Why Register at Digikey.com? - An Engineer's Perspective

Hey, circuit designers out there, here are some great reasons you may want to register yourself on the DigiKey website.

Having developed scores of BOMs over my career, I’m happy to tell you DigiKey has a BOM Manager tool that allows you to upload your spreadsheet, match column headings to key fields of DigiKey’s system, and get immediate visibility to the cost and availability of your board’s components. It’s easy to order from there too, but as a registered user, you can also park your BOM for someone, maybe in Purchasing, to act on. You can even get your parts in bags showing your board’s reference designators.

But there are more reasons to register. Registered users get access to key application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow you to automate all of the above. Rather than upload your parts to digikey.com, you can make a smart spreadsheet that retrieves availability and cost from DigiKey’s servers by writing a macro, or by writing an application from scratch in Python, C, Javascript, or you name it, to make whatever custom functionality you want. Maybe you want to write a laboratory parts organizer and tracker for a smartphone that enables you to track parts you use and automatically reorders them for replenishment.

Registered users also get access to product change notices (PCNs) on parts you purchased over the last 36 months. Among other things, you can learn what parts you bought have been reclassified, such as going to end of life (EoL). You can also download free symbols and footprints to an incredibly large number of parts. All it takes is a minute to register – click here to register. I invite you to look into even more reasons for registering and let me know what’s the most useful for you.