The Real MVPs of ACE 2025? Our Community
This year’s Aras Community Event (ACE) was held in Aras’ hometown of Boston. The week kicked off with the Aras Tech Summit, an all-day event focused on our incredible developer community. It’s my favorite part of the event, and other developers seem to agree. This was our first open-invite Tech Summit, where anyone attending ACE could join. With 70 registrants, having so many knowledgeable developers in one room was incredible. We started the day with introductions, and participants shared what they wanted out of the day. The overwhelming majority were interested in seeing what other developers were doing with Aras Innovator®. Coming in as a close second was AI capabilities. With the rest of the morning dedicated to community demos, attendees were presented with new ideas, strategies, and applications developed by other users. Some demos highlighted how fully custom clients use Aras and DevOps solutions specifically created for developers. And of course, there were some AI-related demos as well. These demonstrations launched discussions, and the presenters were able to share some of the more interesting things they’ve done with our platform. It’s great being in a room full of people who like to talk about the nitty-gritty of Aras Innovator. Afternoon sessions included community updates from our new Senior Manager of Developer Relations, Eli Donahue. Eli’s new role and the return of Chris Gillis to the Aras Labs team mean great things for the Aras community. More resources mean more time for blogs, forum posts, and Community Projects. Keep your eyes out for some more exciting announcements in the coming months. After the community update, there were lab demos primarily focused on AI. The community response to these demonstrations was exciting, and we’re working on figuring out the best way to share these projects going forward. The day wrapped up with some open forum discussions. Topics included potential use cases for Aras InnovatorEdge, customizations to the Aras platform, and sharing potential developer pain points. It was a full day of discussions and talking shop. Luckily, it was followed by the Aras welcome reception, which spiced up the event with some great food and conversation. Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s ACE Tech Summit, especially those who presented. These community events are stimulating and wouldn’t be possible without all of you. Looking forward, we have a few options for those who couldn’t join us in Boston. In the fall, we will have our second annual Virtual Tech Summit, a shorter online version of the full event. Watch out for future announcements. If you’re in Europe, I highly recommend attending our ACE Connect events, each with its own Tech Summit. I could not recommend these events more highly to a developer interested in Aras Innovator. The first Aras Connect will occur in Japan in June. It will be followed by Aras Connect events in France, Germany, the UK, and the Nordics in fall 2025. We would love to hear your feedback. Feel free to comment on this blog post or contact me for further conversation.
Calling Methods via Configurable Web Services
In previous blog posts, we’ve covered how to set up a Configurable Web Service (CWS) within Aras Innovator®. In this post, we will cover a way to extend the functionality of a CWS endpoint by calling a server method. Creating our Method To start, we will need to create the server Method that will be called via our CWS endpoint. In this example, we will be creating a new endpoint for registering Alternate parts. If a user passes in a Part Number for a part, and a Part Number for an alternate part, this method will create a Part Alternate relationship between the two. Log in as an admin Navigate to TOC -> Administration -> Methods Create a new method with the method code below gist.github.com/christophersgillis/f25bfd73feb7148715a44d72ac01e880 Save and close the Method Note that at the start of this method we are retrieving two properties: the base_part_number and an alternate_part_number. When we make our web service below, we will configure the method endpoint to accept these two parameters. Defining our CWS Web Service Now that we have our Method defined, we can configure our CWS service such that we can call this Method from it. Log in as an admin Navigate to TOC -> Administration -> External Access -> Web Services Create a new CWS web service Title: Parts Management Endpoint Name: PartsManagement Click save and now configure a new endpoint related to this web service Instead of clicking Add ItemTypes as you might have done following our previous blogs, click Add Global Methods Search for and select the method we created above The Alias here will determine what the actual URL will be, so set the Alias to AddPartAlternate We’ll also add two parameters to match what the method is expecting: the base_part_number and alternate_part_number Save both the endpoint and the web service and open Postman for testing Calling our Method With Postman open, we can set up the sample call we will be using to test our new Method endpoint. If you’ve been following along, your request should look something like the screenshot below. Note that because this is a Method endpoint, the request type should always be POST. After configuring the Authorization for the request (either using an API Key or authenticating via OAuth), we should be able to click send and see that our Part Alternate was successfully added! This is just one example of the ways that we can leverage server methods to make our CWS endpoints even more valuable. Let us know if there are any business needs that this functionality would be useful to address. We hope you will be joining us at this year’s ACE Tech Summit March 31, 2025 from 9:00 AM – 4:30, followed by a reception. Details and registration information may be found here.Requirements Engineering and Variant Management Updates in Release 33
