Commissioning Report

Overview

The Commissioning Report turns the open TIA project into an acceptance document: a cover page with your company and order data, the hardware configuration, the network overview, an IO checklist you tick off point by point during commissioning, free function-test checklists, a deviation list, and signature blocks for contractor and customer. The finished report exports as print-ready HTML or PDF in German or English. The feature requires a Pro+ license or higher.

Set up your company profile once

Open Settings and switch to the Company Profile page. Enter your company name, address, and a logo (PNG, JPG, or SVG up to 500 KB), plus the default commissioning engineer, a report footer line, and an output folder for exported reports. Every new report starts prefilled with this data.

Find your reports in the sidebar

The activity bar has a Commissioning icon (a checklist symbol). It lists every commissioning report in your working folder: click one to open it, or use the plus button at the top of the list to create a new report. If there is no report yet, the view offers to create the first one.

Create a report

1. Connect to your TIA project and right-click the CPU in the Project Explorer, then choose Create Commissioning Report (also available from the Command Palette).
2. Pick the report type: FAT (factory acceptance), SAT (site acceptance), or IBN (commissioning).
3. Choose where to save the report file. It lives next to your project files, so you can keep it under version control.

The report opens in its own editor tab and immediately collects the project data: stations, modules with article numbers and firmware, network addresses, tag tables, safety signatures, and the IO checklist. A progress note shows what is being read; you can cancel at any time.

Fill the cover page

The Cover & Sections page holds the report title, type, customer, plant or machine, order number, location, date, commissioning engineer, the report footer (prefilled from your company profile when the report is created, and yours to change for this report), and the customer signatory. Below it you choose which sections the exported document contains, for example with or without the full tag tables.

Work through the IO checklist

The IO Checklist page lists every IO point with address, symbol, comment, data type, and module. During commissioning:

• Click the result button to cycle a point through Open, Passed, and Failed. Your name and the check time are recorded automatically.
• Add a remark to any point, for example the terminal you corrected.
• Analog points take a Target and a Measured value, written as free text with unit and tolerance, for example "12.0 mA +/- 0.1". During a live check every monitored analog row shows a Capture button that copies the current live value into the Measured field with one click. The exported document lists all points with measured values in their own table.
• Filter by address, symbol, comment, or module, and narrow the list to open or failed points.
• Safety points carry a red F marker; spare channels without a symbol are listed too, so nothing is missed.

The section badge in the navigation always shows how many points are checked. If you collect the project data again later, your results and remarks are kept for unchanged points.

Check IO points live against the PLC

When you are connected to the PLC in PLC Online, click Start Live Check on the IO Checklist page. Studio first shows you exactly what will happen: which CPU, how many points will be monitored, and that outputs are only ever written after you confirm each write. After you start:

• A live value column shows the current state of every monitored point.
• Actuate a sensor on site: the moment a binary input changes, its point is ticked off as Passed with your name and the check time. Points you already marked by hand are never overwritten, and analog values, outputs, and safety points are never ticked automatically; you check those by reading the live value and setting the result yourself.
• Monitored output rows get a Set button: for binary outputs one click offers the switched value, for other types you enter the value; every write shows a confirmation with value, symbol, address, and CPU before anything reaches the PLC.
• Use the filter first to run the check plant section by plant section; only the visible points are monitored (up to 100 per run).

Click Stop Live Check to end the run; the results are saved into the report. If the connection to the PLC drops, the run stops with a warning. This part is included from the Pro+ plan.

Function tests and deviations

On the Function Tests page you create your own checklists, for example a start-up sequence per plant section, and tick off each step with the same Passed/Failed/N-A results. Every step can state its expected result next to the step text, so the signed document shows what was defined as success. A Diary page records what was done on which day, and the report shows a result summary with totals for the IO checklist, function tests, and deviations, on the Project Data page and in the exported document. While connected to the TIA project you can also click Add Function from Project: a filterable list shows the functions and function blocks of every PLC, and each function you select becomes its own checklist. The checklist shows the block's type, language, and PLC together with the author and the creation and last-change timestamps from the block header; the exported document prints the same line under the checklist heading. The Deviations page records everything that needs a follow-up: description, severity, responsible person, due date, and a resolved mark.

The assistant helps here too: it reads your hardware configuration and proposes concrete test steps, always from the real project data, and it can write them straight into the report. A plant description it writes as text in the chat for you to place, because the cover fields hold single-line entries; see Work with the assistant below.

Reuse tests instead of typing them again

Below the function tests you find four buttons that build a report from work that already exists:

• Add from Template shows the templates in your workspace and working folder, the templates included with Studio, and the option to pick a template file. You then tick the checklists you want. Checklists the report already contains are skipped and named. One template ships with Studio, for alarms and messages, with the usual steps from triggering through acknowledging to clearing. The texts a template brings are taken over exactly as the template holds them (the template included with Studio is written in Studio's display language) and stay in the report as written; the export language translates the document's labels, not your test texts.
• Save Checklists as Template writes the current report's tests into a template file, without results, remarks, and check marks. A template records what to test, never an outcome, so it fits every further plant.
• Add Safety Checks creates one checklist per fail-safe runtime group of the collected project, prefilled with triggering, safe reaction, restart, and signature comparison. Each checklist names the runtime group, its main safety block, and the signature at the moment it was created, in the view as well as in the exported document. Runtime groups that already have a checklist are left untouched. If a checklist already carries the runtime group's name, for example because it came from a template, and holds no results yet, it is completed with these details instead of a second one being created; a checklist of that name that already carries results stays as it is, and the message counts it. When two CPUs use the same runtime group name, the second checklist carries the CPU in its title. The prefilled steps are written in Studio's display language and stay in the report as written; the export language translates the document's labels, not your test texts.
• Copy Results from Report brings the results of an earlier acceptance into this report, for example from the factory acceptance into the site acceptance. You choose the report first, then the scope (function tests, IO checklist, or both), and finally whether only passed results are copied, so open and failed points stay open for the re-test, or all recorded results. Whatever you already recorded in this report, a result, a remark, or a measured value, stays untouched: what was checked on site is never replaced by a copied result. The message then names how much was copied, how much stayed as it was, and how many results had no counterpart in this report. If the other report comes from a different project, or one of the two reports has no collected project data, Studio asks before copying. When both reports recorded the version of a block or safety program and those versions differ, its results are not copied; those tests are repeated. Every copy is recorded in the revision history together with the source report, so the signed document shows where results came from; that entry is written in Studio's display language and stays in the report as written.

