The project Design Reviews page is the central location for all project stakeholders to perform and manage structured reviews of a Workspace design project. The interface allows the creation, access and management of Design Review instances by any Workspace member, which in turn can be assigned to other Workspace members as Reviewers. The Design Review creator (the ‘Initiator) can add attachments and formalized Checklist items, and has full control over the Design Review completion/approval process.
As a multi-CAD environment, Altium 365 enables Design Review to support a range of ECAD project formats – see the Altium Multi-CAD page for more information.
Create, configure, manage and conclude Project Design Reviews assessed by specified Workspace Members.
Completed project Design Reviews help to identify design issues, provide a traceable compliance record, and ensure that the design meets company requirements and standards. Design projects support multiple Design Reviews, which can be created at any time through the project’s development such as prior to its Release, or when passing the design to another team or contractor/manufacturer.
If your organization requires an advanced enterprise-level approach to design reviews, Altium 365’s Workspace Processes offer highly configurable, formalized Workflows that tightly control user activities such as design reviews, project creation and interaction with PLM systems.
See Processes & Workflows for more information.
Creating Reviews
In the Workspace Web Viewer , project Design Review instances are created and accessed from the project's Design Reviews page. The review will apply to the currently open project (in its current state) and be available to all Workspace members who have access to the project itself.
Select the Design Review page to create a Design Review instance that applies to the currently open design project.
The created Design Review opens in its Overview summary mode and applies to a snapshot of the current WIP design, as available for viewing and commenting through the Design Snapshot option in the navigation tree.
Edit the review’s title and description to best identify the Design Review to other Workspace members. Note that the most recently committed version of the design can be opened by selecting the tile immediately below the title/description entry. The name of the related Commit will include its Tag , if available.
Use the Reviewers options to add Workspace members who are required to action the review. Choose from the Suggested names, or begin typing an email/name in the field to select from matching Workspace members.
Click the Share window will open automatically with that user preselected for sharing – the minimum requirement completing a Design Review is View (read only) access.
Optional: Add a pre-configured list of review check items from the available Checklist Templates. Multiple templates can be added to the review's Checklist, which can include your own custom templates.
The selected template will add its check items to the review instance. Use an entry's
Select the
Choose from the available Checklist templates in the Add Templates to Checklist window. These include sample templates and any custom templates you have created – see Checklists view for more information. Here, the custom Parts Acceptance template is selected.
The Parts Acceptance template has added three check items to the current review Checklist. During the review process, Reviewers can confirm any check items as completed, not completed, or not applicable.
A further custom check item (or an item list) can be added manually at any time through the upper ‘Add item' field, which will be appended to any existing list of check items.
Note that the current list of check items can be saved as a new Checklist Template (Checklists view on the Admin – Settings page . Hover over a Checklist entry to access its Edit and Delete options (
Optional: Use the Attach Files option to add (upload) files that relate to the project Design Review and will assist in the review and sign-off process.
See the Admin Checklists page for information on managing Design Review Checklists.
A new Design Review instance also can be invoked from:
the
Altium Designer’s project Share dialog when Design Review is selected and the project has no active (In Progress) reviews. Otherwise, the dialog will present a tiled list of the project’s active Design Reviews.
See Support for Design Reviews for information related to Altium Designer.
Design Reviews also include the direct ability to open a comparison of the snapshot’s Schematic, PCB and BOM documents with those of previous project Commit events. Select a SCH/PCB/BOM document tab entry to see a comparison summary of its changes since the most recent Commit event, and click the Open Compare command to access that design data comparison. Use the Compare to Commit <date> menu options to select another Commit event for the comparisons. View a representative BOM comparison and Schematic comparison for this example.
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The ability to compare the Design Review's BOM, Schematic and PCB snapshot documents with their previously committed version is directly available though the Design Review interface.
See the Design Data Comparisons page for information on performing design document comparisons.
Review Design Snapshot
The Design Snapshot view corresponds to the state of the project design when the Design Review instance was created and offers the features available in the normal WIP design view , including full document navigation, net highlighting, cross-probing, and commenting.
Along with the ability to inspect the design in its review state, the snapshot view also provides a dedicated Design Review pane that summarizes the current review status, provides access to the comparisons (see above), and allows the actioning of the review’s Checklist items.
The Design Snapshot's Design Review pane includes review status information and provides access to the Checklist items.
In the Design Snapshot view, placed Comments and their assignment to user Tasks are directly associated with the Design Review. The review will include only those Comments and Tasks, and not show any existing Comments/Tasks from the source WIP design. A placed Design Review Comment will include a From: <design review> entry that links to the review Overview .
Design Snapshot Comments and any associated Tasks directly apply to the Design Review.