The recent rollout of Aras Innovator® Release 33 included upgrades to some of our existing applications. Our goal is to improve the user experience for Aras's Variant Management and Requirements Engineering applications. Let’s take a look at what’s new in Release 33. Variant Management In our newest release of Variant Management, we’ve introduced the concept of Configurator Context. Since products are always evolving, Configurator Context captures the applicable features, options, and rules for specific scopes of work, streamlining the concurrent management of past, present, and future product designs. When resolving Variability Items, you can now select a specific Context to automatically resolve particular features and options based on the selected context: In this example, the RP Series 2024 robot arm is specifically for Palletizing; no other valid options exist, so none are displayed. This is also visualized more clearly in the Configurator Context ItemType within the Variability Structure Tree Grid View. Here you can see that for the same RP Series Robot Arm, we can quickly see which options for each feature applies to the given context: And these can be set directly for each context within the Context Editor tab, shown below: Requirements Engineering In addition to the upgrade to Variant Management, there is also a new version of the Requirements Engineering document. This brings the Requirement Document Itemtype more in line with our standard Technical Document Framework. This comes with multiple benefits and the ability to better customize your Requirement Documents to fit your needs. Let’s take a look at the changes. The Technical Documentation Framework is a flexible and powerful tool for customizing documents and creating powerful links between items. We’ve written blogs on how you can modify your technical documents to contain new content, and those should still function as expected with the new version of RE. The main difference you’ll notice between the old Requirement Documents and the upgraded version is in the amount of options you have for authoring your Requirements. Many of the standard Tech Doc elements are now at your disposal. These can be inserted directly into your individual requirements, which can then be embedded in your Requirement documents. Formatting and spacing should be preserved when embedding. Here’s a quick example of what a more complete Requirement document would look like: As you can see, each requirement has sub-components which can be individually modified. Try experimenting with all the new components available for more powerful and relevant Requirements Documents. That was a quick overview of some of the big upgrades to applications in Release 33. Applications like Manufacturing Process Planning and Enterprise Search were also changed for compatibility and other minor improvements. There are exciting things coming down the pipeline, and there are great reasons to be on recent releases of Aras Innovator. To learn more, consider registering for our annual Aras Community Event (ACE), March 31 – April 3, 2025 in Boston! We hope to see you there.A Few Tips for Styling Responsive Forms with Aras Innovator
In previous posts, we’ve covered the basics of responsive forms. In this blog, we will dive even deeper and share some tips and tricks for making responsive forms more visually appealing to your end users. Here are a few tips on how to make your responsive forms convey more information in the same space. Nested columns In our first introductory blog on responsive forms, we outlined how your form can be broken down into columns to better organize your properties. A cool thing that you might not know is that you can actually break your columns into additional columns. While that might sound complicated, our UI makes it very simple to configure. Here’s a quick look at what this looks like in action: To configure this, you need to open your responsive form editor and just drag a box from the Structure tab into one of your columns: From here, you can select any of your unused properties and drop them directly into the new columns you’ve created. It’s important to keep in mind the length of your property when doing this and reserve this practice for shorter properties. Good examples are things like Revision, State, Generation, Part Number, and things like Booleans or Cost. Color coding important properties In another of my previous blogs, I showed how you can set rules to customize your forms. These can be based on things like who is viewing the form or what the actual value of the property is. This can be used in multiple different ways, but one that I’ve found useful is to check the current variable of your item and style the Revision property