Syncing a library with SiliconExpert

Enrich an Altium 365 workspace library with SiliconExpert data and store the result in the component database. This is the action that keeps a whole library current, as opposed to filling in one component by hand.

When to use this

• Keeping the library's lifecycle, RoHS and compliance data up to date on a schedule.
• After a library migration, to populate everything at once.
• Before a release audit, with a fuller field list than the routine one.

What you need first

• Altium 365 — the workspace library.
• SiliconExpert — the connection.
• The component database — this action stores what it finds, which is what separates it from a one-off enrichment.

What decides which values are fetched

The field list. Each entry answers three questions:

Leave the parameter empty and it defaults to the SiliconExpert field name. Mirror names applies that to the whole list at once.

Edit the list through the field counter on the Parameters card — it is a button. Named sets are saved into fieldlists.yaml: a lean set for a quick sync, a full set for a release audit. The SE field list dropdown picks which one a run uses; leave it empty to use the table.

What a run costs

Fetch PartDetails data is off by default. With it off, those fields stay empty and the run log names them. With it on, the action asks for confirmation before the first call and reports how many components it would bill for.

A field available from both calls always resolves to PartSearch, so you are never charged for something already in hand.

What the sync writes

Two tables, with different keys on purpose:

An existing row is updated, a new one inserted. Where a component has several part choices, all of them land in sedata under their own ComID, while the folder table keeps the first choice — the one Altium lists as preferred. The run log says so per component.

New folders are added to the catalog table automatically, keeping the workspace's own capitalisation. Folder tables themselves are named in lower case, to match the database that already exists.

One caveat worth knowing

Folder tables are named after the folder, not its path. So Capacitors/Range and Resistors/Range would share one range table. The run warns when that happens, rather than quietly merging two folders into one.

Notes

• Manufacturer names are deliberately not run through the manufacturers table here. That table maps Altium to Octopart; SiliconExpert is a third namespace, and applying the mapping would move the problem rather than solve it.
• A field's partition is respected when reading. SummaryData sits at the top of the response; anything else is a nested section, which SiliconExpert returns as either an object or a single-item list. Both are handled.

Related actions

• Looking a part up in SiliconExpert — work out why one part is not found
• Adding SiliconExpert data to a component — the same enrichment, one component
• Matching manufacturer names to Octopart and SiliconExpert — the maintenance underneath it