Custom Workflows

Custom workflows are how you define deterministic, auditable pipelines for hardware development – so that design work moves through validation and release by rule, not by memory.

In software development, CI/CD means every change is automatically checked, and nothing ships until the checks pass. Hardware teams have always had the equivalent – ERC runs, BOM reviews, design rule checks, release sign-offs – but those checks have historically depended on the right person being available and remembering to run them. Custom workflows in Altium 365 close that gap: they define what must happen, in what order, and what must pass before the next stage begins.

A workflow connects the sequence of events – commits, reviews, validations, releases – into a structured pipeline that runs automatically. The engineer doesn't manage the process. The process manages itself.

What Custom Workflows Define

• Stage sequences and gates – a workflow defines the stages a design or component passes through and what must be true at each gate before the next stage begins. A design that fails validation cannot proceed to release. A component that hasn't completed qualification cannot be approved for the library. The gate is enforced by the platform, not by a reviewer remembering to check.

• Automated validation at each stage – each stage in a workflow can have validation checks associated with it. When the design reaches that stage, the checks run automatically. Results are logged – what ran, against which revision, what it found, when. When something goes wrong in prototype or production, you're not reconstructing decisions from memory or email threads. The record is there.

• Release pipelines – the full path from design to validated release artifact – validation, output generation, upload to Workspace – can be defined as a workflow. Releases that skip steps or bypass checks become structurally impossible, not just discouraged. Nothing ships without passing the gates you define.

• Notification and coordination – workflows define who is notified at each stage and what action is required of them. A design review stage notifies the designated reviewers; the release gate waits for their sign-off. The coordination is built into the process definition, not managed through email or chat.

The Value of Making Processes Explicit

Most hardware organizations have release processes that exist as shared understanding – everyone roughly knows what should happen, but the specifics vary by project, by engineer, and by how much time pressure there is. When a step is missed, it's because someone forgot or decided it wasn't necessary this time.

Custom workflows make the process a first-class artifact. It is defined once, applied consistently, and enforced automatically. New engineers follow the same process as experienced engineers. The process doesn't degrade under deadline pressure. Exceptions are visible because they require an explicit override, not just a decision to skip a step.

When to Invest in Custom Workflows

Workflows add value proportional to how often the process runs and how consequential failures are. A team releasing one design per quarter to a forgiving prototype manufacturer may not need formal workflow automation. A team releasing weekly to aerospace or medical manufacturing – where a process failure has real cost – gets immediate return.

The other signal is when the same process failure keeps happening. If designs reach release missing the same check, or the same approval is forgotten, or the same output type is generated with the wrong settings – that is a workflow problem, and the fix is to make the correct behavior automatic rather than relying on people to remember it.