a different color if you’re not looking at the most current version of the Item. This gives your user a very quick visual indication that they might be looking at an older version of an Item. Here’s a quick look at what that rule would look like: Another great place to use this is on lifecycle/workflow states. Using a simple color code allows users to quickly understand what is happening with their Items once they open a form. I recommend playing around with these to see what is possible. In the same vein, utilizing rules to hide specific properties from identities is much easier than it was in the old form system. This allows you to have fewer specialized views, which require less maintenance. Concluding thoughts Responsive forms continue to receive enhancements with each release. There has never been a better time to give them a try, and trying is as simple as pressing this button on your Item’s form: Keep in mind that this button just changes your view and doesn’t overwrite any of your existing forms. You can freely switch back and forth between your classic and responsive forms. Give them a try, and let us know what you’re able to build! Consider sharing with colleagues via comments. We want to hear from you.Streamline Collaboration with Aras Supplier Management Solutions
Supplier Management Solutions is new to Aras Innovator and supports Releases 22+. This new application allows you to collaborate seamlessly with your suppliers. Your suppliers can see relevant data approved by your organization through an external portal. The SMS application includes additions to our data model and the Aras Portal, and we’ll go over both below. The Aras view This application adds multiple new ItemTypes, which, in typical Aras fashion, are completely customizable to fit your needs. The package includes a hub for suppliers and additional Item Types linked via properties and relationships. These include all the Items you’ll need for assessment, procurement, and risk management. These items can also be augmented to link directly to other standard or custom Item Types. The Aras portal view The Aras Portal is a separate web service that runs alongside your Aras Innovator server. It connects directly and securely with your server while respecting our complicated permission model. It’s a great way to ensure that suppliers have whatever access they need, without exposing critical business information. The Aras Portal can be accessed either via desktop or mobile, with both views being shown in the screenshots below. It’s important to note that things like our viewers (CAD, PDF) and SSVC are all available in the Aras Portal. This allows for direct, in-context communication between suppliers and manufacturers, whether logged into Aras Innovator or your portal. After showing this application off at ACE 2024, customers expressed great interest. This connectivity between manufacturers and suppliers opens the door for collaboration and efficiency. If this seems like something you could use, let us know in the comments or reach out to our presales team directly for a demonstration and consultation on how to get started using Supplier Management Solutions. For a closer look at this exciting new application, register now for our upcoming webinar, Optimizing PLM Supplier Management Solutions, on November 5. It’s not too soon to start thinking about ACE 2025. Hope to see you there!
Aras Builders! The Virtual Tech Summit is Just Around the Corner
Want to see some real-world challenges developers have solved with the Aras platform and learn how they did it? Want to connect with other Aras Community members in an open forum? Want to do it all for free? Join us for the virtual Aras Tech Summit live on September 19 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM US EDT. What's a Tech Summit? The Tech Summit is a small, 1-day pre-conference session we host at our onsite Aras Community Event (ACE) in the US and some of our Aras Connect events in Europe. The format is simple: In the morning, Builders—developers and other hands-on folks who create solutions on the platform—gather for "show & tell" to showcase their projects and get inspired by others' cool ideas. Then, participants regroup after lunch for open forum discussions, where everyone can ask and answer questions or exchange ideas on various technical topics. It's a beloved tradition that Aras Labs’ AJ Sebastian summed up well in his post-ACE blog this year. Why (virtually) mess with a good thing? While we love our in-person events and plan to continue to host them, two factors are behind our decision to try a virtual format for this event: frequency and inclusivity. Optimize frequency We often hear feedback that attendees would like to engage with the technical community more frequently. Supplementing the onsite events with an online offering means we can help folks connect between our conferences. Convenience and accessibility Onsite events pose logistical constraints (like travel restrictions) and exclude potential participants who can't secure the budget or time to travel to our in-person events. Now, you can attend from anywhere, with a shorter time commitment to expand the reach and increase networking opportunities. Access Expert Knowledge Gain direct access to industry leaders, innovators, and technical experts who might not otherwise be