Intuit Partner Platform team blog

Federated Applications: Generating your x.509 certificate in Java, OpenSSL or .Net

Are you ready to create a Federated Application on the Intuit Partner Platform? Need help generating your x.509 certificate for testing? Coding in Java or .Net? Here's how...

You need to provide Intuit with your public key if you wish to Federate your application, here are the instructions for generating those x.509 certificates. Keep in mind these tools generate your certificate for testing only!

Microsoft .Net Instructions:

exe: MakeCert.exe

Location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools

Step 1: Create the .cer and .pvk, you will be prompted to create a password.

MakeCert -r -pe -ss IPPSampleStoreName -n "CN=IPPSample" IPPSample.cer -sky exchange -sv IPPSample.pvk

Step 2: Combine both files into the pfx file which is easily used by the .Net framework. Password is intuit for this example.

pvk2pfx -pvk IPPSample.pvk -pi intuit -spc IPPSample.cer -pfx IPPSample.pfx -f

Step 3: Submit a support incident with your inbound SAML gateway and the .cer file you just created.

Java KeyTool Instructions:

exe: KeyTool.exe

location: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_14\jre\bin

C:\>keytool -genkey -alias ippsample-validity 1095 -keyalg RSA -keystore keystore.jks

Enter keystore password:  intuit

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_14\bin>keytool -genkey -alias ippsample -validity

1095 -keyalg RSA -keystore keystore.jks

Enter keystore password:

Re-enter new password:

What is your first and last name?

  [Unknown]:  Intuit Partner Platform

What is the name of your organizational unit?

  [Unknown]:  PaaSG

What is the name of your organization?

  [Unknown]:  Intuit Inc

What is the name of your City or Locality?

  [Unknown]:  Waltham

What is the name of your State or Province?

  [Unknown]:  MA

What is the two-letter country code for this unit?

  [Unknown]:  US

Is CN=Intuit Partner Platform, OU=PaaSG, O=Intuit Inc, L=Waltham, ST=MA, C=US co

rrect?

  [no]:  yes

Enter key password for <ippsample>

        (RETURN if same as keystore password):

Re-enter new password:

C:\>keytool -list -v -keystore keystore.jks

Enter keystore password:  intuit

Alias name: ippsample

Creation date: Jul 20, 2009

Entry type: PrivateKeyEntry

Certificate chain length: 1

Certificate[1]:

Owner: CN=Intuit Partner Platform, OU=PaaSG, O=Intuit Inc, L=Waltham, ST=MA, C=U

S

Issuer: CN=Intuit Partner Platform, OU=PaaSG, O=Intuit Inc, L=Waltham, ST=MA, C=

US

Serial number: 4a64c596

Valid from: Mon Jul 20 15:29:26 EDT 2009 until: Thu Jul 19 15:29:26 EDT 2012

Certificate fingerprints:

         MD5:  AF:90:1D:41:1A:33:9D:70:CF:EE:B3:6F:C3:30:B9:65

         SHA1: 2B:D4:E7:CA:A2:A6:9F:77:AE:A3:5D:55:E3:DA:C3:AE:35:A1:87:BB

         Signature algorithm name: SHA1withRSA

         Version: 3

*******************************************

*******************************************

*******************************************

*******************************************

C:\>keytool -list -rfc -keystore keystore.jks

Enter keystore password:  intuit

Keystore type: JKS

Keystore provider: SUN

Your keystore contains 1 entry

Alias name: ippsample

Creation date: Jul 20, 2009

Entry type: PrivateKeyEntry

Certificate chain length: 1

Certificate[1]:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----

MIICXTCCAcagAwIBAgIESmTFljANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQUFADBzMQswCQYDVQQGEwJVUzELMAkGA1UE

