Arena Solutions is a company that offers a sophisticated cloud-based product life cycle management tool to help electronics manufacturers keep a range of information accurate, current and readily accessible to designers, procurement staff and their vendors. BOMControl is a centralized repository accessible with a friendly interface to manage bills of materials and changes. It is not a particularly costly solution, but if you are part of a fledgling design group or even a hobbyist, perhaps you don’t need a long list of features but do need to keep costs as close to zero as possible. Whatever the reason, Arena has created a new, streamlined component research and management tool they call PartsList. Just like BOMControl, PartsList is a cloud app. But best of all, this new software is absolutely free for personal use. All you need for an account is to sign up with a valid email and wait for the confirmation message to appear in your inbox.
Once signed in, you will arrive at the main PartsList page. Here you will see a black header bar with the Arena logo and “PartsList” followed to the right by “Refresh Lists” and “Import” buttons. The function is fairly obvious, but we will discover some details later on in this review. The right hand edge of the header shows your login username followed by sign out and help buttons. Again, little in the way of explanation is required here.
To create a new list, one need only click the “+” button on the left in the grey sub-header bar just below the black header. This pops up a new tab in the visual vernacular of today’s web browser that allows the user to name the new list by clicking on the tab. PartsList names may be edited later, so don’t be shy about getting started. In a similar manner, a new component gets added to the list by clicking the green “+” button. This may not be completely obvious at first glance since new part list tabs initially show row label 1. However, this is not a real entry and cannot be edited at this point. Users need to click the green “+” for adding rows which refreshes the screen with that original first row now able to take keyboard entries.
Although I am not personally involved with specifying parts lists for products, I frequently need to search for components, save the results, and return to these later to make purchases. It’s natural to be skeptical of software utilities that offer web clipping capability since there are so many general purpose tools for this. But copy and paste and spreadsheets can be cumbersome at the best of times and completely unruly for larger lists.
Browsing and searching for components for a new project or additions to an ongoing one is a logical place to start a review of the PartsList application. If you log into PartsList with a browser other than Chrome or Firefox, you are faced with a message that full functionality is only supported on those browsers. With that, let me point out one of the obvious and most useful features which is to keep track of device information you find at distributor sites. The PartsList developers have created a browser plug-in called PartSaver that aptly appears in my bookmarks as “Save to PartsList” to capture and save details for potentially interesting components. The details of the distributor are tracked as well, so you can get back for a second look or final choices when it’s time to buy. I started putting PartsList through the paces using an unsupported browser - Safari for the Mac. PartSaver worked fine on Safari, so the application is fairly solid or at the very least conservatively spec’ed out. However, I followed the rules and used Firefox 11.0 for the Mac (running OS 10.5.8) for the bulk of this PartsList review.
The PartSaver plug is becoming a trusted tool for me as I browse for parts that I may need to track down quickly in the future. Let’s face it. Electronics distributor web sites can be difficult to navigate. With all the product lines and components, design of the interface often ends up low on the list of priorities. Since it takes me so long to become comfortable finding my way around these sites, I tend to gravitate to one or two distributors. However, Arena’s PartsList solution makes it
much easier to stand above all potential suppliers to make comparisons since the sources are just one click away. And when the time comes to make a decision and get moving quickly, PartsList takes you very quickly to the checkout at whatever source you choose.
Arena PartsList supports an extensive list of parts sources from A (Allied, Arrow and Avnet) to T (as in TTI). Arena promises the site list is expanding, and I can attest to this from personal experience. While researching this review, I managed to uncover one gap in site support. You might say it was just another one of the many costs of doing business here in Canada, but it turned out that the PartSaver browser plug-in was unable to pull component data off the Digi-Key.ca site. I reported the issue to Arena and the mystery was solved within 24 hours.
The PartSaver plug-in worked just fine with the Digi-Key.com site, but Digi-Key.ca provided component data differently, and the current software build had not been tested for this discrepancy. In terms of responsiveness, I should point out that a good chunk of the time getting the issue tracked down was because Arena tech support was waiting for me to send them specific links of my issues. Arena is working out the kinks, and the next revision should take care of this. The issue with the Digi-Key.ca site highlights the amount of effort that has to be applied to this type of application. There are already a baker’s dozen on the main list. Then the developers get a curve ball thrown at them by country-specific top level domains.
