Managing Environment Configurations
Contents
Parent article: Environment Configuration Management
An organization can centrally control the environment its designers operate in, through the definition and management of Environment Configurations. These are used to constrain each designer's Altium Designer working environment to only use company-ratified design elements, including schematic templates, output job configuration files, and workspace preferences.
Environment configurations are created and managed from within the Team Configuration Center, through its browser-based interface, allowing an administrator to craft one or more environment configurations, depending on the needs of the organization.
Accessing the Team Configuration Center
The interface can be accessed through an external Web Browser, or directly from within Altium Designer.
- External Web Browser – access the Altium Vault's browser-based interface, sign-in and navigate to the Configurations page.
- Altium Designer – simply use the Configurations sub-view, available under the main Vault view of the Home page (View » Home).
Example access of the Team Configuration Center's browser-based user interface - through a preferred external Web Browser.
Creating an Environment Configuration
To create a new environment configuration, simply click the Add Configuration button, located at the top-right of the page. Use the Create Configuration pop-up to give the configuration a meaningful name and description, perhaps reflective of the people whose working environment it is to govern. After clicking OK, the configuration will be created and opened ready for definition.
Example addition of a new environment configuration.
Click within the banner area of an environment configuration (or on the +/- icon to its left) to expand/contract it, revealing/hiding its definition respectively. With a configuration expanded, click the Edit control (
) within its banner area to access the Edit Configuration pop-up, from where the name and/or description for that configuration can be modified as required.
Defining an Environment Configuration
Definition of an environment configuration essentially consists of two parts:
- Configuration Data – the elemental constraints of the configuration. The Altium Designer Preferences, Schematic Templates, and Output Job documents that can be validly used by a user targeted by the configuration.
- Target Roles – specification of whom the environment configuration applies to. Roles themselves are simply groupings of users, defined and stored as part of the Altium Vault's Identity Service. These are the same roles that are defined and used by the Altium Vault to control access permissions.
Configuration Data
The process for specifying which configuration data Items – sourced from the organization's Altium Vault – are to be used by users of the environment configuration, is similar for each of the three supported data elements. In each case, you simply specify the required data Item revision through use of the Vault Explorer pop-up. Access this pop-up as follows:
- When specifying which Altium Designer Preferences Item is to be used, simply click the Edit control () – to the right of the Altium Designer Preferences field.
- When specifying which Schematic Template Item(s) or Output Job Item(s) to use, simply click the Add Template or Add Document button in their respective areas.
Within the Vault Explorer pop-up, use the left-hand region, which reflects the folder tree in the vault, to browse to and select, the folder containing the required Item. Once selected, the top-right region will populate with a listing of Items (and revisions thereof) in that folder. Select the required revision and click OK.
Example of browsing for a specific revision of a Schematic Template Item, to be used by the environment configuration.
Example configuration data - fully defined.
To remove the currently chosen Altium Designer Preferences Item, simply click the associated Remove control (). To remove a Schematic Template or Output Job Item, simply select that Item in the relevant list and click the associated Remove control ().
Target Roles
To specify a target role, click the Add Role button, at the top-right of the area for defining roles. Use the Add Role pop-up that appears to choose a Target Role Name. The drop-down field lists all currently defined roles, stored as part of the Altium Vault's Identity Service. Simply choose a role and click OK. That role will be added to the Target Roles list. To remove a role, simply click the Remove control (), to its right.
Example addition of target roles.
After assigning roles to an environment configuration, and saving that configuration, you will be alerted if any users in those roles do not have access to 'see' any defined data Items in that configuration. Unless specifically shared at the folder or Item-level in the Altium Vault, an Item is only visible to the person who created it – its Owner – and any member of the Administrators role. This enables you to control which data Items of an environment configuration are available, when that configuration is used by various different roles. To quickly share all data Items in the environment configuration with a role (that can't currently access those Items), simply click the Share control (), to the right of that target role's entry.
Removing an Environment Configuration
To remove an environment configuration – deleting it from the Team Configuration Center (and from the Altium Vault's database) – simply click the Remove control (), at the far right of the banner area for that environment configuration (when expanded).