Lesson 4: Using Connect for Design Collaboration
Overview
In Lessons 2 and 3 you updated your design and checked the sourcing health of all the components in the design. In this lesson you'll check your project back into Connect to make sure your latest changes are saved and placed under version control. Once your changes are checked in you may want to collaborate with other team members on your project. This lesson will show how you and your team can be sure you're always using the latest project information.
Note: For trial users only. Both the PADS Professional Premium with DFM "Overview" trial AND the PADS Pro App Suite 30-day trial gives you additional user licenses so you can experience collaborating with your team members. Once your trial ends you will need to purchase additional licenses for collaboration.
Give Team Members Access to Your Connect Workspace
Open your browser and navigate to https://app.pcbconnect.online. Log in using your trial credentials.
Your trial gives you two additional PADS Professional DFM App Suite licenses so you can try Connect's collaboration capabilities (Note: Connect is an application within PADS Professional DFM App Suite). To collaborate with another team member, you must assign them a license. This is accomplished in Admin Console.
Navigate to Admin Console at https://admin.sw.siemens.com
Sign in to Admin Console using your Siemens account credentials (the same email and password used to sign-up for the Trial). You will see that a PADS Professional DFM App Suite has already been assigned to you are the Trial owner.
Under "Products" listed on the left side of Admin Console, choose the PADS Professional DFM App Suite icon.
Click on the Assign User icon. An Assign User box will appear.
In the Assign User box, enter the email address of a team member you want to collaborate with AND assign a Product Role to the user (e.g. Editor or Viewer).
Click the Assign button. You can assign up to two PADS Professional DFM App Suite licenses to team members.
The team members you have identified will be assigned a PADS Professional DFM App Suite license for collaboration. You will see this assignment shown in Admin Console.
The team member(s) you have assigned licenses to will receive an email invitation with a link to access your Connect collaboration workspace.
Have the team member check the junk mail folder if the email is not found.
The team member will have to create a Siemens account if he or she does not already have one. Instructions can be found in the email invitation.
Give Team Members Access to the LED Flasher Project
Open the LED Flasher project in Connect and select the Users tab.
Select the Add User command.
In the right hand panel, select the team member's name and project role.
Check in the LED Flasher Project to Connect
From Designer, close the LED Flasher project to start the check in process.
Use the check in dialog to enter check in comments to summarize the latest design changes (available starting VX.2.8 Update 8). Note: the virtual lab environment may not show the check in comment dialog, if you do not see it select the dialog's icon from the Windows toolbar as shown below:
The Notify Team selection allows you to optionally send an email notification to your team to make them aware of your design changes.
Once the check in is complete Connect will create a new version of your project and notify your team (if selected).
Click here to see more videos on how to use Connect.
Up Next: Lesson 5 - Using PCBflow DFM directly from PADS Professional