Opinions on Orcad CIS / CIP options

[bobof]

Am looking at getting my own set of tools - currently using a client's own license while working on their projects.

I've grown quite used to Orcad Professional / Allegro over the past few years (17.2, not moved over to 17.4); the recent Altium offer was very tempting tho.

The main client I have have never had any of the CIS or CIP functionality so I don't have experience of it - all BOM and part / footprint management is currently done with text updates files, with subfit BOM variations created manually in Excel.  I guess over 20 years of not having CIS / CIP type functionality it hasn't been missed at this client, but the question is as I'm looking at licensing should I look to get it now - is it really the way to go and the manual approach is really from dinosaur days?

To be honest most of my own part of the work tends to be the layout side and then sometimes a bit of schematic editing to make layout easier, so CIS / CIP doesn't seem to add much to them (unless I'm not grasping that they are good footprint sources, but I didn't think that to be the case necessarily?).  But am looking to do more electronic design work as opposed to just layout jobs, and some own projects too.  I know I could do all I need without CIS / CIP...

CIS + CIP adds significant cost - it either ties me into a yearly subscription license model as they have a "reasonable" bundle package, or makes the permanent license perhaps more money than I want to spend out of the business in the current climate, whereas without CIS/CIP the perm license feels much more well priced.

I quite like the perm licenses for this tool to be honest as it doesn't exactly seem to move at a lightning pace feature wise for the stuff I'm doing (having used it from 16.5... it is a bit of a "spot the difference" exercise...).

Thoughts very much appreciated!

[Eternauta]

You can do without CIS+CIP but in the end if you work with a lot of projects and a lot of components it becomes counterproductive without data management and by entering everything by hand. The offers I had for CIS+CIP cost me like an Altium license and I just switched to the latter CAD.

[Evan.Cornell]

Previous employer had CIS + PLM system integration, which was really nice to make sure schematic data was always up-to-date with the PLM data, which is the master copy of part data.

However, my personal copy of Orcad for consulting, I haven't found it quite as necessary.. I can make do with separate part database for manual BOM production.  I don't keep any mfg part info in the schematic itself, just an internal part number. So external database is used for tying the internal part number to the mfg part info. It would be nice to have everything setup for syncing, but I can't justify the cost.

[nctnico]

In my opinion the CIS option is a mandatory option you should have. Orcad Capture isn't complete without it (actually any schematics package isn't complete without a feature like Orcad CIS). Orcad CIP doesn't seem very useful  to me for smaller companies. With Orcad CIS you can already link the parts to an existing purchasing/inventory system anyway.

[Eternauta]

Build a a library/synced library which is useful in the design phase (value, tolerance, voltage, current, etc etc) and in the manufacturing phase (purchase, qty in stock, where a part is used, how much to buy for a production lot) is expansive, to be evaluate when is needed.

[bobof]

Many thanks for the opinions. 

In the end I decided to just get the Orcad Professional suite without CIS/CIP on a permanent license.

My logic was usually I'm not doing the schematic at the moment, so most of the CIS/CIP benefit wouldn't be available to me - it is the PCB Editor portion that I'm in 95% of the time.  Sometimes I get involved in reworking and split BOMs, which might have been helpful, but these are typically just a few hours work. 

CIS + CIP was going to add > +60% to the total cost for the license, and the subscription option that got me CIS / CIP (which is itself a heavily discounted bundle) would have cost me > 40% more over 2 years than this permanent seat without CIS / CIP.

I guess the Pro + CIS + CIP bundle subscription deals will still be available down the road, maybe my attitude to subscriptions will have mellowed by the time I think about this again...

[nctnico]

You can buy the CIS and SIP licenses seperately. CIS isn't that expensive. But it might be your dealer is trying to push the combination and makes it look like you have to buy CIS + CIP in one package.

When I bought Orcad I also bought the dongle instead of a license bound to a PC. That way I can use Orcad on any PC (and can continue in case my PC fails).

[bobof]

You can buy the CIS and SIP licenses seperately. CIS isn't that expensive. But it might be your dealer is trying to push the combination and makes it look like you have to buy CIS + CIP in one package.

When I bought Orcad I also bought the dongle instead of a license bound to a PC. That way I can use Orcad on any PC (and can continue in case my PC fails).

I've gone for the dongle too, don't really want a node-locked license.  I'll put the dongle in a fixed machine and use it as a license server.

I think they're trying to push everyone into the subscription model, so probably it was structured to make that look like the obvious choice. 

The CIP part does seem a natural partner to CIS from what I can see, and its cost is much less than CIS (just over half the cost extra from what I was quoted).  If I'd gone for CIS I'd have got CIP too as the extra cost on for that was much smaller (and quite tiny when compared to Orcad Pro + CIS.  I did have all the separate pricing for the individual components, so it was clear where the division of cost was.