CBMCTUExEDAOBgNVBAcTB1dhbHRoYW0xEzARBgNVBAoTCkludHVpdCBJbmMxDjAMBgNVBAsTBVBh

YVNHMSAwHgYDVQQDExdJbnR1aXQgUGFydG5lciBQbGF0Zm9ybTAeFw0wOTA3MjAxOTI5MjZaFw0x

MjA3MTkxOTI5MjZaMHMxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMQswCQYDVQQIEwJNQTEQMA4GA1UEBxMHV2FsdGhh

bTETMBEGA1UEChMKSW50dWl0IEluYzEOMAwGA1UECxMFUGFhU0cxIDAeBgNVBAMTF0ludHVpdCBQ

YXJ0bmVyIFBsYXRmb3JtMIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCei1lo3plI7r9gQqOe

TiqcZ0sWmlhGovtr4jNIs6Nib9lAdzOAWEzOqPMu2uNjOomo5bgOtHNpGk3FRqCp38KIy1V9osNu

2rV2qT3Fa8W6A1BB5myHKclOwMss/w/gFc5y/lwx2NaqVc6WiChF7hhgCAHxmAHwjASsWhzUxqQd

zwIDAQABMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBQUAA4GBAGlsQBfhGS2zliVMybDzT9oLEjnZF/h+ZjLevkUArhT9

DTPztd4uj6RC58/TYHQp9O67zu/JOYewRmsoo902nQJDOkRdGC6SDIUqSw6CNhN0MJufzSQQxfWd

iRgCVeAzt3sNrh+nY49Zcuz001Xpss+6xTN9uuCSpsVIDohprlyR

-----END CERTIFICATE-----

*******************************************

*******************************************

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_14\bin>keytool -export -rfc -alias ippsample -keystore

keystore.jks -file ippsample.crt

Enter keystore password:

Certificate stored in file <ippsample.crt>

keytool -importkeystore -srckeystore keystore.jks -srcstoretype JKS -deststoretype PKCS12 -destkeystore keystore.p12

NOTE: If you are using a cert that is not signed by a recognized CA (like the self signed cert as described above), you need to import the public cert into the cacerts file on the system that is running the gateway:

$ keytool -import -trustcacerts -keystore $JAVA_HOME/jre/security/cacerts -file ./ippsample.crt -alias ippsample

Open SSL Instructions:

C:\OpenSSL\bin>openssl.exe req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout sdgidfedapp11.corp.intuit.net.key -out sdgidfedapp11.corp.intuit.net.crt

Loading 'screen' into random state - done

Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key

..................++++++

........++++++

writing new private key to 'sdgidfedapp11.corp.intuit.net.key'

-----

You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated

into your certificate request.

What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.

There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank

For some fields there will be a default value,

If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.

-----

Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US

State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:California

Locality Name (eg, city) []:San Diego

Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Intuit

Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:IAM

Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:sdgidfedapp11.corp.intuit.net

Email Address []:

C:\OpenSSL\bin>

Lastly,

Submit your .crt file and your inbound gateway url to Intuit by submitting a support incident.

happy coding

-Jarred

How to manage Relationships between tables in QuickBase for IPP?

How do we handle QuickBase relationships using the Intuit Partner Platform Flex SDK Plugin?

The QuickBase Missing Manual describes the mechanics for creating relationships between tables as well as common use-case relationships. For example, you can think of a one-to-many relation between projects and tasks where each task in the tasks table is linked to a specific project in the projects table. The projects table is referred to as the Master table and the tasks table as the Details table. QuickBase uses the master's key field or the record id# to relate the records between the master and details table.

Note that within QuickBase the only type of relationship you can directly define is 1:many though within your application you can implement a 1:1 relationship by having a back reference many:1 relationship from master to detail and implementing your business logic to enforce the 1:1 nature of the intended relationship. 

Why implement a relationship in the first place?  Quite simply, because once you have a relationship, QuickBase can do a lot of work for you:  fields from the master can be automatically reflected into the details rows (effectively an Inner Left Join for you SQL-nuts) so you don’t need to go look up the master record when you have a detail record in-hand and just need a couple of fields from the master record on a regular basis; and fields from the details table can be summarized in the master record using a variety of summary operators such as Average, Count, Maximum, etc.; they can even be summarized with the equivalent of a “where” clause to summarize only a subset of the details records (i.e. total task hours assigned to the current user).

