Altium Vault Email Notifications

Old Content - see latest equivalent
Modified by Jason Howie on May 31, 2017
Contents

Altium Vault 2.5 brings the ability to configure email notifications from the vault - flagging a variety of events to key stakeholders. This feature works in addition to the event notifications presented to relevant users on their Stream page of the vault's browser-based interface.

Supported Notifications

The following email notification events are supported by this feature:

Events Related to a Component Item

  • New Item Revision - notification about the release of a new revision of a Component Item.

Content of email sent to followers of a Component Item, notifying release of a new revision.

The email contains the following information:

Date - the date and time of the release.

Author - the vault user who has performed the release.

Item - the parent Component Item.

Revision - the specific revision of the Component Item, that has been released.

Links - to view the new revision of the Item in the vault, either through the vault's browser-based interface (Web link), or through the Vaults panel in Altium Designer (DXP link).

  • Lifecycle State Change - notification about a transition between lifecycle states for a revision of a Component Item.

Content of email sent to followers of a Component Item, notifying a lifecycle state change for one of its revisions.

The email contains the following information:

Date - the date and time of the lifecycle state change.

Author - the vault user who has performed the lifecycle state transition.

Item - the parent Component Item.

Revision - the specific revision of the Component Item, whose lifecycle state has been changed.

Change - the actual transition, showing previous state first, followed by the new (current) state.

Links - to view the revision of the Item in the vault, either through the vault's browser-based interface (Web link), or through the Vaults panel in Altium Designer (DXP link).

If a comment was included at the time of making the state change, this will be reflected in the email.
A notification email is sent to all users who are currently subscribed to the relevant Component Item. For more detail, see the section Following a Component Item.
Click on the hyperlink text in the main summary area of the mail to open the detailed page for the Component Item, on the Vault page of the vault's browser-based interface.

Events Related to a Managed Project

  • Project Commit - notification when a project has been commited to the vault.

Content of email sent to watchers of a managed project, notifying of a new commit.

The email contains the following information:

Date - the date and time of the commit.

Author - the vault user who has performed the commit.

Project - the name of the managed project.

Links - to view the detailed page for the managed project in the vault, through the vault's browser-based interface (Web link), or to launch Altium Designer and open the project in the Projects panel (DXP link).

If a comment was included at the time of commit, this will be reflected in the email.
  • Project Properties Change - notification when the properties of a project have changed in some way (for example the project's Name, or Description).

Content of email sent to watchers of a managed project, notifying of changes to project properties.

The email contains the following information:

Date - the date and time when properties of the project were changed.

Author - the vault user who has made changes to properties of the project.

Project - the name of the managed project (which itself could have changed!).

Links - to view the detailed page for the managed project in the vault, through the vault's browser-based interface (Web link), or to launch Altium Designer and open the project in the Projects panel (DXP link).

  • Project Release - notification when a project has been released to the vault.

Content of email sent to watchers of a managed project, notifying that the project has been released.

The email contains the following information:

Date - the date and time when a configuration of the project was released.

Author - the vault user who performed the release.

Project - the name of the managed project, of which a configuration was released

Links - to view the detailed page for the managed project in the vault, through the vault's browser-based interface (Web link), or to launch Altium Designer and open the project in the Projects panel (DXP link).

A notification email is sent to all users who are currently collaborators for the project AND who are actively watching that project. For more detail, see the section Watching a Managed Project.
Click on the hyperlink text in the main summary area of the mail to open the detailed page for the managed project, on the Projects page of the vault's browser-based interface.

Events Related to an Approval Request

  • New Approval Request - notification when a request for transition between lifecycle states for a revision of a Component Item has been submitted for approval.

Content of email sent to all members of approval group (or all members of first approval group, where multiple
groups are defined), notifying that there is a new approval request to review.

The email contains the following information:

Date - the date and time of the approval request.

Author - the vault user who is requesting approval to change the lifecycle state of the revision of the Component Item.

Item - the parent Component Item.

Revision - the specific revision of the Component Item, whose lifecycle state the user is requesting to change.

Transition - the requested lifecycle transition, showing current state first, followed by the required state.

Links - to view the revision of the Item in the vault, either through the vault's browser-based interface (Web link), or through the Vaults panel in Altium Designer (DXP link).

If a comment was included at the time of creating the approval request, this will be reflected in the email.
  • Approval Request Reminder - notification when the original requestor uses the Reminder feature for a pending approval request.

Content of reminder email sent to all members of the relevant approval group, notifying that there is an approval
request to review.

The email contains the following information:

Date - the date and time of the approval request reminder.

Author - the vault user who is requesting approval to change the lifecycle state of the revision of the Component Item.

Item - the parent Component Item.

Revision - the specific revision of the Component Item, whose lifecycle state the user is requesting to change.

Links - to view the revision of the Item in the vault, either through the vault's browser-based interface (Web link), or through the Vaults panel in Altium Designer (DXP link).

If a comment was included at the time of creating the approval request, this will be reflected in the email.
  • State Change Request Processed - notification when a pending approval request has been processed by a member of the relevant approval group.

