renodor / dualsun-technical-test

README

Setup Development Environment

To setup server and client apps please refer to the README files of both folders. Then launch client and server and visit client app at http://localhost:5173/

Database Structure

I decided to split "PVMES" data into different models:

• Company: storing company name and siren
• Customer: storing customer name, email and phone
• Installation: storing installation address, city and date
• Panel: storing a code and a flavor

Each Installation record belongs to a Company and a Customer, and can have many panels.

About Company

Company siren need to be a 4 digits number. (In the real world SIREN are supposed to be 9 digits number, but I decided to simplify it for the sake of the exercise). Also I was unsure if siren are actually "numerical" or not. I decided that yes, which means that SIREN like 0001 are not valid.

About Installation

In the real world an address will need more informations than just address and city attribute (things like address2, country, zipcode etc...), but for the sake of the exercise I decided that address and city was good enough.

About Panel

I replaced panel "id" by code and "type" (photovoltaic/hybrid) by flavor because "id" and "type" are reserved keywords in Rails and I wanted to avoid confusion. Also I was unsure if panel code are actually "numerical" or not. I decided that yes, which means that code like 000001 are not valid.

About data validation

I thought it was better to validate data on one unique place, so I didn't use HTML5 validation or front end validation at all. All data validation is done server side directly by ActiveRecord. If there are validation errors when trying to persist data, those errors will be sent back to the client to be displayed.

Generally speaking I didn't know how "unique" some data should be:

• Does a panel code represent a unique panel object (Like a barcode)? Or can we have different panel objects with the same code ?
• Is a customer unique by company? Or can different companies have the same customer?
• Can different customers have the same phone but different emails?
• Can we have different Installation at the same date at the same address but with different panels? etc...

I decided not to worry much about those questions but in order to limit validation issues I decided to split the "PVMES" form in 4 different steps:

1. First users need to define the company
2. Then users need to define the customer
3. Then users need to define the installation details
4. And finaly users need to add panels to this new installation

This allows to validate mandatory data before actually receiving panels informations and make sure we create installation record for the correct company and customer. This also allows to have a better UX with a simpler form than you validate step by step (instead of having one big form with lot of inputs that can all have different type of errors).

Finally you will see that different controllers have find_or_create methods instead of simple show or create. This is a bit weird and can lead to un-wanted record creation, but again I didn't really know if at the moment of filling "PVMES" form, corresponding companies or customers are already in our database or not? I guess that this solution is good enough for the sake of the exercise.