Developer Notes

Owned by Phuong
Last updated: Oct 07, 2021 by Michelle Coelho de Oliveira
9 min read

NACIS

National Aviation Company Information System(NACIS) is a Civil Aviation computer application containing all certification, inspection and audit information related to Transport Canada.

 

Contact:

Development team: Alain Asgill, Chris Collins

 

Development Tools and Configuration:

We need to install Visual Studio, Team Explorer, MSSCCI provider, PowerBuilder, Toad

For NACIS, please make sure to use 32 bit application because NACIS, PB 2017 is 32 bit IDE.

TFS server is running with access to the user. If you can not see the project on the TFS server, i.e you do not have the access to see that specific project, please see the part “issues and fixes”

Open this link first, to see if you can see NACIS

http://tfsprod:8080/tfs/civav/NACIS-SINCA/NACIS-SINCA

 

Team Explorer 2013: Team explorer  connects Visual Studio to Git and GitHub repositories, Team Foundation version control (TFVC) repositories, manage source code, work items, and builds. Why we install this version. Because this version is 32 bit compatibly and NACIS is 32 bit compatibility project. You will need a Microsoft account to download Visual Studio explorer

Follow link https://my.visualstudio.com/Downloads?q=team%20explorer%202013

 

MSSCCI provider: PowerBuilder requires MSSCCI to connect with TFS. Use the below link to download and install it

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=TFSPowerToolsTeam.MicrosoftVisualStudioTeamFoundationServer20132015M

Please make sure you install 32 bit version

Download Powerbuilder: https://www.appeon.com/
We need to create an account with TC e-mail.

Testing if the Powerbuilder can connect to TFS by configuring PowerBuilder 2017.

-Verify if you have a project, if not, then add project in Team Explorer: Open Team Explorer 2013 and add project (NACIS) from the TFS server

-Configure PowerBuilder 2017

Open the workspace in PowerBuilder.

Go to properties of workspace-> Source Control.

In the source control  system use Microsoft team foundation server. 

Provide your windows login credentials in User ID.

Click on the ellipse button beside Project:. It should automatically select the project you chose before. If not then do it manually by selecting the TFS server and then server path from the popup screen. 

 

Now, back Power Builder project solution, if you right click any pbl files, if you can see “Check in” or “Check out”, that means the PowerBuilder could connect to TFS successfully

 

Visual Studio 2017: you need a MSDN account to download and install the Visual Studio 2017

 

PowerBuilder 2017:

Each developer needs a Powerbuilder license

Current version for development at this point of writing (2021-06-10): 2017 R3 1915

Install files are at the location

Map NACIS source code to the local folder:

Create a folder such as C:\tfs_applications\projectName\Dev\Source

Add a Team Foundation Server

Team Explorer ->Manage connection->Add/ Connect to Team project->will see the window to add then to connect to Team Foundation Server

 

 

Add new connection for the TFS, click server add URL http://tfsprodL8080/tfs

Add a project in Team Explorer, select NACIS

http://tfsprod:8080/tfs/civav/NACIS-SINCA/NACIS-SINCA Team

After connecting successful, go to the folder:

NACIS-SINCA\Dev\Source\

Right Click on the Source folder → Advanced and map the TFS source code to your local folder like this picture

The above mapping step is only needed to do once for each project. However, if you need to get all latest code even overwritten what you have download, you can check both of the options and choose all files when the list of files are shown up

 

Connect to TFS ( Team Foundation Service) in PowerBuilder:

Go to NACIS local folder and turn off READ-ONLY for all files

Open the NACIS.pbw (solution) using PowerBuilder . We are using PB Version 2017 R3 Build 1915 (currently on 2021-06-09)

Right Click on nacis target-> properties, choose Source Control, and set up like this with your User ID

Before compiling NACIS in dev, you must need the database connection in DEV for NACIS

On PB, click on the icon for the database connection

At the Preview Syntax: the info should be like below and you can test connection. If the connection is not successful, you might have the wrong password, You can check the password and you can run Toast (database Sql editor) to verify the connection

 

Now we can rebuild NACIS solution and run NACIS on Dev

IF there is any error showing when running NACIS or logging in, please see below at “Issues and Fixes”

Logging in:

A developer can log in NACIS with his use id and his password, choose Region as HeadQuarters, Database as Developer to test the logging in

 

Toad

Each user needs to have a Toad license.

Currently we use Toad version 12.9.0.7.1

Install Toad software from the network

Setting up Toad to work with TFS:

There are documents to look when setting up Toad
1)Toad Upgrade: RDIMS# 12092565
2)Setting up Team Foundation Server on TOAD for Oracle : RDIMS#12092441

3) Upgrading TOAD for Oracle from Visual Source Safe (VSS) to Team Foundation Server (TFS) Developer’s Installation User Guide: RDIMS:#12143140

4)Connecting to Visual SourceSafe from TOAD and VSS on Windows: RDIMS #11969228

Below is the picture to show that Toad connects to Dev database with Oracle 32 bit and schema NAPA_NACIS.

