning.
1. If you do not have access to Provisioning, you may reach out to your implementation partners/consultants, or please contact the Support team for assistance.
Still in provisioning, make sure the option "Enable Manage Languages tool" is enabled.
“Text Replacement” permission should be granted to the user's Permission Group in RBP settings;
1. Go through Admin Center > Manage Permission Role > Administrator Permissions > Manage System Properties > Text Replacement.

Limitations

Value replacement limit: You can overwrite up to 10,000 values per locale using Manage Languages. The default replacement limit is set to 25 values, which you can manually increase up to 10,000 using the Upgrade option at the bottom of the page. - Refer to Increasing the Limits on Number of Keys and File Size | SAP Help Portal to know more about it.
Custom language pack CSV file size limit: The CSV file size limit is 10 MB. If you try uploading a file which is more than 10MB, the system will time out, and the file will not be uploaded.
Text substitution syntax: You need the text substitution syntax to replace a word throughout the system. Otherwise, each string that includes the string will need to be replaced through Manage Languages.
Some fields (for example, fields in the 'Take Action' drop-down on the Employee Profile) prioritise the translation set in 'Manage Business Configuration', and the translation will not be overwritten by a custom label import. In these cases, please check the field's translations in 'Manage Business Configuration', and see if the old/incorrect translation is there. If it is, change it, and save the change to see if the translation changes as needed.
There is a limitation of 5000 characters for a custom label for each field.
It is not possible to do line break by Manage Languages.
Most email template tokens are unique to specific templates and cannot be copied to others. If you attempt to use a token from one template in another, it may not function because most are hardcoded when created.

Impacts on disabling the Language Packs feature

Disabling the feature on provisioning will cause the following impacts:

The "Change Language" tab inside "Configuration" will dissapear
Standard language will be the main language in your instance (English)
Any configuration that use translations will not work, since the feature is disabled, all translations will not be displayed.
Manage languages will not work without Language Packs feaure disabled.

Steps

1.) Go to Admin Center > Tools > Search for Manage Languages.
From here, you will see the list of all language packs enabled for your instance.

2.) Under the Action column, click Create corresponding to the language pack you've chosen. If you have already added a custom locale, skip to step 4:

3.) It is required to enter a new name for the custom language pack, and click OK. The custom language pack gets linked to the original language pack.

4.) You need to download the CSV file of the original language pack that has all the default application UI labels, some of which you will customize. To download it:

In 'Manage Languages'
Under 'Customer Translation' column click on the desired language
'Translation Revision' page will open
On the right corner you will see a arrow pointing down
1. Click on it, and you will be able to download the customized labels

5.) Open the downloaded CSV file in any text editor (e.g., Notepad or Notepad++). It should be similar to the screenshot provided below.

NOTE: Please choose between including the quotation marks (" ") in all the labels as in the image below, or not including in any of the lines.
Also, please ensure that the txt file is set to 'UTF-8'. Other encoding configs such as 'UTC-8 BOM' will lead to validation errors.

6.) This file, which is the original CSV file, contains the entire list of key values (key) and their corresponding UI labels. The following example is en_US (English US):

Step 5.PNG

From 1H 2023 release, there will be two columns in the CSV file that you get by downloading default labels of a language pack.

7.) From the entire list, you will need to select only those tokens which you wish to replace the text/label with. To know which tokens should be selected, you need to switch your Language to English Debug. If you do not have this language pack listed on your instance > Change Language, contact Support for enablement:

8.) Go to the page where you would like to change the label. In this sample, we will be changing the label for Home Page from the Module Picker. Get the values inside the colon (sample in the screenshot is COMMON_HOME_TAB):

Note: only languages that do not have a custom set will show the Create option. If it has already a custom, the options will be to Download Default labels, Disable custom translations or Delete Custom translations. By clicking on the custom translation, you'll be able to download current file or upload a new one.

9.) Create a new csv file and enter custom labels you want to change.

10.) Back to Admin Center > Tools > Search for Manage Languages.

Click the custom translation name you would like to update, then click upload now to upload csv file.

11.) Refresh page and Click the custom translation name again to confirm the upload status.

Note:

Always ensure to download the current custom labels before adding new field values. If you upload a new file with only the new values, it will overwrite the existing ones.
Only the labels that have the key available in English Debug are supported to be changed. If the label do not have a key, we're currently not able to change it via Manage Languages.
If the UI shows that the custom translation label has been added but the label is not working, you can download the customized key and open it with a text editor to check whether there are any special characters such as <0x0b> in the Custom Translation. If there are special characters, you need to remove them.

FAQ - Additional Information

Q) Where can I get information on this from the Guide?

A) Guide : Managing the SAP SuccessFactors User Experience

Chapter: SAP SuccessFactors Languages and Locales

Chapter: Updating UI Text Through CSV Import

Keywords

number of keys, limit, file size, custom names, customize labels, text substitution syntax, manage language, change labels, parameters, {0}, {1}, text replacements, tier 3, change label, manage language, language, label, manage, There are no custom labels from the legacy Rename To-Do Tiles tool. , KBA , LOD-SF-PLT-LAN , Manage Language & Text Replacements , LOD-SF-PLT , Platform Foundational Capabilities , LOD-SF-EC-ADM , Admin Tools (EC Core only) , LOD-SF-EC-BCI , Manage Business Configuration (BCUI) & Data Models (XML) , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite all versions

Attachments

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