How does this work with the IPP Flex SDK Plugin? Using DTOs and some of the APIs in the Kingussie framework we can simplify the task of adding records, maintaining relationships and refreshing summary fields.

I have a Developers table as the master table and a Ratings table as the details table. There can be many Ratings records for a single developer and the summary field which is the average rating in the Developers table keeps track of this.

The challenges are

How do we add a record to the ratings table and relate it to a developer record?

How do we refresh the summary field of the developer record in the view when a ratings record related to the developer is added? Normal refresh mechanisms such as those implemented by the QuickBaseDTOArrayCollection will not detect changes to the developer record if all that changed were details records summarized by the developer record, so our app needs to “know” that it has changed something that influences other records and force a refresh.

To add a Ratings record, we first relate it to the Developer record and add it.

                  rating.populateDTO();

                  // Relate the Ratings record to the Developers record

                  model.ratingsDTO.Relateddeveloper = Number(model.developersDTO.rid);
                  var addRatingEvent: QuickBaseEventStoreRecord = new
                       QuickBaseEventStoreRecord(model.RatingsDTO,
                       new KingussieEventCallBack(doRefreshRating));
           
                  addRatingEvent.dispatch();

Where rating is a simple IDNForm.

               <widgets:IDNForm id="rating" dto="{model.ratingsDTO}">
                   <widgets:IDNField fieldLabel="Enter Rating:" fieldName="Rating"/>     
               </widgets:IDNForm>

To refresh the view using the Kingussie event chaining, we define a method doRefreshRating which essentially refreshes the parent record and thereby updates the summary field.

           public function doRefreshRating(data:Object): void
           {
                  // refresh the parent record now
                  var refreshDeveloperEvent: QuickBaseEventRefreshRecord = new
                       QuickBaseEventRefreshRecord(model.developersDTO);
                  refreshDeveloperEvent.dispatch();

                 // refresh the ratings DTO
                  model.ratingsDTO = new Ratings_DTO();
           }

In conclusion, we looked at how to handle relationships between tables, what is a Master table and a Details table, how to link records between the tables and how to automatically refresh summary fields in the parent record.

How is the QuickBaseDTOArrayCollection different from an ArrayCollection?

Apart from the name, there are some important properties and methods that make it more useful in the context of writing your Flex code.

You can leverage the framework and use QuickBaseDTOArrayCollection to keep your data up to date and avoid having to do the low-level programming to acheive the same otherwise.

I'll try and explain this with some very simple code snippets.

The following is defined in the model.

         public var developersDTO: Developers_DTO = new Developers_DTO();
         public var developersList:  QuickBaseDTOArrayCollection ;

where the Developers_DTO is the Data Transfer Object for an individual record and it handles the marshalling and umarshalling of the fields of the record. It is automatically generated as part of the project when you use the "Generate data transfer objects" as part of the IPP plugin.

I instantiate this list in the view in the initPanel() or as appropriate. This indicates what fields of the record you want to retrieve.

model.developersList = new QuickBaseDTOArrayCollection
                   (Developers_DTO, true, "",
                   "Name.Company.EmailContact...", // fields are dot-separated. Not all shown
                   "",
                   "");

You initialize the list, which essentially populates the list, something along the lines of below.

                   model.developersList.initData();

This populated list can then be used as a dataProvider in a DataGrid just like a regular ArrayCollection, through the magic of Flex databinding and the QuickBaseDTOArraycollection's own magic of updating itself when data on the server changes. So, whenever a record is added, updated or deleted by any user (not necessarily the current user) this is reflected in the view.

          <mx:DataGrid id="developersViewGrid" change="true" wordWrap="true" dataProvider="{model.developersList}"

You can also force the update when you know things have changed (i.e. because you stored a record in the current client) as below

          model.developersList.forceUpdate();

Most importantly, by using the QuickBaseDTOArrayCollection to keep your data up to date, your application is imposing the smallest possible burden on the server, in particular, if data isn't changing, you aren't touching the database, and therefore are reducing your usage charges.

