New in Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server

Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server 5.5

Released: 20 December 2022 - Version: 5.5.2 (build 3)

Release Notes for Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server 5.5

This release delivers new features and upgrades to the Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server Workspace interface. In addition, numerous fixes have been made to resolve issues raised by customers through the AltiumLive Community.

PTC Windchill 12 Support

With this new release, the Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server now supports PTC Windchill^® PLM version 12 for PLM integration processes such as component synchronization, project creation, and project publishing. Note that Windchill version 11 is no longer officially supported by PTC.

The Enterprise Server's Windchill 12 compatibility includes support for Windchill's Change Order (ECO) functionality with Lifecycle status changes. Once defined in the server's Windchill Configuration and Publishing Template XML files, Windchill Change Orders are available during Project Creation and Publishing process workflows invoked from Altium Designer or through the Enterprise Server interface. An associated Change Order Form is presented during the flow where the Change Order's setup and options are specified – these include promoting the ECO Lifecycle state, specifying its workflow Complexity level, and if Change Order creation is compulsory or as specified by the user (new, none, or reuse existing).

For information on working with Winchill's Change Notice (ECO) functionality, see the comment notes in the sample Windchill Configuration XML file and the Publishing Template XML file provided with the Enterprise Server installation.

PLM Data Source Filtering Logic

The ability to define which source data is propagated from Altium to the connected PLM instance during synchronization has been expanded to include the Boolean logic combination of parameter attributes.

Available in the ToPLM sections of the Enterprise Server's PLM Configuration files, the SourceCriteria tagset allows for the inclusion of multiple attribute sets that will resolve to a specific filtering result through the basic application of AND, OR and NOT logic clauses. This offers the potential for tightly specifying the range of source data that will propagate to PLM during synchronization. For example, additional attributes such as component Folder, Lifecycle state, RoHS and Classification might be used in logic combinations to allow the synchronization of components with an Approved lifecycle state from a particular folder, or those with a particular classification name, but not those with the RoHS value set to 'NO'.

Note that OR logic entries are added within <Or></Or> tagsets, a NOT logic entry within <Not></Not> tagsets, while AND logic entries are simply added sequentially (the AND is implied) – at this time conditions cannot be nested.  For more information on applying logic-based SourceCriteria filtering, see the related notes in the sample Configuration XML files.

Enhanced Part Choices Sync for PTC Windchill

The Enterprise Server's support for Part Choice data exchange has been extended to include synchronization from the Altium side to Windchill PLM. Along with the capability of propagating Supply Chain data as attributes through basic Manufacturer/PartNumber parameter mapping, support is now included for the native exchange of Windchill's Approved Manufacturer Part Lists (AMLs) data.

Direct support for component synchronization through Windchill's manufacturer part lists is enabled by a simple addition to the related XML configuration file. To push Part Choice data to Windchill in this way, such an addition would be:

<PartChoices>
    <ToPlm sync="true"/>
</PartChoices>

Part Choices can be enabled (sync="true") for synchronization in either direction, as determined by a ToPlm or ToAltium configuration statement. While this arrangement supports the bidirectional exchange of Part Choice data, note that the directions are mutually exclusive – an error will be thrown if both ToPlm and ToAltium <PartChoices> sections are included and simultaneously enabled (set to "true").

Support for Pushing Updates to Arena Working Revisions

The Enterprise Server's support for Arena^® PLM has been expanded to support updating of existing Arena items when working with the Altium Project Releaser and Component Sync processes.

This allows newly released project and component data on the Altium side to be pushed to working revisions of Arena BOM part items (PCBA, FAB and Component data). With the release of an Altium project to Arena PLM – using the Project Release with Publish to PLM process – the previously released Arena Project BOM revision will be updated, and the additional child part updates linked to that parent. In this case the PLM log will include a warning which notes that a working revision has been updated and effective revisions added to the corresponding BOM in Arena.

Propagation of Teamcenter PCB IDs to Altium Project Parameters

With the addition of a new gateway configuration file and an associated java source file, Siemens Teamcenter^® PLM can now be set to propagate the identification (ID) references it creates for bare board (PCB/PWB) parts back to Project Parameter entries on the Altium side. In practice this means that when an Altium Designer PCB project has been created/updated in the Teamcenter PLM, its related parts IDs will automatically become available as Altium PLM parameters associated with the project.

To activate the new back-annotation capability:

1. Update the Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server to this latest release.
2. Ensure the server includes an active Teamcenter PLM Addon license.
3. Download the new Configuration file archive set (ConfigurationSamples.zip) through the server's browser interface.
4. Extract the altiumPcb_edadef.xml configuration file and the CustomEDACallbacks.jar java source file from ConfigurationSamples.zip.
5. Add the two files to the PC's %TCEDAECAD_ROOT% directory (created during the initial Teamcenter setup).
6. Restart the PC hosting Altium Designer.

Supported Systems Updates

Altium continues to both update and validate the Enterprise Server for use with current software systems:

• Windows Server 2022 is now supported as a host platform for the Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server.
• The Enterprise Server now supports Aras Innovator^® PLM Release 12.0 SP18.