Management of a Specific Project in Altium NEXUS Server
Parent page: Managed Projects
The Altium NEXUS Server provides an advanced, manufacturing orientated CAD-centric view of the project, encompassed in the browser interface Projects Management page. This management interface offers Design, Manufacturing and BOM view options:
- Design – display and navigate source project design documents, view design object properties and place review comments. This view uses the Web Review interface. The view is for the latest version of the source project data, rather than a specified release from that project, and so could be considered to be a work-in-progress (WIP) view.
- BOM – view the source project's Bill Of Materials information.
- Manufacturing – view the releases for the project. Access is provided for opening a specific Release, which will be presented on a separate tab through a Manufacturing Portal. From this portal you can view and navigate the released Assembly and Fabrication data, inspect the BOM, and ultimately download the data into a manufacturing Build Package.
- Activities – view active or closed Process workflow Activities that apply to the current project.
The Projects Management page is opened from the NEXUS server's Projects page by selecting the required project and choosing the Open option from the 
menu, or by double or single -clicking on the project title – in detailed (
) and preview (
) view list modes, respectively. The page will open in a new browser tab.
Accessing the CAD-centric Projects Management page for a project.
button.The following sections take a closer look at the four views into the project design and its data, presented on the Projects Management page.
Design
Related page: Web Review
The Design view provides interactive visual access to the project's design documents, property data for objects within those documents, and the ability to collaboratively comment on definable document locations. This view is for the latest version of the source project data, rather than a specified release from that project, and so could be considered to be a work-in-progress (WIP) view.
The Design view utilizes Altium's Web Review functionality to provide an immersive and interactive experience for reviewing the source schematic and PCB documents in your design project. Shown here is a schematic – hover over the image to see the PCB.
Based on an advanced web graphics engine and interface – Web Review – you are provided with all the features needed to locate and visually inspect the design and its objects. The view also includes fully rendered 2D and 3D PCB layout views, object search and select capabilities, and tree-based design document navigation. Its additional information pane provides an interface to the active Comments system – which dynamically interacts with the design space – and a comprehensive properties listing for any selected design object.
BOM
The BOM view allows you to interactively examine work-in-progress (WIP) BOM data extracted from the design documents, including entries for Manufacturer and Supplier parts data derived from a project's populated ActiveBOM document (where available). When an ActiveBOM document is part of the design project, each BOM part entry (
) will include the primary Manufacturer part (
) and Supplier part (
) information in a hierarchical view – select an entry to see further details in the side pane.
The BOM view enables you to examine the BOM data for the latest version of the source (WIP) project data.
When your design uses managed components, an indicator is used (to the left of the component designator entry) to reflect the revision status of that component:
– Current (the latest revision of the component is being used).
– Historical (a previous revision of the component, and not the latest, is being used).
Manufacturing
The Manufacturing view allows you to view project data packages released from the design space, which can be individually opened for examination as interactive Fabrication, Assembly and BOM views.
The view's Releases listing includes project release packages generated from the design space (see Releasing a Design), where each package incorporates the released Source, Fabrication and Assembly data. Released packages can be opened for detailed inspection through a dedicated Manufacturing Portal browser tab, accessed from the Open option of a release entry's ellipsis menu (•••). The sections below outline the manufacturing portal features.
The Manufacturing view gives you access to the released data packages, and the ability to open a package for closer inspection through a dedicated Manufacturing Portal.
Manufacturing Portal
An opened project release is presented in a new Manufacturing Portal browser tab and incorporates further sub-views:
- Fabrication – the PCB fabrication view applies the Web Review interface to show a 2D rendering of the board layout. Standard review features include Layer Visibility selection, Comment markup, object search and object property data.
- Assembly – the PCB assembly view applies the Web Review interface to show a 3D rendering of the board layout. The view may be zoomed, panned and angled to provide a realistic graphical view into the PCB and its constituent objects.
- BOM – the BOM view provides a grid style listing of parts included in the design, which when selected populate the side information pane with property data for that part. BOM data is extracted from the design source data or an ActiveBOM document if included in the project. In the latter case, each BOM part entry () will include the primary Manufacturer part () and Supplier part () information in a hierarchical view, as available from the ActiveBOM document – select an entry to see further details in the side pane.
Build Package
Each of the above sub-views in the Manufacturing Portal includes the option to download a Build Package for the currently opened project release, which can then be passed to manufacturing to fabricate and assemble the board. Click the 
button to download the collated Build Package as a Zip archive that contains individual Zip archives for the packages included in the release.
Example showing a downloaded Build Package for a project release currently being inspected through the Manufacturing Portal.
Activities
The Activities view provides a detailed overview of the Processes associated with the project, and the current state of their progress – represented as a user-highlighted task step in their workflow diagrams. Use the Active/Closed menu options in the page header to list current or completed project activities, and the upper Search field to filter the listing by an expression contained in any column field (except dates).
Along with an annotated graphic representing the flow and state of an activity (Diagram tab), the view also includes a Data tab that lists parametric data relating to the activity (associated users, project information, etc), and a History tab showing the sequence of workflow events (start, preparation, task completion, etc).
Project activities are typically invoked in the NEXUS design client by selecting an available process from the Project » Activities menu. The activity is then assigned to an available project and data, a user for review, and if required, a nominated user as a review coordinator. Tasks are automatically created for those users, and will appear in their NEXUS client Tasklist panel and on the server's Tasks page.