In the Onshape Professional subscription, you have access to release management. This allows users within your company to move objects through an approval process that will automatically increment revision. This Tech Tip will focus on how you can allow an outside party to participate in your process as an Observer at no additional cost.
First, third parties need to be added to a team in order to add them as an Observer. Only people within your company can be added to the release process individually. Go to Teams in the company settings and add an outside party email address into a team. If they do not have an account yet, Onshape will make one for them and send them an invitation email.
Before including them in a release candidate, make sure “Release management” is enabled in the company settings.
Start a release candidate either from a workspace or individual object. Fill in the required fields and add the group to the Observers box. Submit the candidate when complete.
Note: Make sure the group you have put a third party in has permissions to view the Document, or share it before making the release candidate.
The outside party receives a notification from Onshape about the Document and can click on it to view.
If they have a free account, the Onshape Document will be view-only regardless of what permissions you have given them in the Share options. With those permissions, they can still measure, evaluate the assembly structure, make comments, and also look at the BOM.
If they have a higher level subscription, they will be able to take advantage of whatever permissions you gave their team in the share. No matter the subscription level, outside parties cannot approve a release candidate. However, they can comment on the candidate and see the comment history. When anyone comments or if the release candidate is released or rejected, everyone tagged in the candidate will get notified.
Including outside parties in your release management workflow will streamline communication and enable further collaboration.
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