See the full list of supported sites below.
• Allied Electronics
• Arrow
• Avnet
• Digi-Key (.com)
• Element14
• Farnell
• Future Electronics
• Newark
• Jameco
• Molex
• Mouser
• Online Components
• TTI
Most electronics junkies coming over to PartsList will likely not be starting from scratch. Fortunately, that is a very good place to start testing the application. There is a convenient import feature that lets users pull their existing work into a new online list. The import function just needs a .csv file with a header row. During import, the tool prompts the user to map spreadsheet columns to the standard PartsList columns. The import button is conveniently placed in the black PartsList header bar.
I did manage to break the import operation once although not at that stage. Some specific columns are required but only if the PartsList data needs to be exported out to PDX format and subsequently opened by Arena’s own free online PDX viewer. I am not a PDX user, so this test was undertaken with the desire to provide a thorough product review. Unfortunately, the need for certain standard columns was not clear and I missed these when importing my original spreadsheet data into PartsList. On the bright side, Arena responded very quickly and there is a good chance this bug will be fixed by the time this review is published.
PDX is not the only format for exporting component lists to save on your computer or share with colleagues. Spreadsheet-friendly .csv format is the second option. This text export function worked flawlessly.
I am not a member of the YouTube generation, but just like the kids I appreciate the visual learning opportunity. Arena has a nice assortment of short, snappy videos that introduce the PartsList product as well as walking through specific features with focused segments. The videos are a good place to get started to see if PartsList will work for you.
As you work within the PartsList environment, there is a pop-up help menu with just enough information to get over hiccups that might occur. The main functions are fairly obvious and easy to locate on the clean web layout. Everything else is succinctly explained by the help pop-up.
Arena PartsList is tightly integrated with a service I was introduced to during the course of reviewing the Arena products. Octopart is a search engine devoted to electronic parts. As powerful as the ubiquitous Google is, it gives superfluous results when searching for electronic components. This becomes more of an issue as more and more web sites learn how to make the most self-serving use of Google search algorithms. A search engine purpose-built for electronics designers eliminates most of the clutter created by mainstream search tools pulling out shopping sites and on-line pharmacies.
Octopart is not just a destination but also an enabler since the company offers an API for third parties to integrate the search tool into their own systems. Arena recognized the potential of Octopart, and its seamless integration in PartsList is a big part of the power of the online component management system.
Whether it is a list imported from a spreadsheet, a BOM started anew in PartsList, or a mix of both, Arena has added a compelling feature that allows the extensive Octopart database to update any information missing from the user list including datasheet files. The process is as simple as clicking a check box for individual line items or the box at the top to select all the components from the list. Once one or more components are selected, you have the option to perform several functions previously greyed out at the bottom of the browser window. Clicking the Autofill button will activate the Octopart connection, and your part list will suddenly contain a lot more useful information, particularly datasheets if these were not linked previously.
The upload feature combined with autofill using the Octopart service is powerful. Starting with a real working spreadsheet of 290 components, I uploaded the csv text table and the Octopart database filled in the blanks in just a few seconds.
Arena tech support responsiveness proves to me they are trying to create something good. In fact, I expect the Arena folks will be as happy for you to try to break their system as they were when I did. They want us to test it and their attention to software issues proves this. But the folks at Arena are looking for more than that. They hope to collect suggestions for improvements and new features from real users. PartsList doesn’t feel like new software. It works very well with only a few minor hiccups. But this is where jumping in and testing PartsList for yourself might really payoff. At this point in the product roadmap, Arena proved to me that users have a legitimate opportunity to have a hand in the evolution of PartsList.
Arena is actively soliciting feedback wherever possible including through this review article. The folks at Arena will be watching, so post your comments or contact them directly with features you would like to see in future releases. The bottom line is that Arena’s PartsList is a lightweight but powerful companion for their enterprise BOMControl software perfect for anyone from hobbyist to seasoned embedded system designer looking to simplify parts research on the cheap. But the story doesn’t end here. There’s a good chance users like you can help make PartsList better than it is today.