Accessing an Altium Vault from Altium Designer

Parent page: Working with an Altium Vault

Once you have installed and licensed your Altium Vault, you can access it. This can be done from two places:

• From within Altium Designer, through the Vaults panel.
• Through your preferred Web Browser, using the vault's browser-based interface.

This page takes a look at accessing your Altium Vault from within Altium Designer.

Signing-In to Your Altium Vault

To ensure the integrity of your valuable data - stored within your Altium Vault - is maintained, each user is required to sign into that vault with a username and password.

Signing into an Altium Vault from within Altium Designer can be performed from a variety of places:

• From the main DXP menu. Use the DXP » Sign in to Altium Vault command. The Connecting to Altium Vault dialog will appear, in which to enter the URL for the vault, and your vault access credentials. Once entered, click the Login button.

Sign-in to your Altium Vault from the main DXP menu.

• From the Data Management - Vaults page of the Preferences dialog. Simply click the Sign in button to access the Connecting to Altium Vault dialog, enter the vault's URL and your vault access credentials, then click Login.

Sign-in to your Altium Vault from the Data Management - Vaults page of the Preferences dialog.

• From the System - Altium Vault page of the Preferences dialog. Simply enter the vault's URL, and your access credentials, then click the Sign in Altium Vault link.

Sign-in to your Altium Vault from the System - Altium Vault page of the Preferences dialog.

• When creating a new Managed project. When you access the New Project dialog and set the Project Kind to Managed, the Connecting to Altium Vault dialog will appear, in which to enter the URL for the vault, and your vault access credentials. Once entered, click the Login button.

You will need to sign-in to your Altium Vault before you can create a new Managed project.

Checking Sign-In Status

You can check whether you are currently signed in to your Altium Vault from the following places:

• The main banner of the Altium Designer application window. When signed in, text will appear in the format <VaultUserName> is signed in <VaultName>.
• The Data Management - Vaults page of the Preferences dialog. When signed in, the status entry for the relevant vault will show . In addition, the button will be Sign out (rather than Sign in).
• The DXP menu. When signed in, the command will be Sign out from Altium Vault.
• The Vaults panel. When signed in, the relevant vault will be available from the menu associated with clicking on the name of the vault currently being browsed.

Managing Your Vaults

Management of the connections to Altium Vaults is performed from the Data Management - Vaults page of the Preferences dialog. The main region lists all vaults that you currently have a connection to. Typically, you would access one Altium Vault for your organization, that is locally installed on a server within that organization. You can however connect to other vaults, for example if your organization does have multiple Altium Vaults, or if you still had some legacy vault technology (Personal Vault, Satellite Vault). This can be done by using the Add Vault (legacy) command, on the drop-down menu associated to the Sign in/Sign out button.

In addition, you can connect to the Altium Content Vault - Altium's very own cloud-based vault, offering design collateral (including board templates, vendor-specific families of components, as well as generic components including capacitors and resistors).

The Data Management - Vaults page - command central for managing connections to Altium Vaults.

Use the menu associated to the Properties button to access commands for various aspects of management for the currently selected vault in the list:

• Edit Connection to Vault (not available for the vault to which you are actively signed-in).
• Edit Vault Properties
• Edit Revision Naming Schemes
• Edit Lifecycle Definitions
• Edit Operation Permissions.

To clear a vault from the list, select it and click the Disconnect From Vault button. Again, this cannot be used for the vault to which you are actively signed in - you would need to sign out first. Alternatively, to keep a connection, but simply not enable it for use, disable its associated Enabled option.

Automatic Sign-in

Altium Designer can be configured to sign you in to your Altium Vault on start-up. The option to control this - Sign me in when I start Altium Designer - is available on the System - Altium Vault page of the Preferences dialog. The Altium Vault used is taken from the Saved credentials region of the page.

When you sign-in to an Altium Vault, through the Connecting to Altium Vault dialog, you can enable the option Automatically sign in after start. This will enable the option in preferences, and store the current server address and access credentials to the Saved credentials region.

Configure automatic sign-in, when Altium Designer starts, as part of your preferences.

Signing into an Altium Vault from Different Computers

Support is provided for signing into an Altium Vault, using the same credentials, but from different computers. If you attempt to sign in to a vault that you are already signed into from another computer - either through Altium Designer, or the vault's browser-based interface - a pop-up dialog will alert you to this. You can choose from two options offered in the dialog:

• Terminate existing session - close the existing session that you have on the other computer, and continue to login to the vault from the current computer.
• Start new session - login to the vault from the current computer by using an additional connection license, and thereby keep logged into the vault from the other computer as well.

Signing-out from your Altium Vault

You can sign out from your Altium Vault by:

• Using the DXP » Sign out from Altium Vault command.
• Clicking the Sign out button, on the Data Management - Vaults page of the Preferences dialog.

Working in the Vault

Related page: Working with the Vaults Panel - Feature How-Tos

Once you are signed-in to your Altium Vault, you can access and create vault content. The primary interface to the vault from Altium Designer is the Vaults panel.

To display the Vaults panel:

• Click the System button at the bottom-right of Altium Designer, and select Vaults from the menu that appears.
• Select Vault Explorer from the DXP menu.

When you are working in Altium Designer, you access vault content via the Vaults panel.