Altium can read component data over ODBC, but wiring it up by hand is famously fiddly: drivers, DSNs, column mappings, and a schema you have to keep in step.

Sideband ships an ODBC connector that handles the bridge for you, so Altium sees a clean, parametric view of your library and updates flow through without manual remapping.

The short version

1. Install Sideband and point it at your library.
2. Add the Sideband ODBC source (one step, no manual DSN surgery).
3. In Altium, attach the database library — symbols, footprints and parameters are already mapped.

That’s it. When parts change in Sideband, Altium sees the change.

Want the deep dive? The Altium connector page walks through the workflow end to end.