Josh Rong and I spent a couple of hours evaluating the usage of altium concord pro hosted on A365. Technically we have wanted to use Concord Pro for a while, but we had no computer that could host the server. With the addition of Altium 365 - Altium’s online workspace integration with Concord pro, and our contact allowing us access to 20 licenses, we are able to use the concord server and have it hosted on A365. Another advantage about this is that it allows us to collaborate with Altium’s component engineers and component libraries to integrate with our libraries and have fast access to new components not in our library. I have already mistakenly sent a part request that is currently being processed 😅 .
Up to date review thoughts: This is a really cool solution for component management and I can access all of Josh’s components that he migrated (which was our entire library) so I am liking this so far as a library management tool. The web interface is kinda buggy however, though the altium online help has been super good with helpful replies very quickly.
Note about downloading content:
Also another thing, to continue using the product we care about being able to retrieve the data after if our subscription ends. The altium support told me this is possible for both components and projects and to check out these links:
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You will have to wait for a minute or so for the model to fully load. You will then see something like this.
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MAKE SURE to do the following to the part before proceeding
Make sure the name of the part is actually the description found on digikey (like shown in the below picture) → look at other components in the library for reference to how the naming should be
Make sure that in the parameters there exists:
Manufacturer Part number 1
Manufacturer 1
Supplier Part Number 1
Supplier 1
^for the above make sure that they match the numbers and description given on digikey. Its essential that all our parts have these numbers so that making the BOM and uploading to digikey will be efficient
You can see that the model, diagram and footprint in addition to all the parameters have been loaded. You can edit parameters as need be, and then to continue and save to our A365 server, you can click save to server in the top left
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In addition to component management, A365 can allow us to version control our projects. We will evaluate the possibility of uploading all our projects to A365 and using it as a replacement to Git, though that may require a lot of coordination and a clear advantage to not using git. For the moment evaluating this is more for curiosity's sake then actually switching from git.
The last part of this page explains what I will discuss further below as a method to get all of our projects on the server. Essentially we will be using the same method, except making a copy of the project in a different location, and then exporting it.
https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-designer/altium-concord-pro-managed-projects
Note (this was the issue I was running into before):
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Exporting a Project to the server
Follow these step by step instructions to export a project onto the server, or follow the relevant part of:
https://www.altium.com/documentation/altium-designer/altium-concord-pro-managed-projects
Updating your files for what other people have edited
If someone else makes an edit to a project on the server, upon opening your copy, make sure to do this:
Open the project from the server on your altium designer.
Look for the yellow clock symbol near any changed files that symbolizes your copy is not up to date.
Simply right click on the file with the symbol and choose Update or Update Project to refresh your version with the correct changes.
Remember that when you make your changes, right click on modified project and choose to save to server.