Deployment

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To deploy applications written with dotConnect for FreshBooks you should register run-time assemblies Devart.Data.FreshBooks.dll, Devart.Data.SqlShim.dll, and Devart.Data.dll at Global Assembly Cache (GAC) for appropriate framework or place them in the folder of your application (Bin folder for web projects). These three assemblies should be available in all applications written with dotConnect for FreshBooks. Make sure that your project contains the license resource as it is described in Licensing.

Your application should also have access to the sqlite3.dll library. This library can be located either in the application folder or in a system-wide accessible folder. The bitness (32-bit or 64-bit) of the library must correspond to the bitness of your application.

Another way to install the needed *.dll is to launch the dotConnect for FreshBooks setup program and choose "Minimal installation". Note that according to End-User License Agreement this is the only install you can do on target machine. You must not distribute any other part of dotConnect for FreshBooks.

Applications written with dotConnect for FreshBooks may not contain the license resource when they are deployed on the target machine where dotConnect for FreshBooks is installed with "Minimal" option.

When your code uses dotConnect for FreshBooks via a factory-based class, you should register configuration information in the DbProviderFactories section of the *.config file to inform your environment about the existence of the provider factory. The provider factory is described either in machine.config (globally), in app.config or in web.config (just for your application). This is done as follows:

<system.data>
  <DbProviderFactories>
    <remove invariant="Devart.Data.FreshBooks" />
    <add name="dotConnect for FreshBooks" invariant="Devart.Data.FreshBooks" description="Devart dotConnect for FreshBooks" type="Devart.Data.FreshBooks.FreshBooksProviderFactory, Devart.Data.FreshBooks, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=09af7300eec23701" />
  </DbProviderFactories>
</system.data>

Replace 1.0.0.0 here with your actual version.

Continuous Integration

If you set up a pipeline for compiling your source code from repository on a build server periodically or even after every commit, you should add a step to your pipeline for installing the provider on the build server for copying Devart assemblies, registering provider build action, and enabling automatic generation of .NET Framework license resource from provider entry in licenses.licx. For example, the corresponding step in Azure DevOps Pipeline can be the following one if you copied the provider installation to the root folder of your repository:

- task: CmdLine@2
  inputs:
    script: '$(Build.SourcesDirectory)\dcfreshbooks.exe /TYPE=FULL /VERYSILENT'

More information about the command line installation keys can be found here.

Required Permissions

When dotConnect for FreshBooks application is used in partially trusted code (this is actual for web projects), it requires medium trust level.

Since dotConnect for FreshBooks uses standard Microsoft .NET licensing licensing, it additionally requires RegistryPermission. And though SecurityPermission is granted by default when using medium trust level, the set of flags for the SecurityPermission must be extended. You need to add the following flags: Assertion, SkipVerification, UnmanagedCode, and SerializationFormatter.

For the information on how to do this see Configuring Trust Level for Web Applications.

Entity Framework Projects

When deploying Entity Framework projects, it is necessary to:

First, you need to check if the Devart.Data.FreshBooks.Entity.EF<Version>.dll assembly is available for your application. The <Version> here is the version of Entity Framework used in your application. For Entity Framework v4 and v5 it is Devart.Data.FreshBooks.Entity.EF4.dll, for Entity Framework v6 it is Devart.Data.FreshBooks.Entity.EF6.dll. For Entity Framework Core it is Devart.Data.FreshBooks.Entity.EFCore.dll. The assembly should reside in the application's folder or in GAC.

Please note that there are three versions of Devart.Data.FreshBooks.Entity.EFCore.dll assemblies for Full .NET Framework - for different Entity Framework Core versions - 1.1, 2.2, and 3.1. They are located respectively in \Entity\EFCore, \Entity\EFCore2, and \Entity\EFCore3 subfolders of the dotConnect for FreshBooks installation folder.
Inform your environment about the provider factory existence (add the entry to the DbProviderFactories section as it is described above).

You can find this assembly in the Entity folder in the provider installation folder, in the subforder, corresponding to the Entity Framework version necessary.

If you are registering the provider in the machine.config file, please take into account the Entity Framework version. Entity Framework v4 and later - specific applications should be registered in the .NET Framework 4.0 configuration file. For Entity Framework Core there is no need to register the provider in the machine.config file.

You can also read Microsoft's Deployment Considerations on ADO.NET Entity Framework.

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