❝You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.❞
Geoffrey Willans
Someone asked why can I only see English as the available language?
Microsoft Dynamics CRM support multiple languages and has language pack you can install and enable, this article will talk about how to do it and the differences between CRM Online and CRM on-premise
Languages
You select the base language when you create you a CRM instance, like the base currency this cannot be changed.
If you want more languages available to users, you need to install language packs and these install more language settings onto the CRM server.
Language translation works by all the text fields in Microsoft Dynamics have a guid/unique reference and Locale ID. The language the user selects in their personal settings format options will set the Locale ID (LCID) also known as loc code
You can see the list of all LCID’s here – Locale IDs Assigned by Microsoft, below are some examples
- English – United States 1033
- English – United Kingdom 2057
- German – Germany 1031
- French – France 1036
CRM On-Premise
For Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-Premise you need to download language packs and install them.
Instructions for CRM On-Premise are found in the links below
Install and enable a Language Pack
Install or upgrade Language Packs for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
The language pack can be downloaded here
I believe it downloads all the language packs and then you need to select the specific country, which means you need to know the LCID code for the language.
CRM Online
So how do you install language packs for CRM online when you don’t have access to the server to install the language pack?
It turns out it’s easier.
Navigate to
Settings –> Administration -> Languages
Then you see a list of languages and all you need to do is tick the one you want
but be warned this can take several minutes and disrupt access to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. I’m guessing it’s a bit like installing a Solution file and something you want to do out of hours.
You press OK and then it loads the language and it will take a few minutes
How to select a language
Once you have imported the language, it will then be available to user to select in their personal settings.
It’s important to note, this is a personal setting and not a system setting, you cannot change the language for CRM, it’s stuck on the base language
click the cog on the top right –> Languages
You can set the user interface language and the help language, it’s possible to set these to different values if you want.
Other Language considerations
I remember working on a CRM 2011 project and having problems with OptionSet, these caused problems with multiple languages because the values in the OptionSets were not translated into different languages.
I did a quick internet search and there is some great material on this and Microsoft have a solution to this
Hosk's Dynamic Blog 
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