Aras Community Projects 101

Aras Community Projects 101

This blog post is a "one-stop shop" for everything you ever wanted to know about Aras Community Projects.

Have a question that isn't answered here? Add it to the comments section below, tweet us at @ArasLabs or shoot an email to [email protected].

Am I part of the Aras Community?

The Aras Community is made up of Aras subscribers, Aras partners, Aras open users (non-subscribers), and Aras employees. All are welcome to use and contribute to Aras Community Projects.

If you are brand new to Aras, you can download the latest open release of Aras Innovator here and find the installation guide and other documentation here.

What are Aras Community Projects?

Aras Community Projects are open source applications and packages that enhance functionality, add features, or integrate with Aras Innovator. Formerly known as Aras Community Solutions, these projects were once hosted on the Aras website.

Now projects are hosted on open source code-sharing platforms and linked to from a curated directory on the Aras Community site. Moving Aras Community Projects to an open source platform allows project authors to maintain their work and encourages collaboration among Aras Community members.

To find Aras Community Projects that were migrated from the old Community Solutions page, check out the new Community Projects page or Aras Labs projects on GitHub. There you can find migrated projects, as well as new Community Projects published by Aras Labs.

Aras Labs

We're the Advanced R&D organization within Aras Corp. Our charter is to help shape the future of PLM enterprise software via innovative new apps and services.

How can I get involved?

There are two ways to get involved with Aras Community Projects - submit a new project or contribute to an existing project.

1. Submit a New Project

  1. Check out the Aras Community Project submission guidelines.
  2. Package up your project and commit it to GitHub, or the open source code-sharing platform of your choice (Bit Bucket, GitLab, etc).
  3. Submit your project to Aras Labs for review.

2. Contribute to an Existing Project

Contributing to an existing project is a great way to get your feet wet, dabble in open source, and familiarize yourself with Aras Community Projects.

  1. Find an Aras Community Project you'd like to contribute to.
  2. Fork the project to create your own working copy.
  3. Fix an issue, add an enhancement, or improve documentation for an Aras Community Project.
  4. Submit your changes to the project maintainer in a pull request.

For a more detailed guide on how to submit a pull request to an Aras Community Project, check out the blog post:

Submitting a Pull Request - Aras Open PLM Community

As you may have read in our recent blog post, Aras Labs is participating in Hacktoberfest 2017! The purpose of this post is to cover how exactly you can go about making contributions to Aras Community Projects.

Where can I find resources for project authors?

Here's a list of helpful resources for Aras Community Project authors and contributors:

What if I can't code or I'm new to Aras?

"Open source is a community of people just doing what needs to be done. It's not always code."
- Ashley McNamara, Principal Developer Advocate at Microsoft

Community members of all skill and experience levels can contribute to Aras Community Projects. Update some documentation, fix a typo, file a bug or enhancement idea, ask questions. Open source communities rely on users to improve all aspects of the project, not just the code. Your contributions and feedback strengthen the community and help Aras gauge demand for product enhancements and features.


LOOKING FOR MORE ARAS INSPIRATION?

Subscribe to our blog and follow @ArasLabs on Twitter for more helpful content! You can also find our latest open-source projects and sample code on the Aras Labs GitHub page.