Altium Concord Pro on A365 - Exploring the Browser-based Interface

Created: October 24, 2019 | Updated: March 06, 2024

Parent page: Concord Pro - Hosted on Altium 365

In addition to connecting to a Workspace through Altium Designer - interfacing to it through the Explorer panel and Components panel (for direct interaction with the managed components therein) - you also connect to it through a dedicated browser interface, with access to management interfaces for the various services available as part of the Workspace. Indeed, with some of these services, your only interaction with them is through this browser interface.

Accessing the Interface

The browser-based interface to a Workspace is actually presented as a constituent part within the overall Altium 365 Platform Interface. Access to this interface can be performed in a couple of ways, as described in the following sections.

Directly through the Altium 365 Sign In Page

This method can be used when:

Accessing the Altium 365 Platform Interface through its direct URL: https://365.altium.com.
Pasting the link for the Workspace's Server Address (e.g. https://adworkspaces-eu.altium.com/273pz39rzhwc69ll46o8q7zbk/) directly into a tab of your Web browser (and you are not currently signed in to your AltiumLive account).
Following an email invite to a Workspace, or to shared content therein (for example a managed project).
You are a guest to view some content shared with you on the Altium 365 platform, but have not got a Workspace yourself, or are not part of another organization's Workspace team.

Sign in to the Altium 365 Platform Interface using your AltiumLive credentials. Alternatively, sign in using your Google^®, Facebook^®, or LinkedIn^® account and, in doing so, link/associate that account with your AltiumLive account. If you don't have an AltiumLive account, you can click the control to sign up for one.

Example access of the Altium 365 Platform Interface, of which the target Workspace is a part, directly through the Altium 365 Sign In Page.

Indirectly through the Workspaces Dashboard

This method can be used when you are already part of the team for a Workspace - your own company's Workspace, and any that have been shared with you by virtue of adding you as a member to another company's Workspace team. To do so:

Sign in to AltiumLive.
Access the current Workspaces available to you by using one of the following methods:
1. Accessing the Altium Dashboard, then clicking the Workspaces link below the banner area.
2. Direct access using the URL: https://workspaces.altium.com/spaces.
Click on the Workspace Name, or Server Address entry for the specific Workspace you wish to access. You will be presented with the Altium 365 Platform Interface, with the chosen Workspace loaded.

Example access of the Altium 365 Platform Interface, of which the chosen Workspace is a part, indirectly from the Workspaces dashboard.

What's Provided?

Within the Altium 365 Platform Interface, the area for the active Workspace provides a number of key technologies and services and can be coarsely divided into two groupings, as shown in the following image, and listed thereafter.

The Altium 365 Platform Interface showing the active Workspace, which can be further divided into two distinct sets of interface elements.

Interface elements that can be accessed by any Workspace user. To access a page, click on its name within the left-hand navigation tree.
Interface elements that can only be accessed by a Workspace Administrator. A user is bestowed administrative powers by membership to the role Administrators. To access a page, choose the required entry within the Admin section of the left-hand navigation tree.

At the far right of the banner area, at the top of the interface, an entry reflects the user that is currently signed into the Altium 365 Platform Interface, along with a picture (if defined), and the name of the active workspace.

The drop-down menu associated with the entry provides the following:

Current Workspace - this is the Workspace that you are currently connected to.
Switch To - provides a section listing all other Workspaces that you have access to (through your AltiumLive account). Click on an entry to quickly switch connection to that Workspace.
Profile - takes you to your AltiumLive account page.
Sign Out - signs you out of the Altium 365 Platform Interface.

From any page of the Altium 365 Platform Interface - and therefore any page of the current Workspace presented through the platform - you can access a dedicated ChatBot. To do so, click on the control. Currently available Altium Team members who are dedicated to adoption and support of Altium Concord Pro hosted on Altium 365 will be shown - simply type in your message and press Enter to start engaging with one of them, live.

