Product sharing

Product sharing Bruce Thu, 08/30/2018 - 14:00

Product sharing allows for cooperation in the production of electronic systems by making product information available to the various parties in the production chain.

By default, a product can only be accessed by its owner, normally the company that published the product. Placing an order for fabrication of a product automatically makes the necessary product data available to the fabricator. In addition, the owner can make a product visible to other companies (partners) by sharing the product.

Typical product sharing scenarios

Design bureau: When a design bureau does a PCB layout, the designer uses the Import Module to publish the product. While publishing, the designer can specify that the product is to be owned by one of his partners, and optionally create a share so that he is also able to view the product.

Purchaser: A purchaser can get quotations for board fabrication in a couple of different ways.

The easiest method is to use the Quotation Module to get instant online quotations from participating fabricators. By choosing a satisfactory price/quantity/delivery combination, an order can be placed directly within Macaos Enterprise.
Alternately, an RFQ for assembly of the product may be generated with the Assembly Data Manager. The EMS provider will then be able to panelize, purchase and populate the product with the data that has been shared with them through Macaos Enterprise. The Assembly Data Manager will automatically create partnerships and product shares, if necessary.

EMS provider (Assembly house): A product owner can order populated PCBs from an EMS provider. With the Panelization Module, the EMS provider can create a panelized version of the product, so that they have full control over stepping, fiducials, tooling holes, etc. The EMS provider then orders the panels from the fabricator, creates and orders a solder paste stencil, populates the boards using data extracted from the Assembly Data Manager, creates a test fixture to test the populated boards, a depanelization fixture and routing program, and finally delivers the finished boards to the product owner.

Partners

Partners Bruce Tue, 10/09/2018 - 09:41

Products can only be shared with partners. A partner is another company in the Macaos system with whom your company has some sort of relationship. Clicking on the Partner button opens the Partner Manager, which allows you to view your existing partners and establish new partnerships. Your current partners are listed in the upper left corner.

A dollar icon indicates that the partner may place orders which are invoiced to your company. This is useful, for example, when an external design bureau designs, publishes and orders a PCB product for you. If there is no dollar icon, then your company's invoice addresses will not be listed when the partner selects an invoice address for an order. To enable or disable partner invoicing, right-click on the partner and choose Toggle invoicing.

To terminate a partnership, right-click on the partner and choose Remove partner.

Note: Terminating a partnership will not delete any existing shares with that partner. You must delete each share individually.

Requesting partnerships

The upper right region of the Partner manager is used to find new partners. This can be done in one of two ways:

By mail: You can send an e-mail to someone asking for a partnership. When they receive the e-mail, they will need to authorize the partnership by entering your company name and authorization code (from the e-mail) in the lower left region of their Partner manager. Once they have approved your request, their company will show up in your list of partners (and vice versa).

By company name: You can search for a company by name. If the company is found, a request for authorization will be sent to that company. This will appear in the Authorize new partners list (in the lower left region). The next time a user at the partner company logs in to their Macaos Enterprise, they will be notified that a partner request is waiting to be approved. Once they have approved the request, their company will show up in your list of partners (and vice versa). Note: if your prospective partner has not enabled searching (see Company settings below) then the company will not be found.

Authorizing partnerships

If you receive an e-mail requesting a partnership, you can activate the partnership by entering the company name and authorization code (from the e-mail) in the lower left region of your Partner manager. And if a partnership with your company name has been requested, you can right-click on the partner in the Authorize new partners list and choose Accept to approve the partnership.

If, for some reason, you do not wish to activate a partnership, you can choose to ignore it. Right-clicking on a partner request in the Authorize new partners list and choosing Ignore simply deletes the request from the list. If, however, the requester continues to send unwanted partnership requests you can choose Blacklist, which will prevent the requester from sending any future partnership requests to your company.

Company settings

The lower right region of the partner manager has the settings for your company. Here you can see your company name and authorization code as they will appear in an e-mail partnership request. You can change the authorization code by entering a new code and clicking on the Change button.

If Users who search for my company by name may find my company is checked, then it will be possible for others to request a partnership with your company by searching for your company name. If, for some reason, you do not wish other companies to know about your participation in the Macaos system, you should not check this box.

Product shares

Product shares Bruce Wed, 10/10/2018 - 09:40

Creating product shares

To share a product with a partner, right-click on the product in the Product Browser and choose Shares|Add to open the Share Editor.

The upper portion of the Share Editor lists existing shares for the selected product(s), if any. The lower portion specifies the parameters of the share(s) to be added. You can specify the following:

Share product: Specifies how long the share will be valid. This can be always or until a date. If a date is specified, the share will automatically expire on that date.

Product identification: The product name, article and description as it will appear in the partner's Product Browser. The partner may change these values, if they so desire.

Share product with: The partner with whom the product will be shared. You must select a partner.

Scope of visibility: Specifies how much information about the product the partner may access.

Quote: The partner will be able to view product info, see the layout in the product viewer, and get prices for the product. The partner will not be able to panelize the product, place orders or extract the product's data files.
Order: The partner will be able to view product info, see the layout in the product viewer, get prices for the product, panelize the product, and place orders for the product. The partner will not be able to extract the product's data files.
Manuf: The partner will be able to view all product info including data files, as well as get prices, panelize and order the product. (Note: Data files can only be extracted by users whose Macaos license supports data file extraction.)

Public remark: A comment which is visible to both the product owner and the partner. The comment is limited to 255 characters.

Private note: A comment which is only visible to the user's company (either the owner or the partner). The comment is limited to 255 characters.

Viewing/Editing product shares

If a product is shared, then the share details are shown below the product specifications. In addition, each share is listed in the Shares menu.

To edit a share, right-click on a product and select Shares|<share description>|Edit. In addition, for each share there may be quick-edit menu commands to extend the share scope or make the share permanent, when appropriate.

When editing the share for a partner product, only the product identification (as seen by the partner), public remark and private note may be modified.

Deleting a product share

Right-click on a product and select Shares|<share description>|Delete share.