Item Manager | Altium Designer 17.0 User Manual

Created: November 8, 2016 | Updated: June 19, 2017

Now reading version 17.0. For the latest, read: Item Manager for version 21

The Item Manager dialog

Summary

This dialog allows the user to update unmanaged design items or batch updated using automated Parameter matching in a current board design project to use managed design Items that reside in one or more Altium Vault.

Access

The Item Manager dialog is accessed by clicking Tools » Item Manager in the schematic editor.

You need to be signed in to an Altium Vault and have a Schematic Document open from the active project to access and use the Item Manager.

Options/Controls

Type - for a component, this is its Design Item ID property. For a sheet symbol, this field is blank.
Designator - displays the item Designator.
Item - displays the Item.
Document - displays the document in which the item is located,

The middle section of the dialog shows component settings of the active project (Current Settings), while the right section lists how they will change (New Settings) when suitable Managed Components in the Vault have been assigned. The regions are described in detail below.

Current Settings

For each design entity, listed in terms of its designator, the following information is presented in this region of the grid:

Name - the name of the Item.
Comment - displays the Comment information for a component or the File Name property for a sheet symbol.
Lifecycle State- in a board design project that has not been 'converted' to use vault-based Items, all entries will have the state [Not Managed].
Revision Status - in a board design project that has not been 'converted' to use vault-based Items, all entries will have the state [Unknown].
From - the source library from which the component in the design was placed. For a sheet symbol, this field is blank.

New Settings

This region presents information about the proposed change. It has the same fields as the Current Settings region, but these fields carry slightly different meanings when dealing with managed Items:

Name - the name of the Item.
Comment - the entry for the Comment property for a Component Item or a Schematic Sheet Item.
Lifecycle State - the current lifecycle state of the named revision of the chosen Component Item or Schematic Sheet Item.
Revision Status - the current revision status of the named revision of the chosen Component Item or Schematic Sheet Item.
From - the name of the source vault in which the chosen Component Item or Schematic Sheet Item resides.
Footprint - the name of the associated footprint.

For multiple instances of the same component used in a design, you can select a group of components and manually choose the required vault-based Item. The choice will be applied to all components in the selection. Standard multi-select features (Ctrl+click and Shift+click) can be used to select groupings.

Grid Region Additional Commands

Right-click Menu

Update to latest revision - use to update the currently selected item to the latest revision.
Choose manually - use to manual choose an item. The appropriate Choose Item dialog opens in which you can select the required Item.

You also can double-click an item in the grid to manually choose an item.

Refresh - use to refresh the information in the grid region.
Cross Probe - use to cross probe and locate the item in the appropriate schematic.
Show in Explorer - use to show the item in the Vault Explorer (Vaults panel).
Export - use to export the item using the Export for dialog.

Tabs

Use the tabs at the bottom of the grid region to populate ("filter") the region with the following specific items in the current design:

All - display all items in the current design.
Unmanaged - only display items that are Unmanaged in the current design (i.e., they have not been placed from a vault).
Managed - only display items that are Managed in the current design.
Components - only display component items in the current design.
Alternate Components - only display any alternate components in the current design.
Sheet Symbols - only display sheet symbols in the current design.
Ambiguous Items - only display any ambiguous items in the current design.
Ambiguous Footprints - only display any ambiguous footprints in the current design.

To resolve any ambiguous Items, generally caused by multiple matches, select the Ambiguous Items or Ambiguous Footprints tab and make a suitable choice from the Not selected menu in the dialog’s New Settings section. Note that multiple matches, and therefore the available choices, can be referencing different Revisions of the same Component Item. When the issue is resolved (no longer classed as ambiguous), the component Item will move to the Managed/Components tab lists.

Additional Controls

Options - click to open the Item Manager Options dialog in which you can further refine how automatched Managed Components are applied to the current board design.
Automatch - click to open the Automatching Items dialog. The matching process takes the Design Item ID of an unmanaged item and compares it against the Comment property of managed Items in a vault. When a match is found, that managed Item (Component Item or Schematic Sheet Item) will be proposed for the update. This command also is available on the right-click menu of the grid region.

The software will attempt to find a matching managed Item in any currently connected (and enabled) vault.

ECO - use the drop-down to select which option is desired:
- Generate ECO - once changes have been set up as required, click this option to generate an Engineering Change Order and browse the actions that will be taken to implement those changes. You can disable any actions as required since you always have full control regarding what gets changed.
- Apply ECO - select to execute the ECO. It will bypass the ECO browsing process.