Review Comment Tasks
The Design Review Tasks view includes task requests that have been created from Comments placed in the Design Snapshot view - other Tasks associated with the source WIP design are not included. Review Tasks, which are associated with a specific project (snapshot) document, can be managed and progressed by all Workspace members who have access to the project.
See Working with Tasks for more information.
Tasks associated with the Design Review appear in the review's own Tasks view but also show in the main Project Tasks view.
Completing Reviews
Workspace members that have been assigned as Reviewers are requested to evaluate the design within the stated review scope, complete any Checklist items, and finally accept or reject the results via the
A Reviewers contribution to the Design Review is completed when their assessment is registered as Approved or Rejected in the Review pane, where their name (under Reviewers in the Overview ) will be highlighted in green and marked accordingly.
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An example of a Design Review instance as seen by a Reviewer. Note that most items (name/description, attached files, assigned reviewers, etc) cannot be edited.
Completing Checklists is not mandatory to successfully submit the review. Any Checklist items that have been completed are effectively 'resolved' by the Reviewer.
When the Reviewer has completed their assessment, it can be confirmed in the Review pane by choosing to Approve or Reject the review and adding any relevant notes.
The Reviewer then uses the
On completion of the process, the review state associated with the Reviewer's name entry (under Reviewers ) will change from Pending to Approved or Rejected (depending on the Reviewer's assessment). This is visible to all Design Review stakeholders including Reviewers and the review Initiator (creator).
Finalizing Reviews
A Design Review is finalized and moved to a closed read-only state by the review Initiator by selecting a Completed, Rejected or Cancelled state from the
The expected course of events would be for design Reviewers to have completed the review Checklist, dealt with any review Comments/Tasks, and submitted their review assessment as Accepted or Rejected (see above). The Design Review Initiator then moves the review to a finalized closed state.
An example of a Design Review instance as seen by the review Initiator when the assigned Reviewers have completed their review process. An entry's highlight color and icon indicate the Reviewer's Approved or Rejected assessment – use the entry’s drop-down menu to view any associated Notes.
You can hover over a Checklist entry to see which Reviewer completed the item and when this occurred. Note that Checklist items can be edited, removed, or reordered at any time until the Review is closed.
The Design Review Initiator concludes the review process by specifying the closed state of the review as Completed, Rejected or Cancelled from the
The finalized Design Review is marked as the selected state (such as Completed) and closed as a read-only review instance. It remains accessible for review auditing and assessment purposes.
Back on the project’s Design Reviews page, the finalized review will be found under the tab item that represents its concluded state – Completed , Rejected or Cancelled – or under the view All tab option.
Design Reviews also are represented in a WIP project’s Tasks view as individual tasks for both the review’s Initiator and its nominated Reviewers , and can in fact be completed by resolving these tasks. See more information in the below collapsible section.
Completing Reviews from the Tasks Page
While reviews are normally conducted through the review instance in the Design Reviews page, they can be progressed to a closed state in the project Tasks page by resolving the review's associated tasks – for access, open the project’s Tasks page view from the Web Viewer navigation tree. From this view the Design Review flow can be performed by advancing these Design Review tasks to a Resolved state.
A basic Design Review example with two assigned Reviewers. This is represented as individual Reviewer and Initiator tasks in the project's WIP Tasks view .
In the Tasks view, select a Reviewer task to view its information, cross-probe to the Design Review (
Reviewer tasks are resolved when the assigned Reviewer Votes to accept or reject the review.
The Initiator task is resolved when the Design Review initiator (creator) completes the task by submitting a Review decision . This action finalizes the Design Review and closes it to a read-only state.
A Task assigned from the Design Review project snapshot can be progressed independently of the Design Review itself.
The process of completing a Design Review from the Tasks page involves each Workspace member associated with the review (Initiator and Reviewers), who submit an assessment in their assigned tasks. Note that a review's Checklist is not accessible when using this approach to complete a Design Review.
A Reviewer selects their assigned task to open the Provide Review feedback pane, which presents the review details and associated controls.
The Reviewer chooses to Accept or Reject the reviewed design from the Vote menu. Note that the other Reviewer has already submitted their assessment in this example.
The Reviewer then adds an optional Note and submits their feedback (Review feedback pane.
The review Initiator selects their assigned task. This would normally occur after all Reviewers have completed their assigned tasks.
The review Initiator provides a Review decision by choosing from the review task's Accepted or Rejected options.
The Initiator then provides a Summary note to their task and submits the result (
All tasks directly associated with the Design Review are completed and shown as Resolved.
The now completed (or rejected) review will appear as a closed read-only instance under the appropriate completed/rejected tab in the Design Review page – the Completed tab in this case.
The closed Design Review instance can be opened for inspection.