 

NACIS.EXE

\\NCRFS1111\PROJLIB\NACIS\Releases. Currently version 6.1.2 is the latest one in PROD (2021-06-08)

How to install: Extract the zip file to C: \. The NACIS.exe and related files will be installed in the C:\NACISII\prod\Object

You would need the account in Prod to run the NACIS

 

Issues and Fixes

  1. Issue: NACIS hangs when logging in by a user. This issue can happen when a pop up window is hidden at the back of logging window and wait for the user’s action. This pop-up window looks like this

Fix: Run the cmd as the Administrator to install vspell32.ocx ( for ex, vspell32.ocx at this location )

regsvr32.exe /s c:\nacisii\prod\object\vspell32.ocx

2. Issue: When there is a complain about missing any pbl

Fix: Go to Visual Studio Source Control Explorer, getting latest from the source control which is mapped to your local work space , then check if the mentioned pbl existed . If there is, then that pbl has to be included in the project’s library list

Check out [project name] target (nacis.pbt) and right click on the target property to see that library list contain the missing pbl. If there is not, then go to the VS source control explorer to copy both of the pbl and pbg in your local workspace, go to PB, right click to go to the Properties of Workspace, turn off the Source Control System to None, click Apply, go back to Source Control System, connecting to Microsoft Team Foundation Sever.

Verify again the library list, rebuild the workspace and run NACIS application again to see if the issue has gone

 

3. Issue: application execution error such as an object is out of date when running the project or null object reference at line…

Fix: finding the location of that object in the source code, right click on the pbl which contains the object → get latest version, select all->Advanced-> click both of options (see screenshot) to get latest and overwrite the local files. You might have to do in many places where that object is created/called

 

4. Issue: Opening NACIS workspace, there is an error about the migrate application such as

Fix: Check your powerbuilder version to see if that is Appeon Powerbuilder 2017 R3 Build 1915

If not, then goto and run this Powerbuilder Upgrade : NCRFS11\PROJLIB\NACIS\PBUpgrades\PowerBuilder 2017\2017_R3_1915\PWRBLDR-2017R3LTS-MR07-1915-EN.zip\PWRBLDR-2017R3LTS-MR07-1915-EN

 

6.Issue: If there is any Null object reference when running the app.

For ex:

 

Fix: Check the location of the object, go to the your local application folder, turn off read-only of that pbl, go back to PB and get latest to overwrite the local workspace. If there is no successful, check if that object is locked, get that unlocked, turn of read-only and get the latest again

 

7.Issue: When checking in any code in TFS, there should be an email notification which will be sent to you about the code checking in (team members can receive the same email about your checked in code if they set up properly). If you do not receive an email notification

Fix: for example if you want to receive email notifications when check in the code into TFS

on VS, goto http://tfsprod:8080/tfs/civav/_admin/_security, choose Notifications

Choose Subscribers and add a new Subscriber for your project, for ex like Napa or NACIS we should choose a subscriber with Category: TFVC and Template: Code is checked in

Entering your email and choose a specific Team project such as NACIS-SINCA and click Finish

 

 

 

Issue: Logging in NACIS, if we do not find the Database Development show up at the Database, then we need to change the logon.ini to enable it

Fix:

Find the C:\NACISII. This folder is created when we have NACIS.exe package installed. If you do not see this folder, please go to the network to install it( please see at the part talking about NACIS.exe)

On C:\NACISII\logon.ini, change the support number from 0 to 9. This will enable the Development database on NACIS log in window

Issue:

Logging in NACIS, choose Development database with default user id = “Test”, password is “CANADA”

 

 

Then after successful logging in with TEST/CANADA, NACIS will ask you to change the user id and password

If you catch the error like this

Fix:

You already have the user id/pass for NACIS or NAPA. Then you can go into the C:\NACISII\logon.ini to check these info which was saved previously

 

Issue: The version of the application is out of date

Fix:

Make sure the application nacis.pbl is unlocked

Go to the local folder and turn off read-only all files again

Right click the nacis solution->get latest version, choose

At the bottom of the screen, you will see “Building list of source control item..”, please do not do anything, please be patient

You can see this below, click ok

 

It took very long to see this

Then you can select all and click Advanced to select both options…

 

Issue: You can not see NACIS-SINCA in TFS server at this location http://tfsprod:8080/tfs/civav/

Fix: you can add yourself if you are administrator, otherwise you can ask the team leader do that

You have to be a contributor of NACIS project like this screenshot, you can search TC\your credential to see what permission you have for the specific project

 

 

Database

on Dev:

Server NNDEV.World

Userid = NAPA_NACIS

Password: please ask the database team