Need instant help with Altium Concord Pro hosted on Altium 365, or other aspects of the Altium 365 infrastructure platform? - engage with available Altium Team members live, through the dedicated ChatBot.

To collapse the ChatBot, click the

control.

General Access Interface Elements

The following sections summarize the elements of the Workspace's browser interface that can be accessed by all users of the Workspace - both administrators and standard users.

Projects

This page provides the interface to the Projects service, to create and manage projects in a central location, in a CAD-centric way, and share those projects for team collaboration as required. The page lists all managed projects for the Workspace. Managed projects target the development stage of the project lifecycle, simplifying the creation and ongoing workflow for version controlled projects. From here you can create new projects, and open and manage existing ones. From this interface, a project can also be shared, or rather its access permissions configured.

The beauty of Managed Projects is that they are version controlled by default, and can be collaboratively worked upon without having to worry about shared drives, servers, agreements etc.

All managed projects are stored in a default Design Repository named Versioned Storage (a Git repository).

Centralized management of your design projects - all part of your Workspace.

A project created through this interface, or through Altium Designer, will initially be available to the designer who created it (the Owner), and all Administrators for the Workspace, in terms of full Read/Write access. To make it accessible to others simply share it, by configuring its permissions. The sample projects installed during creation of the Workspace are initially shared for Read/Write access with the Administrators, and for Read access with all users in the team.

You can also access a detailed, CAD-centric view of the project, opened by selecting the required project, clicking the control above the listing of projects, and choosing the Open entry on the associated menu. Alternatively, double-click directly on the required project entry in the list. The Projects Management page for that project opens in a new browser tab incorporating the CAD-centric interface, which offers Design, BOM and Manufacturing 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. 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. You can review both the base design and any defined variant thereof.

BOM - 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.

Manufacturing - view the releases for the project. Access is provided for opening a 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. A chosen release can also be sent - as a Manufacturing Package - directly to your manufacturer.

The Altium 365 platform provides a dedicated Manufacturing Package Viewer - an element of the platform's Global Sharing support - which allows others to view a manufacturing package from any web browser - anywhere in the world - but outside of your Workspace, so that your designs themselves, and other valuable IP, are kept off limits. For more information, see Global Sharing and Manufacturing Package Viewer.

For more information on using this view, see Management of a Specific Project.

Explorer

Related page: Managing Content Structure & Access

This page gives you access to the structure of the Workspace, and is similar in presentation and layout to that of Altium Designer's Explorer panel. From here, you will be able to browse the folders and Items within the Workspace. And although you can't create or edit Items from within the browser interface (you can remove them), you are able to create and edit folders, and so build the structure of the Workspace, without having to be connected to that server through Altium Designer.

You can also define folder-level and Item-level sharing from this interface - controlling who is able to see what content in the Workspace and, at the folder level, whether other users can simply view a folder and its content, or also edit it (effectively releasing/committing/uploading design data into it).

Content can also be downloaded from the Workspace, directly from this interface.

Browse and define the structure of your Workspace as well as defining access to, and being able to download, content therein.

Workspace Administrators will be able to see and manage all workspace content. For a shared user of the Workspace (non-admin), only those folders that have been shared - i.e. the user has permissions to access - will be accessible when the user accesses the Workspace.

Non-administrative users can only share a folder they have created.

Components

This page gives you convenient access for browsing all of the managed components within your Workspace. When the page is first accessed, you are presented with a tiled array of the various component types - enabling you to see, at-a-glance, what (and how many) components you currently have at your disposal.

Browse the managed components currently available within your Workspace.

Clicking on a tile will present a flat listing of all components of that type. This listing can also be accessed by choosing a component type from the drop-down at the top-left of the page.

Selecting a component entry will present the following details for it within the right-hand pane:

Item ID
Description
Revision and State
Manufacturer Lifecycle
Stock Availability
Median Price
Parametric Data
Models - symbol and footprint(s)
Reference Documentation - datasheet(s), pinouts, etc.
Where-used Information - where the component is used (within a design project, or on a managed schematic sheet) with a link to the parent entity within the Explorer page of the interface.

