Your Altium account provides access to Altium on-demand services, such as On-Demand licensing and connection to an Altium 365 Workspace. To sign in to your Altium account, click on the Current User control at the top-right of the design space (when you are not signed in to your Altium account, the control is presented as 
), then click the 
entry on the associated menu. You will be presented with the Sign In dialog, asking you to sign in using your browser. Clicking the 
button will open your default browser with a page from which you can sign in to your account using your preferred (and accessible) method: direct email credentials, a linked Google® or Facebook® account, through configured SSO, or using 2-step verification or the device-based authentication method.
When signing in from Altium Designer for the first time, it is suggested to allow Altium Designer to access your identity information (name, email, user avatar, etc.) so that Altium Designer can use your unique identifier to access the data to which you have access in Altium 365 (projects, components, tasks, comments, etc.) and other cloud services to which Altium Designer can connect (
). If an Altium 365 Workspace you have access to has the Requirements & Systems Portal application enabled, this will also allow Altium Designer to have access to its requirements data. Also, it can be used to report usage statistics if you have agreed to that.
After signing in, the Current User control in Altium Designer will change to reflect you are having signed in to your Altium account by displaying your Altium profile picture, or avatar (e.g., 
). The menu will display this also, with full name and with the Profile link to quickly access your Altium account through your default browser.
Notes about signing in:
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The Sign In dialog provides an option to be signed in automatically when starting Altium Designer, so you will not be taken to the browser interface each time.
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For security, there is a time limit (5 minutes) to complete the sign-in process. An error will occur if this time has elapsed, in which case you will need to start the sign-in process again.
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If you sign out from your account (using the 
button in the Current User control menu), you will also again be taken to your browser, loaded with a confirmation page.
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The connection, sign in and portal server details are all available on the System – Account Management page of the Preferences dialog. If you prefer to work offline, switching Altium Designer to an offline mode, and essentially severing the connection to Altium – enable the No, I wish to remain disconnected from Altium option (
). By enabling this option, your installation of Altium Designer will stay completely disconnected from Altium. While disconnected, you will not be able to access or use any of the on-demand services that require a connection with Altium. In essence, this option is a 'full offline' switch.
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When you sign in to your account, you do so through an Altium Portal. On the Altium side, a portal is simply a secure connection through to a specific Altium Account Management Server. All communication with the Altium Account Management servers through the applicable Altium Portal is secure over HTTPS.
You do not remain permanently connected to the Altium Account Management Servers. Altium Designer communicates with the Account Management Server by making a request and receiving a response. At that point, the connection is closed. There will be numerous requests to sign in, request the available licenses to display, and so on, but each request is independent, and then the connection closes.
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Allowed authentication methods are determined by your organization's administrator on the Authentication page of the Company Dashboard. An administrator can configure and enable SAML Single Sign-On (SSO) with an Identity Provider (e.g., Okta®) from this page. This backend configuration system allows account administrators to establish, test, enable and disable the SSO capability for company users. See the Configuring Sign-in Authentication page for configuration information and IdP integration examples.
The ‘unified login’ approach to signing in to your Altium Account via an external browser described above is in Open Beta and available when the System.UnifiedLogin option is enabled in the Advanced Settings dialog.
When the System.UnifiedLogin option is disabled in the Advanced Settings dialog, a previous iteration of the Sign in dialog is used to sign in to your Altium Account.
Options and Controls of the Sign In Dialog (Previous Iteration)
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Email – enter your email. This is the email that was used when your Altium account credentials were created. Contact your local Altium administrator if you do not have your Altium account credentials available.
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Password – enter your Altium password.
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Sign in automatically – enable this option to automatically sign into Altium's online services when you start Altium Designer using the specified User Name and Password.
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Forgot password? – select this option to open the Reset Password dialog, where you may receive a new temporary password that will then be sent to your email address.
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– click this button to be directed to Google, where you may sign in using your Google account credentials. Learn more.
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– click this button to be directed to Facebook, where you may sign in using your Facebook account credentials. Learn more.
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– if your organization has set up single sign on access, you may sign in through the Single Sign On dialog by clicking this button. Learn more.
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By signing in you agree to Altium's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use – you may select Privacy Policy to be directed to the Altium Privacy Policy, or Terms of Use to be directed to Altium's General Terms of Service.
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Register an account – select this option to be directed to the Altium account registration page, where you may register for a new Altium account, or sign in to a preexisting one.
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Sign in – once the email and password are entered, this button becomes available. Click to continue with the sign-in process.
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Third-party Sign-in – providing more flexibility in how you can connect to your Altium account, Altium Designer offers popular third-party sign-in options: Google® and Facebook®. To link an alternative sign-in option to your account, click the desired connection and sign in to that service if required. Enter your existing Altium account credentials on the following page to establish the third-party link to your account (
). Confirmation of the account linkage can be seen in your Altium account, which also serves to remove the association if necessary using the Unlink Account) control (
).
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Single Sign On – to enhance compatibility with existing company systems, you can sign in to Altium Designer using your organization's Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication system (
). Along with the benefits of increased security and more efficient IT user access management, the application of SSO schemes provides the convenience of signing in to Altium software using the same set of credentials that apply to your company-wide systems and services.
The Altium Designer SSO sign-in capability supports the SSO infrastructure embedded in the Altium account management application and Altium 365, which in turn hosts your Altium 365 Workspace. With authentication communications based on the standardized Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML 2.0), the system establishes authorized identities from your company's nominated Identity Provider (IdP) – for example, Okta, OneLogin, etc. The SSO sign-in interface for your company, if not already in place, is usually based on a template or example provided by the IdP – this instigates the SAML-based authentication assertion exchanges and provides access to company services (
).
Outside of Altium Designer, you can establish an SSO session by signing in to either an Altium Account or an Altium 365 Workspace directly.
Note that if 2-step verification is enforced for use in your Company Account, it is not possible to sign in to your Altium Account using the previous iteration of the Sign in dialog. The unified login approach (available when the System.UnifiedLogin option is enabled in the Advanced Settings dialog) must be used in this case.
If 2-step verification is not enabled on the Company Account level but it is configured for your individual Altium Account, you can sign in using the previous iteration of the Sign in dialog. In this case, the additional verification step will not apply.
For more information about configuring 2-step verification, refer to the Configuring Sign-in Authentication page.
