3772590 - Approval Task Search by Customer Invoice ID fails When Logged on in Chinese Language but works when Logged On in English Language

When logged on to SAP Business ByDesign in Chinese (ZH) logon language, searching for an approval task using an exact reference number (e.g., a document reference such as a customer invoice ID) returns no results.

The same search term works correctly under the following conditions:

• When logged on in English (EN) logon language — the task is found and displayed in English without a wildcard.
• When logged on in Chinese (ZH) logon language and the search term is wrapped in wildcard characters (e.g., *ID*) — the task is found and displayed correctly in Chinese.

SAP Business ByDesign

Log on to the system with the language set to English.

1. Go to the Managing My Area work center. 

2. Select the Approvals view.

3. Select Customer Invoice Approval Task.

4. In the Search enter ABC-1-2026 (ABC-1-2026 represents the Invoice ID).

5. You can see that the Approval Task “Approve Manual Customer Invoice/Credit memo ABC-1-2026 with amount  XX.XX USD” is displayed.
   
   

Log on to the system with the language set to Chinese.

1. Go to the Managing My Area (管理我的业务范围) work center. 

2. Select the Approvals (审批) view.

3. Select Customer Invoice Approval Task (客户发票审批任务) 

4. In the Search enter ABC-1-2026 

5. The Task is not displayed and instead the system displays No records found.

6. In the Search enter *ABC-1-2026*
7. You can see that the Approval Task "审批金额为XX.XX USD的手工客户发票/贷记凭证ABC-1-2026" (Approve Manual Customer Invoice/Credit memo ABC-1-2026 with amount XX.XX USD) is displayed in the search results. 

The root cause is related to how the search text index is built and queried per logon language in SAP Business ByDesign's Business Task Management (BTM) component. When searching without a wildcard (exact search), the system attempts to match the search term against a language-specific text index.

If the task title in Chinese contains the reference number embedded within a longer Chinese string (e.g., "审批金额为100.00 USD的手工客户发票/贷记凭证ABC-1-2026 "), the exact search for ABC-1-2026 does not find a match because the index entry for the Chinese text is stored as a full phrase — and an exact (non-wildcard) search does not perform a substring match within that phrase.

In contrast, when logged in with English, the task title is structured such that the reference number ABC-1-2026 appears in a position that the exact search index can resolve directly (e.g., "Approve Manual Customer Invoice/Credit memo ABC-1-2026..."), making it findable without a wildcard. This suggests a language-dependent difference in how task title text is indexed and tokenized — the Chinese title is not tokenized in a way that allows substring matching without a wildcard, whereas the English title structure allows the reference number to be matched directly.

The behavior is generally explained by the following and does not only apply to Approval Tasks but all Business Tasks:

1. Language-specific search indexing/tokenization of task subjects.
2. In English, ABC-1-2026 is indexed in a way that allows direct matching.
3. In Chinese, the same identifier is embedded in a translated text and is not matched as a standalone search token.

Using * changes the search into a contains/pattern search, allowing the task to be found. 

You can use the wildcard/asterisk for your search and the task will be displayed.

1. Log on to the system with the language set to Chinese.

2. Go to the Managing My Area (管理我的业务范围) work center. 

3. Select the Approvals (审批) view.

4. Select Customer Invoice Approval Task (客户发票审批任务) 

5. In the Search use the wildcard/asterisk and enter *ABC-1-2026*

   You can see that the Approval Task "审批金额为100.00 USD的手工客户发票/贷记凭证ABC-1-2026" (Approve Manual Customer Invoice/Credit memo ABC-1-2026 with amount -100.00 USD) is now displayed. 

See also Help Center Document Searching in Worklists 

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