For each component, you can quickly access its manufacturer datasheet and also its page within the Octopart site (both of which open on separate tabs).

Click on a component to access detailed property information for it, open its datasheet and view its page on the Octopart website.

Use the Search field to quickly find the component you are after.

MCAD Plugins

Related page: ECAD-MCAD Co-design

If you have active Altium Subscription for your Altium Designer licensing, and have Altium Concord Pro hosted on Altium 365, you will be able to use ECAD-MCAD CoDesign functionality. In Altium Designer (the ECAD side), this functionality is provided through the MCAD CoDesigner panel - your interface to the MCAD software being used. On the MCAD side, this functionality is delivered through a corresponding panel, provided through installation (and registration to the MCAD software) of the Altium CoDesigner plugin.

The following MCAD platforms and versions are currently supported:

Dassault Systemes SOLIDWORKS® - version 2018, 2019, 2020
Autodesk Inventor Professional® - version 2018, 2019, 2020
PTC Creo Parametric® - 4.x, 5.x

Use of the ECAD-MCAD capability requires no additional licensing when working with Autodesk Inventor or PTC Creo. To work with SOLIDWORKS, you will need to obtain the relevant licensing through your SOLIDWORKS Channel. Note that this is a matter of compliance - reflected through Altium Concord Pro's EULA. It is your responsibility to obtain the relevant licensing from SOLIDWORKS, in order to satisfy this compliance.

The MCAD Plugins page provides access to the installers (for installing the Altium CoDesigner plugin) for the various supported MCAD platforms. Click on the tile for the MCAD software you are using. On the subsequent page, click the button to download the installer used to perform installation - through an intuitive installation wizard - of the Altium CoDesigner plugin, into your MCAD software installation. The page also presents a concise Getting Started guide - to get you up and running with collaboration between Altium Designer and your chosen MCAD software.

The MCAD Plugins page, with subsequent page shown for the SOLIDWORKS MCAD platform.

Part Requests

Related page: Part Requests

This page enables you to create and manage requests for new managed components. An engineer can simply put in a request for one or more parts to be created, and get notified when that request has either been completed, and the component(s) made available, or rejected (and why). The requestor supplies as much key information to support their request as possible (manufacturer and part number(s), description(s), any relevant datasheet (PDF or URL)). Stub Component Items can even be created that the librarian can then run with (and finish off).

You'll need to specify which role (or roles) should be used to fulfill the role of Librarians for your organization. In essence, you are configuring a set of users of the Workspace that can be assigned to a part request. This is performed by an Administrator, through the Admin - Settings - Vault - Part Requests - Librarians Role page of the Workspace's browser interface. As part of the sample data installed at the time of Workspace creation, this will automatically be set to the Librarians role.

Adding a new part request through the Workspace's browser interface. Hover over the image to see the form presented to receive the details of the request.

Initially, a part request is visible to the original requestor, and all members of the nominated librarian role(s). Once the request has been assigned to a particular librarian, only the requestor and that librarian will see it, and receive notifications about it.

Upon creation of a part request, the requestor, members of the Librarian role, and Workspace Administrators, will receive email notifications - providing the Email Notifications feature is enabled. This is performed by an Administrator, on the Email Notifications page (Admin - Settings - Email Notifications) of the Workspace's browser interface.

Team

This page provides a tiled listing of all members of the Workspace Team - those users that have been invited into the Workspace. Click the button and choose to Sort by Name (by first name) or Sort by Email. A team member that is currently accessing the Workspace is distinguished by a green dot (e.g. ).

Use the Search field to quickly find a team member within the list.

Access a listing of all users of your Workspace from the Team area of the interface.

An administrator for the Workspace can invite a user from the Team page by clicking on the

button, located at the top-left of the page. Alternatively, click the Invite Team Members tile within the main listing of current team members.

Admin-Only Interface Elements

The following sections summarize the elements of the Workspace's browser interface that can only be accessed by Administrative users of the Workspace - those who are part of the Administrators role. Access to these elements is through the dedicated Admin area of the left-hand navigation tree.

