tracking.velafrica.ch

This project is an ERP (Enterprise resource planning) system for the people at Velafrica ( http://velafrica.ch ). It consists of different modules, all serving the purpose to manage specific processes and teams inside Velafrica.

Table of contents

• Detailed description
• Technology
• Learning resources
• Recommended tools
• Setup
  • Required software
  • Getting started
• Deployment

Detailed description

ch.velafrica.admin can be looked at on http://tracking.velafrica.ch at the moment.

The modules are:

• collection
• commission
• core
• counter
• download
• organisation
• sbbtracking
• stock
• transport
• velafrica_sud

Furthermore there are two special modules:

• api (specification and handling for the rest api)
• frontend (all the html stuff for the frontend)

Technology

ch.velafrica.admin is a Django application, using various 3rd party packages for additional features. Django is a very well known python framework to develop web applications. On the frontend, bootstrap is used to avoid the pain of building yet another responsive website from scratch.

Learning resources

If you do not know much about Django or Bootstrap yet, we can recommend the following sites to extend your knowledge:

• https://www.djangoproject.com/
• http://getbootstrap.com/

Recommended tools

We recommend using PyCharm by IntelliJ (full IDE) or Sublime Text (enhanced Text editor) to work on the code.

Setup

1. Install required software

python 3.6.1

• macOS: brew install python3
• Windows: download installer from https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-361/

python-pip

• macOs:
• Windows:

pipenv

pip install pipenv

Postgres

• postgresql (9.4)

NodeJS

node (5.5): https://nodejs.org/download/release/v5.5.0/

Heroku Toolbelt

https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-command-line#download-and-install

Getting started

1. Setup virtual environment (pipenv)

NOTE: Before we were using virtualenv, but we migrated to pipenv recently, since it is easier to use and better supported by IDEs.

pipenv install --python 3.6

This creates a virtual environment.

2. Activate your virtual environment

pipenv shell

3. Define the environment variables

cp .env_dist .env

4. Add your database connection in the new .env file

Fill in your database credentials (eg. username, password & database name) in .env, by modifying the following entry:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://your-username:your-password@localhost:5432/velafrica_dev

5. Create database (apply migrations)

heroku local:run python manage.py migrate

6. Compile the translation files

heroku local:run python manage.py compilemessages

7. Load the fixture data

heroku local:run ./bin/load_fixtures.sh

8. Start development server & livereload tools

heroku local:start -f Procfile_dev

9. Enjoy

open http://localhost:8000/

(Optional)

# Export database to file
pg_dump -U <your-username> velafrica_dev > dbexport.pgsql

# Import database form file
psql -U <your-username> velafrica_dev < dbexport.pgsql

# Extract translations from the templates & code into a .po file
python manage.py makemessages -a \
-i node_modules \
-i staticfiles \
-i tmp \
-i venv

Deployment

The instructions here are meant for a fresh deployment to heroku. For consecutive deployments, heroku and github are currently set up in a way that successful builds of the master branch trigger a deployment to heroku. The current configuration (npm run postinstall & the heroku release commands) make sure that the assets are being compiled and the schema migrations are applied.

# Create a new heroku application
heroku create <your-app-name> --region=eu

# Add a postgresql database
heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev --app <your-app-name>

# Add rollbar to log errors in production
heroku addons:create rollbar:free --app <your-app-name>

# Set the debugging to false, to make sure we're not leaking information to the user in case of an error
heroku config:set DEBUG=False --app <your-app-name>

# Make sure all the required buildpacks are defined and the order is the same.
open https://dashboard.heroku.com/apps/<your-app-name>/settings

1st buildpack: https://github.com/heroku/heroku-buildpack-addon-wait
2nd buildpack: https://github.com/philippkueng/heroku-buildpack-sassc
3rd buildpack: heroku/nodejs
4th buildpack: heroku/python

# The deploy the code for the first time.
git push heroku master

# (Optional) setup automatic deployments
open https://dashboard.heroku.com/apps/<your-app-name>/deploy/github

Fixtures

To update / save new fixtures run

heroku local:run python manage.py dumpdata --format=json --indent=2 -v 2 [app_name] | grep -v "Loaded ENV .env" > fixtures/[app_name].json

or for specific models:

heroku local:run python manage.py dumpdata --format=json --indent=2 -v 2 [app_name.model] | grep -v "Loaded ENV .env" > fixtures/[app_name.model].json

Before you commit the new fixtures file, make sure you remove dev/test data from the json and only commit those changes which are relevant for staging or production

Documentation

Most of the classes should be documented. More documentation is available per request (chregi.glatthard (at) gmail.com).