Altium Overview and Setting up your Connection

Objective: To learn more about Duro's Altium integration and setting up the connection between Duro and Altium.

Difficulty: Expert

In this article:

1. Overview
2. Setting up the connection between Altium & Duro
   • Duro: set your plugin password
   • Desktop: download XML files
   • Altium: setup the connection to PLM
   • Altium: edit the publish to PLM process
   • Altium: edit the project releaser process
   • Altium: enable the project initialization process

The Duro-Altium integration lets you quickly transfer project information, manage component versioning, and update revisions. This will enable you to automatically sync and generate BOMs, part choices, component data, and documents in Duro. Our partnership with Altium eliminates time spent laboriously entering part data manually. Sharing documents, designs, and data with team members is simplified, empowering your company to get work done faster and more efficiently.

Overview

Duro's integration with Altium lets users seamlessly synchronize and release PCBA projects between Altium A365 and Duro PLM.* This integration is powered through outjob files and the Project Releaser in Altium. Components, products, and assemblies published into Duro are entirely synced during the Component Sync process.

Some advantages of the Altium-Duro integration include allowing our users to create a project in Altium, generate a release in Altium, and then publish the release into Duro. This process includes the following capabilities:

• Syncing projects and components from Altium into Duro with custom specifications
  • Linking the revision value to Altium or independently
  • Populating BOMs
• Publishing documents directly from Altium into Duro
  • This includes the following: schematic prints, Gerber Files, ODB Files, NC Drill Files, Step/3D PDF
• Syncing Altium part choices into Duro sourcing
  • Sent during the Library Sync, pulls from Octopart
• Providing support for Altium variants, creating variants within Duro

Note: The A365 environment required for an Altium integration must be provisioned with the appropriate license. Please contact your Altium support representative for assistance with obtaining and applying for the license.

Setting up the connection between Altium & Duro

For a demonstration of the Altium-Duro integration, we will walk you through how to publish a release, both a new project and an existing project.

Duro: set your plugin password

Log into Duro and ensure that you have your plugin password configured. To set your plugin password, follow the below instructions:

1. Click on your avatar.
2. Click on Account Settings.
3. Click on Your Profile.
4. Click the Plugin Password button located above your profile picture.
5. Enter the plugin password that you want to set.
6. Click Save to set the password.

Now, we have successfully set the plugin password in Duro.

Desktop: download XML files

Download the Publish Template and the Altium Revision to prepare for the connection setup. Choose the file you prefer, depending on how you want component revisions to connect between Duro and Altium.

Publish Template

The publish template applies to publishing releases and maps the documents in the releases to components in Duro.

https://altium.thestateofplm.com/prod/publish.xml

Altium Revision

This XML file keeps Duro revisions independent of the Altium Revision value, allowing the revision to be managed from Duro.

https://altium.thestateofplm.com/prod/config_altium_revision.xml

Altium: setup the connection to PLM

Now, switch to the Altium A365 web client to continue setting up the connection. First, we’ll create a new instance and customize it.

1. Navigate to the Admin tab and click on the PLM Integration.
2. Click on Add Instance, located in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
3. Enter a name for the connection, such as “Duro.”
4. Enter a description for the connection, such as “Duro Connection.”
5. You can upload one of the linked XML files (see the section titled Download XML Files above) by clicking Upload, located to the right of the Configuration File text box.
6. Select the XML file that matches the revision scheme: Altium Revision or Published Template.
7. Click Open to upload the file.

Altium: configuring the publish profile

1. Click on the Publish Template
2. Click on Add Template.
3. Enter a name for the template, such as “Duro Publish Template.”
4. Enter a description for the template, such as “Duro Publish Template.”
5. Click Upload, located to the right of the Template File text box.
6. Click OK in the Publish Template module.

Altium: set PLM credentials

1. Click on Set Credentials to set the credentials for this connection to use when testing.
2. Enter your Duro email address.
3. Enter the plugin password (created earlier in this tutorial).
4. Click OK. 

If the credentials were set successfully, “Set credentials successfully” will appear next to the Test Connection button. If you entered an incorrect password, red text will be shown in its place, conveying that setting the credentials was unsuccessful. In the case of an error, it would read, “Set credentials failed (Unable to connect to PLM).” If this happens, please double-check that the password you provided is identical to what you set within Duro. If the error persists, contact our support team at [e-mail] for assistance. Both system responses are depicted below:

Set credentials success

Set credentials failure

Altium: test the Connection

To verify that the connection was set up correctly, click on Test to populate the test module. If the connection was set up correctly, the subheading underneath Status will show “WARNING.” However, if the Status shows “ERROR,” please contact our support team at [e-mail] for assistance. Both statuses are depicted below:

Correct connection setup

Incorrect connection setup

Altium: edit the publish to PLM process

1. Navigate back to the admin tab and click on the Processes.
2. Click on Project Activities.
3. Find the Publish to PLM process, which Altium provides within the platform. Select the row titled Publish to PLM (User selects).
4. Click on the pencil icon to edit.
5. Click on the process designer workspace to activate the name text box.
6. Rename to “Publish to Duro.”
7. Click on Save and Deploy to save the new process.
8. Ensure that the active circle under the Active column is filled in and green, signaling that the process is active.

Altium: edit the project releaser process

1. Also, under Project Activities, find the Project Releaser with Publish process, which Altium provides within the platform. Select the row titled Project Releaser with Publish.
2. Click on the pencil icon to edit.
3. Click on the process designer workspace to activate the name text box.
4. Rename to “Release and Publish to Duro.”
5. Click Save and Deploy to save the new process.
6. Ensure that the active circle under the Active column is filled in and green, signaling that the process is active.

Altium: enable the project initialization process

1. Click on Project Creations.
2. Select the Project with initialize process, which Altium provides within the platform. The row titled Project with initialize in PLM is selected.
3. Click the pencil icon to edit.
4. Click on the process designer workspace to activate the name text box.
5. Rename to “Initialize in Duro.”
6. Click on Save and Deploy to save the new process.
7. Ensure that the active circle under the Active column is filled in and green, signaling that the process is active.

Your environment is now configured to work with Duro. When you open the Altium desktop application and connect to your Altium workspace, you'll notice new menu options corresponding to the processes we just enabled. The following sections will cover these in detail.