A365 Project Releasing

In our quest to fully transition to using altium 365, we need to be able to release a copy of all our boards to the server.

The purpose of this document is to go through how to do that, for people who are working on boards currently versioned and managed by github.

IF AT ANY POINT DURING THIS YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT AN INSTRUCTION, ASK @Aashmika Mali .

The following is a step by step process of taking your project and properly releasing it to the server. I will be using MSXIV BMS Current Sense as the example.

First, we need to copy and paste the entire folder structure of the project we want to migrate. This means we CANNOT migrate the project if it exists within the local version of our github hardware repository.
^I made a seperate folder somewhere else on my local and pasted the entire folder there.
Open the project up on Altium Designer.
Before we start making it available online, lets make sure the project has everything we need. What should be in the folder directory for the project, before importing to altium are the following:
1. All schdoc files having every schematic document
2. All pcbdoc files having every pcb document
3. The elecrow output job in the folder (in most cases this won’t occur so the following steps will cover how to get it in the folder)
4. The project file for the project
Now, to meet the above list, we need to make sure the elecrow output job file is available in the folder and properly connected to our project. An output job file is the packager we use to produce the pdf document and we name it elecrow based on the fact that we used to manufacture our PCBs using elecrow, but the naming is carried forward even though we now go through different manufacturers. At the end of the day, we have and want the same output files.
To get the output job file in the folder do the following (note this can be done for using any template)
Open up the explorer panel in altium designer and go into managed content → templates → output job templates and you should see this
Notice how there is one that is marked in green and says “approved”. Always remember to only use such files as the others are altium defaults and I personally go through and make sure the valid templates for our team are marked as approved. Before we get ahead into adding the correct output job file, lets make sure to do the following (to remove previous settings for output job files)
Go to the project panel, and select the settings folder. You will see 1 or 2 output job files already exist, and we want to remove them from the project so we can start fresh with out elecrow output job file. As displayed, right click on each and select remove from project:
Next we download the approved output job file and place it in the folder with the rest of the project documents:
And we add it to the project:
Save the project
Now we can actually make the project available offline. Right click on the project and select that option:
This is important, we have to make sure that the name is prefixed with MSXIV and formal version controlled is enabled by selecting that check box: You can also add a brief description of the board.
Once those are set correctly, you can select ok. Let it load and then you should see that it is under the server in the project panel:
At this point you are pretty much good to go for having it hosted on the server. The only thing to remember is that in its current state when you make changes you have to press the save to server button on the top left corner or when you right click on the project, and at this stage any manufacturing data such as outputjobs are not released (the next section will go over project releasing)

Project Releasing

The purpose of project releasing is to make sure that we have on the server the correct output files that include the gerbers, pdf and bom+step which should be able to be found for a certain revision of project, in the correct subproject.