available at in-person events. Virtual summits provide opportunities to hear from top-tier speakers without geographical limitations. Virtual Tech Summit Highlights Here are some highlights attendees can look forward to: Get the inside scoop The new Aras SVP of Product Management, Igal Kaptsan, will introduce himself to the community and share key insights into his product philosophy. We'll also share a quick update on the Build with Aras initiative our CEO, Roque Martin, announced at ACE US in March. Learn how they built it We have great presentations lined up that demonstrate not only a solution built on the Aras platform but also how and why it was built. Builders from Aras and the Aras Community will outline a business problem, discuss how they built the solution, and show the result. These speakers will touch on various PLM and technical topics, including web services, low-code modeling, mobile-friendly applications, serialized part manufacturing, and BOM to CAD management. Learn what's coming up for the Aras Community We'll have a quick update on upcoming events for the Aras Community. Be ready to mark your calendars with the next online and in-person events! Connect with fellow Builders We'll wrap up the virtual event with an open forum discussion for all participants. This segment is an excellent opportunity to ask other community members how they've solved a similar problem, exchange ideas, or ask follow-up questions of the day's presenters. Don’t miss this opportunity! If the virtual Tech Summit sounds like your kind of event, be sure to sign up and save the date: September 19 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, US EDT. For more information on the event, visit our event page. You can also skip that step and register now!Improvements in Configurable Web Services & Responsive Forms in Aras Innovator 32
In Aras Innovator® Release 32, we’ve made some important changes to two of our newest features. Responsive Forms and Configurable Web Services have seen enhancements that improve usability and reliability. Responsive Forms As one of the newest additions to Aras Innovator, we’re continuously working on improving Responsive Forms. With our newest release, we’ve added low-code logic that allows you to color the background, element, or text of your fields. This had to be managed with code in the past, but now you can use our simple rule editor, which I described in a previous blog. In addition, you can now add Boolean Operators when using multiple rules. This allows for finer control over your forms based directly on the data. This allows us to do things like the following: Responsive Forms can now be used in the Add, View, and Edit view types. This allows you to have different views based on how your users interact with your form. Configurable Web Services (CWS) There are a number of new features in CWS that will make it much easier to use for different use cases. One of the biggest ones is an easier File Upload. A new Upload Endpoint allows you to upload files with a single request, as opposed to the multi-step process from before. In addition, we’ve enabled developers to execute transactions in batches for both the REST API and CWS. This will reduce the number of server calls while improving transaction rollback if a request fails. Finally, for CWS, we’ve added the ability to allow specific API Keys to overwrite system properties. This needs to be handled very carefully but allows for powerful connections to external systems. It will be very useful when pulling items from other systems to federate them in Aras since you can do things like overwrite when an Item is created to match the value in the external system. This can be configured under the API Keys relationship in your CWS: These changes to two of our newest features are just the beginning. We’ve got some really exciting things coming in the pipeline. Please try out some of these new features and let us know how you like them on the forums. We’d love to hear some feedback and what we could do to better meet your needs.Aras Innovator: Three Quick Configuration Tips
Hello! As I continue to tinker with Aras Innovator® working on internal projects, I’m constantly discovering cool tips and tricks on how you can improve your user experience with our low-code tools. This blog will have three quick tips for configuring your instance of Aras Innovator to improve collaboration and visual clarity. Reverse graph navigation direction When looking at a Graph Navigation, you can move left or right (assuming horizontal orientation). Items that flow from left to right follow a standard or item property relationship. Items moving right to left use a referencing item relationship. This can make some Graph Navigation Views difficult to parse with left and right connections. I prepared a demo to show how it’s done and for visual quality. Read on to learn more. Go to the TOC > Administration > Configuration > Graph View Definition. Open the Graph View Definition you’d like to modify the direction of. Open the Connectors tab. It should look like this The important part of this is the Source and Target Node columns. Find the relationship you’d like to reverse the direction of by looking at the start/end query item. Once you’ve located the row you’re looking for, you can swap the values for the Source and Target Nodes. This