Deploying your project to Boxwise

This guide will help you deploy your newly created Shipping Integration Plugin project to Boxwise. If you haven't created your project yet follow the steps in this article: Quickstart: Using the dotnet new template first.

Before you begin

To follow the steps in this article please make sure you have installed and configured Boxwise on your system or that you have access to a system that has Boxwise installed and configured. 

Additional prerequisites

Boxwise will only load Shipping Integration Plugins dll's that start with the prefix ShippingLogic.. The template project already makes sure that the build ouput will start with this prefix.

Copy the build output manually

In one of the last steps of the guide mentioned in the intro you have successfully created a new build of the Plugin project using the dotnet build command. To install the plugin to Boxwise you will have to copy the build output to the Boxwise installation folder. 

Open the Boxwise installation folder

1. Open explorer
2. Go to the installation folder of Boxwise (default folder is ${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}\Trancon\BoxwisePro\Server\)
3. You are now in the main installation folder of the Boxwise server

Open the build output folder

1. Open explorer
2. Go to the Company.Plugin (or the name you entered yourself) folder created in the guide mentioned in the intro
3. Descend into the bin\Debug\net48 folder
4. Here you will see the build output files you will need to copy:
   1. ShippingLogic.Company.Plugin.dll
   2. ShippingLogic.Company.Plugin.pdb (only needed during debugging)
   3. Plus any dependencies not already used by Boxwise (Do not copy Wms.RemotingObjects.dll or TranCon.Printing.Interface.dll for example)
5. Paste the files in the Boxwise installation folder

Creating a Post Build step to copy the output

1. Open explorer
2. Go to the Company.Plugin (or the name you entered yourself) folder created in the guide mentioned in the intro
3. Open the project in your IDE (⚠ Make sure you run the IDE elevated as Administrator)
4. Edit the project file and add a PostBuild event like this if you edit the csproj file in a text editor:

   <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
   
     .....
   
     <Target Name="PostBuild" AfterTargets="PostBuildEvent">
       <Exec Command="copy /Y &quot;$(TargetPath)&quot; &quot;%25programfiles(x86)%25\Trancon\BoxwisePro\Server\$(TargetFileName)&quot;&#xD;&#xA;copy /Y &quot;$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).pdb&quot; &quot;%25programfiles(x86)%25\Trancon\BoxwisePro\Server\$(TargetName).pdb&quot;&#xD;&#xA;" />
     </Target>
   
   </Project>

5.  Or edit the project file in Visual Studio 2019 through the UI and paste the following text in the Post-build command line field under Build Events.

   copy /Y "$(TargetPath)" "%programfiles(x86)%\Trancon\BoxwisePro\Server\$(TargetFileName)"
   copy /Y "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).pdb" "%programfiles(x86)%\Trancon\BoxwisePro\Server\$(TargetName).pdb"

6. Now build the project. 
7. If no errors occurred the post build step has copied a new version of your project into the Boxwise folder. 

Summary

1. ✅ You now know where the installation folder of Boxwise resides
2. ✅ You verified and inspected the build output of the project
3. ✅ You have successfully copied the build output to the Boxwise installation folder 💃!

The next step is to test the plugin in Boxwise. To do this you can follow this guide: Testing your project in Boxwise

Sample of the result