Been There, Done That, and Now, All the Wiser

We have it or have access to it. Now what?

Two nontrivial undertakings require time and effort for these products to be successfully deployed:

• The libraries' preparation for migration
  

• The setup of Altium 365
  

Don't expect first-pass success when setting up Altium 365 without knowing its intricacies. The following aspects must be considered before a single file is migrated, managed, or created:

• Design Item IDs - These are the unique names provided for each file entered into Altium 365. They cannot be changed once established.
  

• Directory Types - Directories are established for each type of file. Each directory addresses the intended files in its own unique way.
  

• Component Templates - Allows components to be created based on existing criteria.
  

• Life Cycle Management - Establishes the status of a given file. Different life cycles can be configured for different file types.
  

• Revision Control - Documents can be traced through their changes. Like any control system, all changes must be documented.
  

• User Permissions - This establishes who can add, delete, and modify files and directory structures.
  

Altium 365 tightly integrates all these factors. As a result, initial decisions can rapidly become regrets as one progresses through Altium 365's setup. Given what needs to be done during the setup, it could be hours or days before one of these decisions comes back to haunt us. Worse, many of these decisions cannot be changed once established. As a result, most setups are scrapped and restarted from Altium's default.

The migration of libraries is where the regrets tend to manifest rapidly. Libraries must be in pristine condition for migration.

As we discussed in our November 2019 webinar regarding Library Scrubbing (click to watch), the data collected from our team members indicates that a 1000-component library would take 10.5 work weeks (at 40 hours/week) to clean up. And we haven't even touched Altium 365!

Nine Dot Connects has performed numerous library clean-up operations. Please see our web pages regarding this service.

Beyond pristine libraries, there are false notions about what Altium 365 can provide during migration:

• Altium 365 does not have the ability to clean up or improve a library component. It treats every component as a WYSIWYG. (What you see is what you get)
  

• If the models are inconsistent, they will be imported as such.
  

• If the parameter values are missing, they will not magically be filled in.
  

• If the parameter names differ between components, Altium 365 will not reconcile the parameters to a common name.
  

• If the value type (i.e., string, resistance, voltage, temperature, etc.) of the parameter is not set properly, Altium 365 will not guess its proper type.
  

And if something was missed during migration, like datasheets, you guessed it, it will not be added. It's best to wipe it and start again. Hopefully, you were wise enough to seek the OS command prompts to back up and restore the data so that you do not have to start from the very beginning again...

Though we encourage you to consider our Altium 365 training program, we also understand your time is valuable. You purchased Altium 365 to be efficient, and this efficiency is only achieved once the setup is complete. The irony of any setup is that it is really a one-time proposition. Thereafter, one makes use of the setup by maintaining it. It's now a matter of building upon what has already been established.

Contact us here at Nine Dot Connects if you want to use this investment and get it set up with as little hassle as possible.

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Or, if you prefer to learn the intricacies of Altium 365 yourself and set up necessary configurations and templates, we offer comprehensive consultation and training that includes up to 16 hours of remote consultation and 2 days of onsite coaching and help to deploy the entire team on an Altium 365 workspace.

Altium 365 Training