Altium 365 is Altium’s cloud-based platform for electronics design and real-time collaboration, which the EULA describes as accessed by licensees through their purchased products.[8] A Workspace is a dedicated server for a company’s managed content, hosted on the Altium platform, that connects the design, manufacturing and supply domains.[1] To activate and use a Workspace, a company needs an Altium Account and “a purchased level of Altium product access”, which determines the Altium 365 features and functionality available.[1] The Company Dashboard’s documentation lists the solutions as Altium Develop, Altium Agile Teams, Altium Agile Enterprise and Altium Designer on an active term.[2]
Editions
Altium names three plans on its current pages, each of which includes Altium Designer and Altium 365.[3][4][5]
| Plan | Described audience | Inclusions stated on the page | Pricing on the page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Altium Develop | Engineers and small teams | 1 Altium Designer Author; 1 Workspace for shared projects, libraries and collaboration; unlimited Workspace users for review, commenting, task management and BOM access; ECAD-MCAD CoDesign[3] | Extra Authors USD 995 per year each, up to 4 more[3] |
| Altium Agile Teams | Teams that have outgrown spreadsheets | Altium Designer and Altium 365; co-authoring, access control, reviews and PLM integrations as described for the plan[3][4] | Not stated |
| Altium Agile Enterprise | Enterprise-scale development with governance and compliance needs | Altium Designer and Altium 365; enterprise governance and extensibility described[5] | Not stated |
Altium directs teams that “have more than 5 ECAD Authors” to Altium Agile Teams, which sets an effective ceiling on Develop.[3] Altium offers free 30-day access to Develop and Agile Teams without a credit card on the product pages.[3][4] The Altium Designer installer for Develop presents the Master Services Agreement for acceptance before installation proceeds.[10]
Metrics
The Develop plan uses an Altium Designer Author as its seat-like unit: the design user who works in Altium Designer. The plan separates authors from review users, with unlimited Workspace users for review, commenting, task management and BOM access.[3] The Workspace documentation draws the same line. There is no limit on the number of users who connect to a Workspace through the browser interface, on the number of users added as Workspace members, or on MCAD engineers collaborating on projects. The number of users who can connect through Altium Designer is determined by the purchased platform solution.[1]
The MSA expresses entitlement in the Ordering Document as a Named User or Concurrent User model, and the Altium 365 Workspace is a counted object in its own right, since Develop states that it includes one Workspace.[3][6]
Counting / floors
Two floors and ceilings are published. Altium Develop includes one Author and permits four more, giving at most five.[3] A Workspace has no hard storage limit, and “a fair usage policy is in place”. If use is significantly above the average, Altium says it will work with the customer individually on a solution.[1] The retrieved pages state no minimum for the Agile plans.
Access levels depend on the host plan. A user invited to another company’s Workspace can access it from a web browser or MCAD software for free, but accessing it from within Altium Designer needs a suitable level of Altium Platform solution. If the host Workspace is enabled at a higher platform level than the guest’s own, some features and data may not be available to the guest.[1] See Invited Workspace members can use a browser or MCAD software for free and Access from Altium Designer needs a suitable Altium Platform level.
Virtualization & partitioning
Altium 365 is a hosted service. The Workspace is created in a geographical region chosen at activation, and the Dashboard shows the region of each Workspace.[1][2] The MSA bars making the products available on a time-sharing basis or for the benefit of third parties, and bars use of the products for historical or aggregate data analytics.[6] No processor-based or virtual-machine metric applies.
Cloud / BYOL
Workspaces are hosted on Altium’s platform and bring-your-own-licence does not apply to them. Altium’s MSA states that, with respect to Altium 365, Altium will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the cloud services available, commensurate with the service level agreement it publishes, and that it requires its cloud providers to apply commercially reasonable security measures aligned with industry standards.[6] Customers are responsible for the export classification of data uploaded to Altium 365, including data subject to the U.S. Export Administration Regulations or International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and the EULA states that data stored in Altium 365 may be retained and archived indefinitely in Altium’s network backups.[8]
Programs
- Activation and ownership. The person who activates a Workspace is added to its Administrators Group. Where a company’s Workspace is already active, other account members request access from an administrator.[1] In the Dashboard the Workspace owner can be changed.[2]
- Deactivation. A deactivated Workspace becomes inaccessible. It may be reactivated by request during the two-month period after deactivation, after which Altium takes a snapshot and deletes the Workspace, and deletes the snapshot six months later.[2] See A deactivated Workspace can be reactivated within two months.
- Subscription management. Plan upgrades, comparison of plans and renewal are managed in the Company Dashboard, where Group Administrators and License Administrators can also request quotes through the Altium Store.[7]
- Auto-renewal. Time-based licences with Auto-Renewal renew unless notice is given at least 90 days before renewal.[6]
- Evaluation. Free access of 30 days is advertised for Develop and Agile Teams, while the MSA’s default evaluation period is fifteen days unless the Order Form states otherwise.[3][4][6]
Audits and compliance
The MSA’s verification clause applies to cloud services as well as desktop software: within 30 days of Altium’s request the licensee must provide documentation, information and any physical access reasonably necessary to determine compliance.[6] Account Credentials are the customer’s responsibility, each Authorized User needs a unique account with a distinct email address, and the customer is liable for any breach by its users.[6] Altium may suspend access when use exceeds the licence scope or payment is overdue by 30 days.[6] The Company Dashboard’s Reports page provides usage monitoring and reporting for On-Demand licences.[7]
Out of scope
- Prices for Altium Agile Teams and Agile Enterprise, which are not published on the pages retrieved.
- The Altium 365 Trust Center, service level agreement and data retention policy, which are separate documents that were not retrieved.
- Third-party Altium Cloud Applications and Desktop Extensions, which the MSA says carry the third party’s own terms.[6]