If accessing the Workspace as a non-administrative user, the Admin area of the tree will be hidden.

Users

Related page: Managing Your Team - Users

This page is used to create and manage a list of users; people who are to have access to the Workspace and/or its associated technologies.

Access and manage the users of your Workspace from the Users page of the interface.

There is also an additional administrative user - System - which is not visible from the Users page. This is used for all background tasks and is permanently online.

Roles

Related page: Managing Your Team - Roles

This page is used to create and manage a list of roles; roles allow you to further organize your users according to, for example, the particular section of the organization in which they are involved, or the design team they are in. Roles also make the sharing of Workspace content, and the configuration of other served technologies, more streamlined.

Access and manage the roles defined for your Workspace from the Roles page of the interface.

Sessions

Related page: Managing Your Team - Sessions

This page is used to quickly assess which of your users are currently accessing the Workspace. Provision is made for an administrator to terminate a user's access to the Workspace by effectively 'dropping' their active session. This would then allow the administrator to remove that user from the Workspace team (something that could not otherwise be done if the user were actively using the Workspace).

As an Administrator for your Workspace, you have the ability to not only view active Workspace sessions (connections), but also the ability to terminate a session for any user currently accessing that Workspace.

Settings

This page (Admin - Settings) provides a collection of sub-pages for configuration of options relating to various features and services provided by, and through, a Workspace.

The Settings area - part of the admin-only pages within the Workspace's browser interface.

When changing any settings, be sure to click the

button, at the top-right of a page.

The left-hand side of the page provides a navigation tree with which to quickly access various sub-pages of settings. The following pages are available:

General - use this page to change the name and description for the Workspace as required. The page also provides read-only information about the Workspace's type, its location and its server address.

Projects - use this page to specify the default path (within the Workspace's folder structure) for newly-released projects. You can also define default sharing permissions for new projects, so that the right users and/or roles have access to those projects from the moment they are created.

Email Notifications - this page provides a control to enable the Workspace's email notifications feature. This facility flags a variety of events to key stakeholders, relating to component Items, managed projects and part requests.

Vault - not a page, but rather a structural entry for gathering together settings related to specific functionality within the Workspace itself.
- Part Requests - a structural page to gather the following sub-pages related to the Part Request feature:
  - Librarians Role - use this page to specify which role (or roles) should be used to fulfill the role of Librarians for your organization. In essence, you are simply configuring a set of users of your Workspace that can be assigned to a part request. The sample role Librarians will already be prefilled here.
  - Custom States - use this page to customize opened and closed states for the Part Request feature.

For more information, see Part Requests.

Lifecycle Definitions - use this page to define and manage your Workspace's lifecycle definitions, complementing the ability to do this through Altium Designer. Providing better visibility of the states and transitions involved, each lifecycle is built in a graphical way, showing at-a-glance the flows involved.

For more information, see Lifecycle Management.

Permissions - this page provides a single option that allows components to be deleted from the Workspace, even if they have been placed on a design document. It is recommended to leave this option disabled.

Components - use this page to define default target folders in which new models should be created, when creating a new component in the Workspace. To change a default folder, click the button. The Vault Explorer window will appear with which to choose the desired new default target release folder for that model type. Once chosen, click OK to close the window and return to the Components page, with the applicable field updated with the new folder path.

MCAD CoDesigner - this page provides a control to enable component recognition between the ECAD and MCAD domains, when using the ECAD-MCAD CoDesign feature. This facilitates recognition and therefore 1-1 mapping of components on either side, through the use of a dedicated Company Component ID. This ID is used for identifying components/items/parts within a company/team. This could be PartNumber, ManufacturerPartNumber, or an internal Item_ID (in a PDM/ERP). By having recognized (mapped) components, it means that components placed on the PCB on the MCAD side (MCAD-driven component placement) can be switched out for the native Altium PCB Footprints when the design is pulled into Altium Designer. Conversely, the recognition means that those native ECAD models (Altium PCB Footprints) are recognized when the design is pushed back to the MCAD side, and the MCAD software switches to use its native models.

Use the MCAD Company Component ID and ECAD Company Component ID fields to enter the parameter name being used to identify components in your MACD software and Altium Designer, respectively. By default, these fields are populated with the parameter name PARTNO. These fields are required if the Enable Components Recognition by Company Component ID option is enabled. If one or both are left blank, the button will be disabled.

Part Providers

Related page: Part Source Configuration

This page (Admin - Part Providers) enables you to define a Part Source - facilitating centralized supply chain management, with designers across the entire organization using the same approved list of Suppliers, with which to source supply chain intelligence for parts used in their designs.

A single Part Source is available in the Workspace - Altium Parts Provider. This is an aggregate supplier data service that provides access to live component information from a comprehensive range of parts suppliers.

The Altium Parts Provider settings that are established in a Workspace will override those in Altium Designer (through the installed Altium Parts Provider extension) when a user connects to that Workspace.

The actual supply chain intelligence - comprising Manufacturer (and part number), Supplier (and part number), Description, Pricing and Availability - is sourced from the Workspace's local Part Catalog and the Altium Parts Provider.

Each Workspace instance has its own dedicated Part Catalog. This is a managed part catalog database, dedicated to the management and tracking of manufacturer parts and their associated supplier parts. The catalog is installed as a service (Part Catalog Service), provided through the Altium 365 platform, and works only with the Workspace. The Part Catalog stores items representative of actual Manufacturer Parts, along with one or more items representative of Supplier Parts - the incarnations of those Manufacturer Parts, as sold by the Suppliers/Vendors. Each Supplier Part is a reference to an item in the aggregate parts database of the Altium Parts Provider (which itself interfaces to, and gathers the parts from, enabled Suppliers).

Enabling required Suppliers and determining Location/Currency ranges for the Altium Parts Provider. This is the available Part Source for the Workspace.

Component Sync

This page (Admin - Component Sync) provides the interface to the Component Sync Service. It is from here that you define the connection to an enterprise system instance, including configuration file, and enable/configure synchronization of your enterprise system components with those in your Workspace.

Support is provided only for the Arena^® PLM enterprise system.

With the interface set up and working, features and functionality are provided that cater for the uni- or bi-directional synchronization of your component data between your Workspace and your enterprise system instance. Configuration allows you to specify which parameters are mastered in which system. In addition, Item parameters enable you to update a Component Item's properties in the Workspace (configurable per field), without having to formally release a new revision of that Component Item.

The Workspace does not offer full PLM integration - this level of integration is only available through Altium NEXUS. Note also that synchronization of Part Choice data is unidirectional - from the enterprise system to the Workspace only.

To create a new interface instance, click the

button. As many instances can be defined as required, to interface your Workspace to various different enterprise system instances. For example, your components might reside in one instance, or perhaps different divisions are using different instances. Each instance must be uniquely named and have a configuration file. To test the connection for a defined instance, click the

button.

A sample configuration file is provided - click the Download sample configuration link to obtain the zip file ConfigurationSamples.zip. This zip contains a basic configuration file for the Arena PLM system. Modify this to suit your company's requirements.

Add and configure the interface to your company's Arena PLM enterprise system.

Synchronization of components between the Workspace and the connected enterprise system instance - or to be more specific, their parametric data - is very flexible, and involves the following:

Configuring the synchronization for each component type. This involves:
1. Determining the direction of synchronization.
2. Determining which components are involved, and where new components are to be created.
3. Configuring parameter mapping.
Performing the synchronization.

The first item is handled in the configuration file used for the connected enterprise system instance. The synchronization itself can be performed on-demand, from the Component Sync page of the Workspace's browser interface.

On-demand synchronization is only possible when you provide valid credentials (for your Arena PLM enterprise system instance). Click the

button and enter your User name and Password into the subsequent System Credentials window.

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