Data Management - Suppliers

Modified by Susan Riege on Aug 9, 2018
Contents

Parent page: IntegratedLibrary Preferences


The Data Management - Suppliers page of the Preferences dialog

Summary

The Data Management – Suppliers page of the Preferences dialog provides controls to configure the Suppliers made available when using the Live Links to Supplier Data feature. 

Access

The Data Management – Suppliers page is part of the main Preferences dialog (File | ) and is accessed by clicking the Suppliers entry under the Data Management folder in the left hand pane of the dialog.

Options/Controls

Available Suppliers

This region of the page lists all Suppliers that can be used as part of design data management to access and integrate supply chain intelligence. Altium currently has agreements with the following Suppliers:

  • Allied
  • Arrow
  • Digi-Key
  • Farnell
  • Future Electronics
  • Mouser
  • Newark
  • RS-Components
  • TME

These agreements enable you to access and search these Suppliers' web-databases directly from within CircuitStudio.

Note that a Supplier will only appear in the list if the corresponding extension for it is currently installed. Within CircuitStudio, management of extensions for the software is performed from within the dedicated Extensions & Updates area – one of several views available under CircuitStudio's Home page. Access this area by clicking the Extensions & Updates link, in the main pane of CircuitStudio's Home page. The Home page is accessed by clicking View | System | from the main menus.

Check the Enable option for a Supplier to be able to search that Supplier's database from within CircuitStudio and link CircuitStudio components to matching supplier items. You can choose to enable any combination of these Suppliers for use with the Live Links to Supplier Data feature. By including more Suppliers for use with the feature, you are able to compare and shop for the best deals on the components required by your design.

Moving forward, Altium continues to drive the expansion of its Supplier support. As agreements arise with additional electronic component Suppliers, this list will grow, giving you an ever-wider choice of where to source your required design 'building blocks'.

Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to move a selected Supplier up or down in the list. The order determines the priority given to each Supplier when returning matching real-world parts in a parts search.

Supplier Options

If you have an account with a particular Supplier, you may be entitled to special pricing or products that are not available in these suppliers' public catalogs. If this applies to you, ask your supplier's sales representative for the requisite credentials that can be used with their Web Service. Once you have this information, enter it into the additional fields for that particular Supplier. The following is a summary of the additional fields presented in this region when selecting, in turn, each of the various Suppliers (in the Available Suppliers region):

  • Allied - User Name and Password.
  • Arrow - User Name, Password, Country (or region).
  • Digi-Key - User Name, Password, Region, Language.
  • Farnell - Customer Id, Secret Key, Country (or region).
  • Mouser - User Name, Password, Region, Currency, Language.
  • Newark - Customer Id, Secret key, Country (or region).
  • RS-Components - Region.
  • TME - API Key, Country (or region), Currency. Obtain a temporary TME token from the TME website. Once you have this information, click the  button to access the Temporary token to API key dialog. Enter your TME token then click OK; the token will be transformed to the required API key.
If using these additional options, do not forget to select a country or region that applies to you, where applicable, so that products available for that locale are made available to you
Making use of these additional supplier options is an optional exercise. You are not required to fill out these details in order to use a Supplier; they simply offer additional benefits for those users that are existing customers of that Supplier, if you wish to access them.

Suggested Keywords

To speed searching for parts in Suppliers' databases, the software fills a suggested keyword into the Keywords field at the top of the Add Supplier Links dialog based on the following fields/parameters of the source CircuitStudio design component:

  • Comment
  • Description
  • Name

Use the fields in this region to configure the order in which these are effectively tried. By default, the Comment will be used as the search criteria first. If the source component has no comment, the next attempt uses its Description. If this is also blank, the component's Name will be used.

Further refine this initial Keywords entry as required in the Add Supplier Links dialog to better target the desired Supplier Item(s).

Parameter Import Options

Add any parameter names here that you would like renamed on import or made visible. Parameters imported, along with supplier links or for new components, can also be excluded or suffixed. To edit a Supplier Parameter Name or an Imported Parameter Name, click in the text box. Note that only black text is editable: any parameter names displayed in gray are not editable.

  • Add - Click to add a parameter.
  • Remove - Click to remove a selected parameter.
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