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:
Overview
What is concord pro?
”Altium Concord Pro® is a product to store and manage components, domain models, schematic sheets, projects, and design templates. Since it is fully-integrated with Altium Designer®, Altium Concord Pro easily handles component management making it easier to manage components across all of your designs. Altium Concord Pro provides secure data storage enabling the release of data as distinctly separate revisions with secure integrity.”
Main features that we care about:
Component Management
ECAD-MCAD Co-Design
Component Synchronization
Web Interface
It’s important to note most of the features described below are a combination of playing around with the UI and following this really good step by step guide (link: https://www.altium.com/concord-guide/step_zero_altium_concord_pro_overview.html) provided by altium.
Setup/Access
To connect to the workspace, your email must first be added by an administrator (Aashmika Mali or any hardware lead).
Then, you can either follow this guide or the next few screenshots - (https://www.altium.com/concord-guide/step_one_connect_to_concord_pro.html)
Our server link is https://university-of-waterloo-solar-car-team.365.altium.com:443
Press sign in
Once its done loading, you should see the workspace in designer like so:
You can click on the cloud icon and U of Waterloo - Solar car tab to be redirected to the A365 workarea, which is discussed in the next section
A365 Workarea
This section goes over the main features of this integrated work area in both the web access and on Altium designer.
Web A365 workspace
The following screenshots and descriptions go over the features that are notable.
First of all, you can access the workspace here: https://university-of-waterloo-solar-car-team.365.altium.com/
You will see this landing page:
This screenshot shows all the projects so far which are all the altium default projects and my test project. Adding projects on A365 is actually very easy and then easy to manage, but that’s for another section.
The first section to checkout is overview:
This page contains the steps linked at the beginning of the page to get started with A365.
Next useful tab is team, will show all the members currently added to the workspace. And if you select components you will see this
In it’s current state we have uploaded most of the components from the library, and the way A365 organizes them is by titles. On the webviewer, you can search for components and find them from the all tab, or by clicking a component type and searching through.
Notice the chat bubble at the bottom right. This will connect you with an altium technical assistance person to answer your questions. So far they have been super useful and quick to answer my questions!
The last two semi-useful tabs is the MCAD Plugins and Part Requests. Note; filling out a part request will request a component engineer from Altium or a certain vendor to create a component if it is missing from component searches on manufacturer part search and your current components. DO NOT do this until discussed with a hardware lead. The usefulness of the MCAD Plugins tab is yet to be evaluated.
Altium Designer A365 Integration
This section goes over the notable UI navigation in designer for A365.
The open project dialogue has a section for all the projects on the server. They can be accessed as such at any time.
The explorer panel is the greatest location to manage all the content on the server. The managed content tab drops down for various subsections including components (all components on server) and templates which I plan on uploading ours to.
The components panel has the three lines bar thats useful for refreshing and migrating libraries with the server. Click on it like below to access.
Components
Well this section covers our main purpose for A365: components. We want to be able to access all components at all times and not have to deal with annoying git merging - A365 seems to have the solution.
The main thing to note about dealing with components and keeping all changes on the server (such as edits or additions) is to do all this change through the component panel on altium Designer, and make sure to always have the option to save to server or migrate.
Migrating existing libraries
So Josh Rong migrated the schematics and footprint libraries to the server!! This is really cool because now whatever components were on josh’s power select branch have now been added to the server and can be accessed in Altium designer by anyone with access to the server.
We decided to test the extents of this migration function by adding a new component and migrating the library again. However, we unfortunately soon realized that it duplicated all the other components (though it still added test_concord). We are currently in the process of getting rid of all the duplicates, though they aren’t much of an issue currently. We are not going to provide instructions to migrate libraries, because from here on out, it is not necessary to do so.
Viewing components on A365
Components can be viewed on the A365 server through the (1)components panel in designer, the (2)explorer panel in designer or the (3)A365 web server page.
(1)
(2)
(note that I am in the managed content folder and the component dropdown)
(3)
Adding additional components
This section will go over the different ways to add components (Manufacturer part search, manual component creation, complex components). This guide is very good https://www.altium.com/concord-guide/step_four_component_creation.html
But before that, something important to get working is adding singular components from our current libraries to the server. Although josh migrated our libraries, that was his versions from the power select branch. We need to sync with all the new components added on current branches and the first section goes over the best way to do so.
Adding single component from git library to server
The easiest way I know so far to do this is to make a separated integrated library for the new components (ones that are from the git library from currently active branches but have not been added to the server) and the following is a step process:
Select file-> new integrated library. We are essentially going to put new components in this library and then migrate it to the server.
Right click on the new integrated library then select to add new to library → a schematic library and a footprint library.
Go to the PCBLIB panel and ctrl+c all the PCB footprints you want to migrate. Go to the newly created PCB library PCBLIB panel and Ctrl+V. Do the same for the additional SCHLIB files and the additional schematic diagrams created. NOTE: Always first migrate PCB libraries, then Schematic Libraries
Once done, follow this guide to migrate to the server: https://www.altium.com/concord-guide/step_nine_library_migration.html#opening_migrator. Note that after you have gone through the migration wizard, make sure to check the logs and the A365 component library for a successful migration.
Manufacturer Part Search
This method is used when the model and footprint is found through the manufacturer part search. If it is not found and you must make the footprint and diagram, go to the next section.
You can only add component that has the symbol and footprint already present
Click on the SPN drop down and select the digi-key supplier. Then right click on the component as so.
Click aquire, it will take you to the following dialog.
Select the appropriate category for the component. This will assign the component a particular ID.
Select amplifiers (for this example) and press OK.
You will have to wait for a minute or so for the model to fully load. You will then see something like this.
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
or right click on the component and press save to server. A normal save will just save on designer and not sync. When you press save to server, it will show the following release window.
Add a description of your release (e.g. “added a new comparator to the library”) and press ok. After a bit of loading, you will notice that the component will disappear from the project panel (on the left). This means that the component will have been added to the server. You can even go to the A365 webserver and search for the component, and find it.
Manual Component Creation
For now, follow the directions on the “Single Component Editor” part of this guide: https://www.altium.com/concord-guide/step_four_component_creation.html
Complex component Creation
For now, follow the directions on the “Complex Component Editor” part of this guide (a complex component is usually one that is obsolete or has no model or diagram in Manufacturer Part Search, but can still be searched): https://www.altium.com/concord-guide/step_four_component_creation.html
MCAD Integration
This section will go over the possibility of using the solidworks plugin to easily transfer PCB models to Solidworks.
Projects and Versioning
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.