It's certainly possible to duplicate the functionality of the QuickBaseDTOArrayCollection yourself using a standard ArrayCollection, but why do all that low-level programming yourself?  Focus on your business logic and let the framework take care of the wiring for you.

You can get more details in the Programmer's Guide.

Setting Up a Co-Development IPP Project in Flex Builder

Hello IPP developers, my name is Jarred Keneally and I am a developer support engineer for the Intuit Partner Platform. After receiving quite a few inquiries as to the best way to setup a co-development IPP project, I though I would blog about the way to do that.

You should know we are working on exciting new developer tools to manage your IPP Projects in release 1.4. Until that release arrives, here is what you can do in the meantime. Please keep in mind this process is only temporary.

These are the steps that are typical of a new IPP project in Flex Builder:

1. Someone creates a “build” account on workplace (hereafter referred to as “build engineer”)

2. Build engineer creates a database using the native workplace UI

3. Build engineer creates a new Flex project in Flex Builder

4. Build engineer converts said Flex application to an IPP Application by Adding the IPP framework to the new project

5. Build engineer configures the IPP Project using the wizard

a. Calls the Project 1.0

b. Creates and/or Assigns an AppToken

c. Points to, the dbid from Step #2 to create the Development Master (normally, they’ll always just use Find DBID here)

d. Saves the IPP Project

6. Build engineer runs the DTO generator.

7. Build engineer adds all of the files to CVS/P4, excepting binaries and the DevEnvironment.xml (shouldn’t be one at this point if my memory is correct)

8. Build engineer invites his team, DevA, DevB and DevC to be admins to the Development Master (same dbid as is found in the IPP Project editor wizard)

9. STOP: Combine all logins under Build Engineers Account: All workplace logins that want to deploy this app need to be added to the build engineers account. This process is only temporary.

a. Please submit a support incident with build engineers email and the emails of the other Workplace logins to be added to the account. Click Here to Submit an Incident

10. DevA, DevB, DevC check out source code from CVS/P4

11. DevA, DevB, DevC build code and deploy to their dev environments… This will create their development sandboxes.  It will also create the DevEnvironment.xml file

12. DevA, DevB, DevC make enhancements that they check back into CVS/P4, etc, but they never check in the DevEnvironment.xml file

13. When a Q/A build is desired (or any other deployment or publishing operation) then Build Engineer comes back into the picture

14. Build Engineer checks out all code and deploys to Q/A, Stage, or publish.

*When someone changes the schema, it will be the schema of the dev master. That person must regen the DTOs and check them in.  The other devs must then refresh their project with those new DTO files.  The Dev Instance DBs will get updated automatically.

**The schemaVersion is what triggers the whole thing.  Until there is a difference between the compiled version (SchemaVersion.as) and the sandbox’s schemaVersion dbVar, no schemaUpdate command will be executed.  This is exactly the desired behavior because a developer may be in the middle of a task and not want his sandbox to be updated.  So long as he doesn’t sync code his wishes will be law.

***In Dev the QAR is deployed to the sandbox and never to the master.  In the other environments the exact opposite is true—you deploy the QAR to the master and when running the application the executable is automagically pulled from the master.  It is this difference that allows multiple developers to have different code bases

****Technically any of the developers can deploy to Q/A (etc) but this is probably poor practice.  Future versions of the tools will have role assignments to enforce the concept of an “authorized” deployment manager.  Every developer, however, can deploy to his/her development sandbox as that is limited to their own development area.  If they want, they can also start over this away simply by deleting the DevEnvironment.xml file and doing a Synch operation, or by running the IPP Project wizard and re-cloning the Development Master.

Happy Coding

Jarred

Frustrated by IE6 security warnings in IPP Applications?

Are you seeing the following security warning when running Flex-based IPP applications in IE6? If so, it is probably due to the fact that IE6 does not like iFrame tags without a SRC attribute.

If you're sure that it's not your code that contains the incomplete iFrame tag, chances are pretty good that you inherited the problem from a javascript file included in the Flex 3 HTML template. For a possible solution, read the article on Justin Mose's blog .  In the article he explains what he found and what he did to correct it.