Configuring Ciiva SmartParts in Altium Designer

Modified by Phil Loughhead on Jul 15, 2016
Contents

Ciiva SmartParts technology is enabled in Altium Designer by installing the Ciiva SmartParts extension.

Installing the Ciiva SmartParts Extension from the Ciiva Site

The easiest way to start using Ciiva SmartParts in your design is to configure Altium Designer directly from the Ciiva site. This is done from the Ciiva Dashboard. To access the Dashboard, visit ciiva.com and click the Sign In link.

The Ciiva Dashboard will open, as shown below.


The Dashboard details your current subscriptions. You can also configure Altium Designer for Ciiva SmartParts by clicking the link.

The Dashboard details your current subscriptions. You can also configure Altium Designer for Ciiva SmartParts directly from the Dashboard, by clicking the Configure Altium Designer link, as shown in the image above.

Clicking this link will initiate the following process will:

  • Launch Altium Designer, if it is not currently running. If Altium Designer fails to start, start it manually and click the link in the Dashboard again.
  • Initiate the download and installation of the Ciiva extension, this may take a few minutes. You will be prompted to restart Altium Designer to complete this process.
  • Prompt you to log in to the hosted Vault, if your subscription includes SmartParts Management.

Once the extension has been installed, the last step is to complete the Ciiva log in and confirm that the correct subscription is selected, as detailed in the Log in to Ciiva section.

Manually Installing the Ciiva SmartParts Extension

Alternatively, if you do not wish to perform the extension installation from your Ciiva dashboard, you can install the extension manually.

To manually install the Ciiva SmartParts extension:

  1. Select Extensions and Updates from the DXP menu.


The Altium Designer environment is managed through the DXP menu.

  1. The Extensions & Updates view will open. Extensions are presented and managed in the 3 sections, Installed, Purchased and Updates. To add a new extension, such as Ciiva SmartParts, click on the Purchased tab.
  2. Locate Ciiva SmartParts in the list of available extensions and click the Download icon to commence the download and installation process, as shown below. Follow the instructions provided, you will need to restart Altium Designer to complete the installation.


Once the download is complete the extension will install automatically, just follow the prompts. After that it will appear on the Installed tab of the Extensions & Updates view.

To learn more about installing and managing extensions, refer to the Altium Designer Extensions page.

Log in to Ciiva

To perform a SmartParts Analysis or Parts Management, you must be logged in to Ciiva.

This is configured from within Altium Designer:

  1. Open the Ciiva - General page of the Preferences dialog.
  2. Enter your Ciiva User Name and Password in the Ciiva Account region of the page, then click the Login button to confirm that you can access SmartParts, as shown below.
  3. Confirm that the correct Active Subscription is selected. The Subscription Details section will detail the your Subscription Type.


Enter your Ciiva User Name and Password, then click the Login button to confirm that they work. The Details section will show your level of access to Ciiva SmartParts. 

If you are unable to connect and your company uses a proxy server, enable the Use default system proxy option. When this is enabled Ciiva will route all Vault calls via the proxy configured for your PC.

Enabling SmartParts Management - Signing in to the Vault

The SmartParts feature also allows you to build up a cloud-based library of the components used in your designs, if your license supports the SmartParts Management option. Rather than you building the library of components and methodically linking each one to a supplier/manufacturer, you use the Analysis feature to identify a suitable supplier/manufacturer for each part already placed in a design, then when you're happy with those assignments, you upload the qualified part into your Altium Vault.

To use the SmartParts Management feature, you must enable access to an Altium Vault. The Vault is used to store the ECAD component data; including the symbol, footprint and component parameters, which includes a Ciiva ID to link it to your preferred Ciiva part. As well as component management, the Vault can also be used to release version controlled snapshots of your design projects, giving you full design history and trace-ability, with access to every version of each product that you release. 

The Vault is automatically created and hosted for you as part of the subscription process, it is simply a matter of enabling a connection from your installation of Altium Designer to the Vault.

To connect to the Vault:

  1. Run the DXP » Sign in Altium Vault command, the Connecting to Altium Vault dialog will open.
  2. Enter the Server IP address of your hosted Vault. If you do not know the details, you can copy the Server IP address from the Ciiva - General page of the Preferences dialog, where it is listed in the Server Details section (the numeric address, eg https://123.123.123.123:443).
  3. Enter your Ciiva User Name and Password.
  4. Enable the Remember credentials and Sign me in checkboxes.
  5. Click the Login button to sign into the Vault. It may take a couple of minutes to complete the login process.

You now have access to all of the Ciiva SmartParts Search, Analysis and Management features.

You're ready to perform your first SmartParts search!

Open a project and open a schematic sheet, then select File » New » Ciiva Part Analysis from the menus to start the analysis and searching process. The results will appear in a new PartsDoc document.

Read the Using Ciiva SmartParts in your Design page to learn more.

 

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