Review Competing ECAD and MCAD Changes Before Accepting a Board Update

Electrical and mechanical designers can both change the same mounting hole or connector position between exchanges. Accepting every incoming change may produce a board that matches neither designer’s intention. Review the shared baseline and the competing changes before updating the working design.

Altium’s CoDesigner documentation describes transferring changes between ECAD and MCAD and reviewing their acceptance. The exchange mechanism supports collaboration, but the team still needs to decide which proposed geometry represents the approved product.

Identify the common starting point

Record the board revision and mechanical assembly revision used for the last agreed exchange. Then list changes made independently on each side. If that baseline is unknown, establish it before treating the incoming differences as a complete change list.

For a disputed mounting hole, compare its old location, the electrical proposal, and the mechanical proposal. Add the reason for each move. A clearance improvement on the PCB may conflict with an enclosure boss that changed at the same time.

Resolve connected changes together

A connector move can affect the enclosure opening, cable access, nearby components, and routed copper. Review that group as one engineering decision. Accepting the body position while rejecting its associated keepout or opening may leave an internally inconsistent assembly.

Verify the accepted result on both sides

After resolving the proposal, inspect the resulting geometry in both applications. Confirm coordinates, orientation, board side, and the intended model revision. A transfer acknowledgement does not establish that the updated assembly satisfies the underlying design requirement.

Run the checks affected by the change, including electrical design rules and relevant mechanical interference checks. Do not assume that a geometrically valid incoming move preserves routing or assembly access automatically.

For geometry that remains disputed, keep the last agreed state identifiable and mark the proposed alternatives separately. Do not let a temporary review position become the manufacturing baseline through an unrelated export. Record rejected changes with their disposition so they do not return unexplained in the next exchange. If one side needs to revise its proposal, identify the responsible designer and the next expected baseline.

Keep the final exchange tied to the released board and assembly. A useful collaboration record explains the accepted geometry and the decisions behind it, allowing a later reviewer to distinguish an intentional compromise from an accidental merge of two incompatible edits.