What can my team and I do with AllSpice Actions?

Actions common use-cases

AllSpice Actions is used to meet overarching business requirements (i.e. leadership being receptive to new tools that increase developer productivity), as well as engineering concerns, such as control over proprietary data (i.e. releasing designs directly to vendors while keeping control over your data. Managing who can see/access what, etc.)

Common Actions use-cases

• Generating manufacturing files like BOM

• Automated static checks/review

• Part availability check

• Cost of Goods Sold (C.O.G.S.)

• Verification parts in APL (Approved Parts List)

Action use-cases

Process BOM/Assembly/Release files

• Generate daily list of blacklisted components used in designs

• Forecast costs through pricing Action

• Availability checks

• Lifecycle checks (PLM)

• COGS (ERP)

• CM BOM Diff Report

• Extended quote/forecasting

  • PCB cost/schedule options

  • Quotes with multiple quantities

  • Date extended quantity is available

• Generate and validate wire harnesses

• Retest firmware (TDD)

• Check schematic firmware hooks

• Check pinouts and net changes

• Check PCB traces don’t exceed manufacturer specified conditions

Process Schematics

• Verify symbols

• Verify DRC

• Reference designators

• Symbol attributes

  • MFG/MPN/Value/etc

• Netlist

• Static analysis

  • Power/GND misconnects

  • Voltage level checks between components

Process PCBAs

• Verify DRC

• Verify footprints

• Verify design rules match (DRC is no good if the rules are wrong)

• Create trace report (Current/Power/Width)

• Generate stack-up documentation

• Check PCB elements aren’t outside of PCB area, no collisions, etc.

Generate documentation (Sch/PCB Design Review/Release notes/Fab files)

• Regulate releases

• File pattern match

• Flag missing files

• Generate reports (Design Review, BOM Change)

• Check for conflicts before merging

• Run internal error checking, i.e. invalid part numbers or incomplete libraries

• Push/email final release to PLM for final quote

Connect to any public API

• PLM/ERP (Cofactr/PTC)

• Distributors (Digikey/Mouser/Newark/Octopart)

• Task management (Jira)

• Create Read Update Delete (CRUD) cloud “office” documents

  • MS365 (Excel/Word/Powerpoint)

  • Google docs (Sheets/Docs/Slides)

• Network sync (Dropbox/MS365/iCloud)

Utility

• Run daily activity audit

• Create customizable forms and workflows

• Assign new component requests

• Automatically add and track issues from Design Reviews

Next: Why should engineering teams care about AllSpice Actions?