will flip the direction of the connector, allowing for more easily digestible Graph Nav Views. Label your graph connectors Another way to add visual clarity to your graphs is to label your connections. It’s an easy way to ensure people understand the connections within your digital thread. This one has two steps. First, we need a View Card Definition with the following Template Definition. This definition is just a simple black line with a label affixed to it. Once that View Card is created, we’ll have to add it to our Graph View Definition. Open the Connector View Relationship. You’ll have to add your new View Definition to the Connector View Column. This simply states that you want your connector to follow the definition we set previously. The final step is opening up the Connector Type for the row you just modified. Under the Properties relationship, you can add a new Property called description (case sensitive), and in the value template, add the text you’d like to add to your Connector. When you open your Graph Nav View, you’ll see beautifully labeled Connections. Auto-enable SSVC pane This is a quick one, but it helps ensure people are aware of the discussion surrounding whatever Item they may be viewing at a given moment. Having the pane default to open allows any new discussions to be immediately visible to anyone viewing a given Item. To do this, we’ll take a look at the Part ItemType. Start editing the Part ItemType and open the Secure Social relationship: Right click the Discussion Template and open the related item. You’ll see a Discussion Template with two relationships. Open the Discussion Template View tab. Here, you’ll see a single Item with a few properties. The important one is Discussion Panel Behavior. Editing this relationship and setting this to Discussion Panel On will make it so the discussion panel automatically opens when you open an Item. This is set on an ItemType by ItemType basis, so set it wherever you think collaboration could use a boost! These were just three quick customizations you can make in your own system. Things that improve visual clarity and make things more apparent to users save everyone time in the long run. If you’ve made changes like this that improve efficiency at your company and want to share them, take it to the Forums! We’d love to see some of the amazing user-friendly customizations people have made to make Aras Innovator.Consuming CWS Endpoints in Aras Innovator
My previous blog reviewed how to configure a simple Web Service using Configurable Web Services. This companion blog will use the same example created in my previous blog and go over how to submit requests to the Web Service you created. It will be similar to previous blogs about authenticating with and utilizing our Rest API. We’ll be using Postman to execute our requests, but you can also use this method to communicate with Aras Innovator from your own custom applications. API Key vs Oauth In the previous blog, I showed how you could generate an API Key for your Web Service. I want to take a moment to say that while those are useful, they should not be used except in unique circumstances. The biggest reason is the lack of traceability. When external systems are accessing or modifying your Aras Innovator instance, you want a record of who is making those transactions. For custom applications, you should be authenticating via OAuth, as we will in this post. API Keys are intended for use in cases where a server-to-server connection is being made, and you wouldn’t be worried about who is committing that action. An example would be an Azure service called s called automatically and programmatically. The API Key would be the better option there as a user wouldn’t be responsible for the transaction. An Example – Launching Postman Since we’ve already created our Web Service, the next step is to launch Postman. If you’re unsure how to use/authenticate with Postman, take a look at these two blogs on authenticating and utilizing our Rest API. The format for querying your Web Service is exactly the same as using our OData endpoint. Using OData, a request for all parts looks like this: http://localhost/31demo/Server/Odata/Part Querying our new endpoint looks like this: http://localhost/31demo/Server/ws/partBom/v1/Part The URL you use is specific to your Endpoint, and of course, you can have multiple. You can find the URL in the Endpoints tab of your Web Service. It’s also important to note that you can use all the same tricks to get specific data that you can use in the OData endpoint. Things like filtering, getting specific items, and querying relationships all work. Here’s an example of the part output. The only things that are returned from your query are the things you defined in your Web Service. If you try to get Documents without including them in your Endpoint, you’ll see the following result. This is very powerful, allowing you to ensure that only the required data is exposed. A great example of this would be if you wanted to create an external application that queries Aras Innovator®. You’d want to limit the app's access to avoid potential security issues. That was a quick demonstration of how you can consume your Configurable Web Services. I highly recommend playing around with the Endpoint editor to see if it could suit the needs of your external applications.
