Defining Regional Settings for a Country or Region

Follow the steps below to define regional settings for a country or a region other than the United States. Do not define regional settings for the United States, because Civic Platform contains a pre-configured regional settings entry for the United States. See Viewing Default Regional Settings for the United States for more information.

To define regional settings for a country or region

Access the Regional Settings portlet (Accessing the Regional Settings Portlet).
Click New.

Civic Platform displays the regional settings form.
Complete the fields that display. For a list of field descriptions, see Table 1.

Click Save.

Table 1. Regional Settings Fields
Country/Region	Use this drop down list to choose the country or region for which you want to define the regional settings. When you enable the Standard Choice COUNTRY, this drop-down list contains the values defined in the Standard Choice. When you disable the Standard Choice, this drop-down list contains all the countries and regions available in the Civic Platform database. However, to avoid any duplicate or conflict settings, this drop-down list always excludes the countries or regions for which you have already defined the regional settings. For more information about the Standard Choice COUNTRY, see its listing in the “Internationalization Standard Choices” section of the Internationalization Installation and Administrator Guide.
Default Country/Region	Select this option if you want to set this country or region as the default. The country or the region displays as the default Country/Region in a drop-down list for users (for example, on the application intake form). You can only set one country or region as the default one for an agency. Another quick way to set a country or region as default is to select the country or region from the Regional Settings list portlet and then click Set Default.
State/Province	Use the drop-down list to decide the list of the states or provinces that comprise the country or region. The options available in this drop-down list are the Standard Choices of the Business Configuration - State/Province type. For example, this drop-down list might have two options: one is “US_State/Province,” which defines a list of states for the United States; and the other is “AU_State/Province,” which defines a list of states for Australia. So if you are defining regional settings for the United States, choose “US_State/Province” from this drop-down list. This way, when the user selects the United States in a form like the Contact Address intake form, the State drop-down list in that form contains the values you define in the Standard Choice US_State/Province. For more information about the Standard Choices of the State/Province type, see the listing “State/Province (User-defined Name)” in the Standard Choices Reference chapter of the Accela Civic Platform Configuration Reference. If you do not choose any option from this drop-down list to define the states available for a country or region, users must manually enter a state name or a province name for that country or region in various forms.
Use ZIP Code	Select this option if the country or region uses ZIP codes in addresses. If you leave this option blank, Civic Platform ignores the Required property defined for the ZIP Code (or Postal Code) field in the Form Portlet Designer and prevents users from filling in that field.
ZIP Code Mask	This field defines the mask for the ZIP Code (or Postal Code) field in all pages related to contact addresses and premise addresses across Civic Platform, Citizen Access, and Mobile Office. It is an active field only when you select Use ZIP Code. When users select a country from the Country/Region drop-down list, the specified mask automatically applies to the ZIP Code field. The mask ensures that users enter proper values in the expected format and position. You can use the following placeholder and literal characters to define a ZIP Code mask: A: Users must enter a letter. The letter automatically capitalizes. #: Users must enter a digit. ( ): Parentheses indicate optional fields. For example, if the ZIP Code mask is #####(-####), the last 4 digits of the ZIP Code are optional. Users can enter “94610” or “94610-6279” in the ZIP Code field. NOTE: Parentheses can only be used at the end of the mask. For example, the following masks do not work: (###) ###, ### (###) ###. Space or hyphen: Spaces and hyphens are formatting characters. They automatically populate in the field in the position that you specify. For example, a U.S. ZIP code might be 94596-2801, while a Canadian postal code might be M5T 2T9. The masks for these formats are: #####-#### and A#A #A#.
Phone Number Country Code	This field defines the country code for phone numbers and fax numbers. When users select a country from the Country/Region drop-down list, the pre-defined value automatically populates into the Country Code field. Note: You must configure Standard Choice PHONE_NUMBER_IDD_ENABLE and set its value to Yes. Otherwise, the Country Code field is not available to users. For more information see the “Internationalization Standard Choices” section of the Internationalization Installation and Administrator Guide.
Phone Number Mask	This field defines the mask for the Phone Number and Fax Number fields in all pages related to contact addresses and premise addresses across Civic Platform, Citizen Access, and Mobile Office. When users select a country from the Country/Region drop-down list, the specified mask automatically applies to the Phone Number and Fax Number fields. The mask ensures that users enter proper values in the expected format and position. You can use the following placeholder and literal characters to define a Phone Number mask: #: Users must enter a digit. (): Parentheses in the phone number mask differ from the ZIP code mask. These parentheses are formatting characters. They automatically populate in the field in the position that you specify. For example, you might always want telephone numbers formatted like so: (510) 813-9225. The mask for this format is (###) ###-####. Space or hyphen: Spaces and hyphens are formatting characters. They automatically populate in the field in the position that you specify.