Capture the CPU's actual state

When you are connected to the PLC in PLC Online, click Collect Online State in the report toolbar. The report then also records what the real CPU reports: serial number, hardware and firmware version, the project loaded on the CPU, the protection level, memory usage, cycle times, and the latest diagnostic buffer entries. If the firmware or article number on the CPU differs from what the project plans, the report highlights the deviation side by side. Everything lands in the exported document in its own Online Actual State section, so the acceptance protocol proves what was actually running at handover. This part is included from the Pro+ plan.

Photos and enclosures

On the Appendix page you attach photos as evidence: click Add Photo, choose what the photo belongs to, the report in general, an IO point, a function test, or a deviation, and pick one or more image files. You can also start where the evidence belongs: every IO point in the checklist has a camera button, and every function test checklist and every deviation has an Add Photo button, so the photo is filed under that point, test, or deviation right away. The files are copied into a folder next to the report file that carries the report's name, so the originals stay with the report; if you move or rename the report file, move or rename that folder with it, otherwise its photos show as unavailable. Every photo shows a thumbnail, an editable caption, and who added it when. The exported document prints the photos as numbered figures in an appendix, each with a note saying which point or test it documents. If a photo belongs to an IO point or a test that you removed in the meantime, the report says so instead of showing it as a general photo. Each figure also states its own case: a photo left out because the document reached its picture limit is marked as printed without a preview, a file that can no longer be read is marked as unavailable, and a photo whose file was replaced after you attached it is printed with a note, so nothing is claimed that is not true. Files that are not images, are too large or have a very high resolution are named and skipped when you pick them, and the report is saved as soon as photos are added.

Below the photos, the Enclosures list names the external documents that belong to the acceptance, for example the safety printout or an electrical measurement protocol, each with title, reference or file name, and revision. The list prints as a table in the appendix, so the signed document states exactly which papers complete it.

Work with the assistant

The chat assistant can work on the open report with you. It finds the reports in your folder, opens one, or creates a new report for a factory or site acceptance. Ask it to read the report and it tells you where you stand: how many IO points are still open, which tests failed, and what the deviation list says. Ask it to write and it fills the report for you:

• Cover data: title, customer, plant, order number, location, date, commissioning engineer, and which sections the document contains. Each of these is a single-line entry, and a date is a calendar date.
• Function tests: a proposed checklist for a plant section, further steps in an existing checklist, or a correction to a step text or its expected result.
• Results you dictate, for example "the first three conveyor tests passed, the last one failed, the drive does not start". The assistant records the results, remarks and measured values you state.
• Deviations, diary entries, participants and enclosures.
• Photos from image files you name, with a caption, attached to the report, an IO point, a whole test checklist or a deviation.
• Test checklists from a template, prefilled safety checks, and results taken over from an earlier report.
• Collecting the project data or the CPU actual state, and exporting the finished document as PDF or HTML. If a collection run captures nothing, for example because you cancelled it or no CPU is connected, the assistant says so instead of reporting success.

Every change asks you first, as long as you have not allowed it in advance: the chat shows what is about to be written and names the report it goes into, and you accept or decline it. Recording results, changing test checklists, creating a report, taking over results, collecting data and exporting each show their own confirmation, and you can let one through once, for the session, or for good, like any other action of the assistant. Removing a test step that already carries a result, a remark or a signature is refused until the assistant has asked you about it: the question names the step by its text and says what it holds, and the revision history keeps the step text and what it held. Each accepted change is written into the revision history of the report, so the signed document states what the assistant wrote; those entries stay in the report in the language you were working in, like the entries of templates, safety checks and taken-over results.

Some things stay with you. The assistant never finalizes a report and never reopens one, never starts a live check and never writes a value to the PLC, and never deletes photos. A finalized report refuses every change until you reopen it yourself. It also never invents a result: it records only what you tell it.

This part is included from the Pro+ plan.

Export and sign

On the cover page you can record the participants of the commissioning with name, company, and role; the exported document then contains a personal signature block for each participant instead of the generic contractor and customer blocks.

Click Export PDF (or Export HTML) and pick the report language, German or English. The document lands in your configured output folder and opens with one click: A4 pages with your logo on the cover, repeated table headers, page numbers, the report's footer line on every PDF page (the HTML export prints it once at the end), and signature blocks to sign on paper. A checksum line at the end names the checksum of the saved report file, so anyone can verify that the document belongs to exactly this report state.

As long as the report is still being worked on, every exported page carries a DRAFT watermark. When the commissioning is done, click Finalize: the report is locked against changes, and the export loses the watermark and shows when and by whom it was finalized. If something has to change later, Reopen asks for a reason and records it in the revision history, so the document always shows that it was touched after finalization.