Welcome to the USDA ARS Plant Breeding Program

.Net MVC Web Application for tracking plant breeding.

Getting Started

The majority of this project was developed using Windows 10 and Visual Studio Enterprise 2017. This development environment is not required to run or contribute to the application.

To begin, open the Usda.PlanBreeding.sln file with Visual Studio.

Missing .NET Framework 4.8

This project uses .NET Framework 4.8. If you do not have this framework installed, Visual Studio will be unable to open some projects in the application. Select the option to install the framework when prompted, and reopen the solution file in Visual Studio after following the steps.

1. Setting Up the Database

By default, this application is configured to use a local SQL database named PlantBreeding. The Usda.PlantBreeding.Data project contains a publish profile which will create this database, along with the default values necessary for the program to run. The following steps should be taken to create the database:

1. Double click on the Usda.PlantBreeding.Database.publish.xml file within the Usda.PlantBreeding.Database project.
2. Click the Load Values button on the lower left of the menu that appears.
   • If you do not wish to include the default values, switch the value of the defaultValues variable from a 1 to a 0.
   • NOTE: failing to include default values will cause portions of the application to crash. If you do not include the default values, those values must be provided manually.
3. Click the Publish button on the lower right.
4. Open Microsoft SQL Management Studio, and ensure that the PlantBreeding database was created on your local SQL server.

2. Setting Machine Key Values

This application requires that machine key values be set. The following steps should be taken to set these values:

1. Open the Web.config file located within the Usda.PlantBreeding.Site project.
2. Locate the machineKey section within the file. This section is located around one third of the way into the file.
3. Set both the decryptionKey and validationKey values, instructions for obtaining these values can be found here.

3. Run the Application

By default, this application should have the Usda.PlantBreeding.Site project configured as the startup project. To run the application, click the green button on the top of the Visual Studio interface, or press f5.

If an error occurs that reads A project with Output Type of..., right click on the Usda.PlantBreeding.Site project and select the Set as Startup Project option. Then, try running the application again.

Further Steps

Using Reports

This application makes use of reports to display information. To use the reports in this application, the follow steps should be taken:

1. Ensure that a report server is setup and avaliable for the application to use.
2. Locate the Usda.PlantBreeding.Reports project in Visual Studio.
3. Right click on the project, and select properties at the bottom of the menu.
4. Note the value located under the Configuration section in the top left of the menu. Compare this to the value specified in the top left of the Visual Studio user interface. Changes made to the configuration will only be applied when the value in the top left of Visual Studio matches the Configuration value.
5. Within the configuration menu, fill in the values for the TargetDataset, TargetDataSourceFolder, TargetReportFolder, and TargetServerUrl with values from your report server.
6. Exit the menu, and again right click on the project.
7. Select the Deploy option, and confirm that you wish to deploy the reports to your server.
8. Locate the Usda.PlantBreeding.Site project, and open the Web.config file. Locate the ReportUrl and ReportPath application settings. These setting are located near the bottom of the file.
9. Fill in the ReportUrl setting with your report server url, and fill in the ReportPath setting with the path to your report files (this value should be the same as the value for the TargetReportFolder).
10. Run the application.

User Authentication

This application includes built in user authentication, based on security groups. By default, this feature is disabled. To enable this feature, the following steps should be taken:

1. Locate the Usda.PlantBreeding.Data project.
2. Within this project, open the Models folder, and locate the UserRole.cs file.
3. Within the file, specify the groups that you wish to have access to the application by filling in the Admin and Employee values.
   • NOTE: Currently, the application does not provide different privledges to employee and admin users.

Web.config Transformations

This application includes files which will transform the Web.config values based on the configuration specified in Visual Studio. To edit these files, locate the Usda.PlantBreeding.Site project. Next, find the Web.config file and expand it. The Web.[ConfigurationName].config files can be used to replace values in the default Web.config. When using these files, consider specifying different connection strings and report server variable values for your configurations. These files can also be used when publishing the application, allowing for easier configuration management.

Stack

• SSRS
• SSIS
• .Net
• TypeScript
• React
• MVVM
• Entity Framework
• Database

Contributions

Currently, this project is not accepting contributions. However, if you are intested in this application, please email us at [email protected].