Content of email sent to all members of all approval groups, and the original requestor, notifying that an
approval request has been processed.

The email contains the following information:

Date - the date and time that the approval request was processed.

Author - the vault user processing the request. This can be one of the following:

  • The original requestor, who has subsequently Cancelled the request.
  • A member of the relevant approval group who has either Approved, or Rejected, the request.

Item - the parent Component Item.

Revision - the specific revision of the Component Item, whose lifecycle state is being changed.

Action Type - the type of action that has been taken with respect to the request. This can be one of the following:

  • Cancelled - the original requestor for approval has decided to cancel the request.
  • Rejected - a member of the relevant approval group has rejected the request.
  • Approved - if the request is being passed through multiple defined approval groups, this action will be applied if a member of an intermediate approval group has approved the request.
  • Completed - a member of the approval group (or final approval group where multiple groups have been defined) has approved the request.

Transition - the requested lifecycle transition, showing current state first, followed by the required state.

The Transition entry will not be presented if the request has been cancelled or rejected.

Links - to view the revision of the Item in the vault, either through the vault's browser-based interface (Web link), or through the Vaults panel in Altium Designer (DXP link).

If a comment was included at the time of processing the approval request, this will be reflected in the email.
For a New Approval Request and Approval Request Reminder, the members of the relevant approval group receive the email notifications. When a state change request has been processed, both the original requestor and all members of the next approval group (where multiple approval groups have been defined), receive the notification email.
Click on the hyperlink text in the main summary area of the mail to open the detailed page for the Component Item, on the Vault page of the vault's browser-based interface.
If the approval request has been approved by a member of the approval group (or a member of the final approval group, where multiple have been defined), the state transition will be effected automatically, and all stakeholders will receive a mail notification of the state change.

Following a Component Item

To receive email notifications with respect to a Component Item, you need to be 'subscribed' to that Item. This is done by following that Component Item. Following Component Items is performed only through the vault's browser-based interface.
 To do so:

  1. Browse to the required Component Item within the vault, from the Vault page of the interface.
  2. Right-click on the entry for the Item and choose the Full Item Info command from the context menu.
  3. On the subsequent detailed page for the Item, click the Follow button at the top-right of the page.

Accessing the control to Follow a Component Item.

To stop following a Component Item, simply click the UnFollow button.

Click UnFollow to essentially unsubscribe to getting email notifications
for a Component Item.

Watching a Managed Project

To receive email notifications with respect to a managed project, you need to not only be a collaborator on that project, but also be 'subscribed' to that project. This is done by watchng that managed project. Watching managed projects is performed only through the vault's browser-based interface.
 To do so:

  1. Browse to the required managed project within the vault, from the Projects page of the interface.
  2. click the associated  icon.
  3. On the subsequent detailed page for the project, click the Watch button at the top-right of the page.

Accessing the control to Watch a managed project.

To stop following a managed project, simply click the UnWatch button.

Click UnWatch to essentially unsubscribe to getting email notifications for a managed project.

Configuring Vault Email Notification

Enabling and configuring the vault email notifications feature is performed from within the LocalVault.ini file. For a default installation of the vault, this file can be found in the \Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium Vault folder. The image below highlights the relevant sections of the file that need to be defined.

While the system supports mail notifications using SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) or Amazon SES API, this document focuses on SMTP, since the majority of email systems that send mail over the internet use this protocol.

The sections of the ini file relevant to setting up email notifications from the vault.

By default, the vault email notifications feature is disabled. Configure the parameters detailed in the following sections to set up the feature for your organization.

[Notifications]

The following parameters need to be configured in this section:

  • SendMailEnabled - used to actually enable the feature. Set the parameter's value to '1' to enable.
  • EmailFrom - the email account from which the emails will originate (appearing in the From field of an email).
  • SendMailWith - the protocol you are using to send the mail. Enter either smtp, or amazon.
Ensure the entry is in lower case - smtp or amazon.
  • CheckMailIntervalInMs - the periodic checking interval for mail, specified in milliseconds. By default this is set to 350000ms.

[MailSmtp]

The following parameters need to be configured in this section:

  • SmtpUsername - this is the full originating email address, from which the notification emails are sent (for example simon.entist@gmail.com, for sending notifications through Gmail).
  • SmtpPassword - this is the password portion of the email access credentials.
  • SmtpEnableSsl - used to enable SMTP communications. Set the parameter's value to '1' to enable.
  • SmtpHost - the SMTP server address (for example smtp.gmail.com when sending mail through Gmail).
  • SmtpPort - the SMTP port (for example 587 when sending mail through Gmail).

Example email configuration, when using SMTP to send email notifications from
a defined Gmail account.

Considerations

  • When setting up your email account from which the email notifications will be sent, you may need to grant access to the PC on which your Altium Vault is installed - so that your email account knows that communication from this PC is valid.
  • If you are not seeing email notifications, check your email system's Spam folder, and tag such emails from the sending email account as not being spam.

 

You are reporting an issue with the following selected text and/or image within the active document: