Setting Up a Project Template in Altium 365

Project templates are handy. They contain the style that the company has established for their documentation. Such templates can include features like predefined parameters and must-have features like fiducials that help minimize all of the minutiae that only distract the designer from their task of designing.

Though this sounds good, it is not always straightforward for several reasons:

• Templates require someone to take responsibility for them and to keep them updated.
  

• Designers tend to take a template and modify it to their liking.
  

• Multiple copies end up in all sorts of locations.
  

Altium 365 is a documentation revision system. Though most of the focus is on library management, Altium 365 also offers template management, including a project template that can link to all the other templates. It provides a single source of truth and location for all to use and for someone to manage.

Join us on August 28th, and we will walk you through the process of creating a project template with all the trimmings in Altium 365.

Here is the Altium 365 project template we used during the webinar. Feel free to download and use.

A365 Project Template

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6 Considerations for Getting Started with Altium 365 and Concord Pro

We at Nine Dot Connects are elated that Altium offers and promotes products such as Concord Pro and Altium 365. In doing so, they call attention to an important topic long ignored by most engineering groups - Library Management.

These are indeed powerful tools, but they require a proper configuration. Since both are revision control systems, there is no turning back once put in motion. Careful planning is required to ensure initial decisions do not later hinder the workflow.

This webinar will introduce you to 6 critical considerations while setting up Concord Pro or Altium 365:

• Revision Schemes
  

• Life Cycle Schemes
  

• Folder Structure
  

• Unique IDs
  

• Component Types
  

• Permissions
  

Q&A from Webinar

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Creating Components in A365/Concord Pro That Won't Bite Back

As you may have noticed, we took a bit of a hiatus this past year with our webinars. It's been nose to the grindstone with teaching at the local community college and having had a surge of work. However, we have learned a lot this past year, and it's time to get all this knowledge out of our heads and into yours.

Our January webinar is on component creation in A365 / Concord Pro. Though the editor is straightforward, there are things to be aware of that could cause issues later:

• Impact of the life cycle, revision, item ID, and templates on a component
  

• Information you should seek before component creation
  

• Creation order of a component, symbol, and footprint
  

• Using part choices without being overruled by part choices
  

If this is your first time attending our webinar on the Altium 365 and Concord Pro topic, you might benefit by watching our video recording on "6 Considerations for Getting Started with Altium 365 and Concord Pro."

Watch the Video

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Contractor's Loop in Altium 365 and Concord Pro

A benefit of using Altium 365 or Concord Pro is centralizing the company libraries. However, this becomes problematic when:

• Contractors cannot access this library (which is the case with Concord Pro)
  

• Designers have not adopted their company's Concord Pro or Altium 365 deployment and continue to use outside libraries
  

• Older designs are not synced with Concord Pro or Altium 365
  

What will happen when we reconcile a project's components with Altium 365 or Concord Pro libraries? In this video, we will walk through the process and look at the result, neither of which, in our opinion, is optimal. This is expected from ANY revision control-based system (not just Altium), where files are being created outside the revision control environment.

This is a must-see for anyone contemplating a project that would take them along the contractor's loop.

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What's this Vault, AVS, NEXUS, Concord Pro all about?

In 2009, Altium embarked upon an ambitious plan to seamlessly transition the design work to the manufacturing process through a consistent workflow with real-time component information. They recognized that this process must be repeatable, accountable, and traceable. Released in 2011, it became known as 'The Vault.'

With changes to the name, the functionality, and the various offerings over the years, it's been challenging to understand what exactly is NEXUS or Concord Pro. Is it a library database? Is it a repository? Is it a version control system? In short - it's all of them.

This webinar will focus on:

• What it is
  

• How it is structured
  

• What it does
  

No marketing hype, no glossies. Just the facts.

Disclaimer: Nine Dot Connects does not have any affiliation with Altium Inc. This webinar is an independent assessment of the tool.

Q&A from Webinar

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Library Migration Example with Concord Pro, Nexus, or Altium 365

To see how we migrate components, check out this video. We use a temporary Excel-based database library, allowing us better control the parameters and model links during the migration process.

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