EPLAN Signals to TIA Tag Tables

Generating TIA tag tables from EPLAN is included in the Pro+ and Enterprise plans. It reads the PLC signals of an open EPLAN project, compares them with the tags of a PLC in your TIA Portal project and imports the rows you select into its tag tables, so you do not have to type the tags of the electrical design again.

Prerequisites

• An open EPLAN project with PLC signals (see EPLAN Integration).
• An open and connected TIA Portal project with the PLC that receives the tags.
• A Pro+ or Enterprise license. On a lower tier, starting the command shows an upgrade dialog instead of the comparison.

Starting the Comparison

Open both projects first. Then run Generate TIA Tag Tables from EPLAN…:

• from the tag icon in the title bar of the EPLAN Project Explorer;
• from the Command Palette;
• from the chat: ask the EPLAN Engineer agent to generate the tag tables for a PLC; after your confirmation it opens the same comparison.

A view titled EPLAN to TIA Tags opens. It compares the EPLAN signals with the tags of the first PLC of the TIA project.

The Comparison View

At the top:

• Source: EPLAN PLC signals names where the rows come from.
• Target PLC: chooses the TIA PLC that receives the tags. Changing it runs the comparison again.
• Refresh reads EPLAN and TIA Portal again and rebuilds the comparison.
• Import Selected imports the selected rows.
• Push to EPLAN writes addresses or symbol names of the selected rows from TIA Portal back into EPLAN, see below.

The rows are grouped into one tag table per EPLAN PLC card, under a group named after the PLC, the same way the hardware is structured in EPLAN. Each row has these columns:

• Name: the tag name. Characters that TIA Portal does not allow in a tag name are replaced by _.
• Address: the TIA address, for example %I0.0 or %IW64.
• Data Type: the TIA data type, for example Bool, Int or Word.
• Comment: the text of the signal in EPLAN, unchanged.
• Status: New, Changed, Unchanged or Only in TIA.

The counters at the bottom show how many rows are new, changed, unchanged, only in TIA and how many have an error.

Selecting and Importing

New and changed rows are selected for you. Unchanged rows and rows marked Only in TIA are not selected. Select a row marked Only in TIA only if you want to delete that tag in TIA Portal.

The check box in the heading of a table selects or clears all importable rows of that table.

A row with an error, for example a name TIA Portal does not accept or an address that cannot be read, cannot be selected. Hover over its check box to read the reason and fix the signal in EPLAN. A signal with a data type Studio does not know is shown as Bool; check the row before you select it.

Click Import Selected. A progress bar shows the import. Afterwards a message names how many tags were created, updated, deleted and how many failed, and the comparison runs again, so the imported rows show Unchanged. Missing groups and tag tables are created in TIA Portal. When you run the command again later, the tags you imported show Unchanged, so you see at once what changed in EPLAN since then.

Pushing Addresses and Symbol Names to EPLAN

When an address or a tag name was changed in TIA Portal, you can write it back into the EPLAN project instead of changing it in EPLAN by hand:

1. Select the rows you want to push and click Push to EPLAN.
2. A dialog explains both ways. Choose one:
   • Push Addresses: a selected row whose address in TIA Portal differs from EPLAN gets the TIA Portal address in EPLAN. The address keeps the notation EPLAN uses, for example %IX7.0 or E 7.0.
   • Push Symbol Names: a selected EPLAN row that has no tag in TIA Portal gets the name of the TIA Portal tag on the same address. A row is only changed when exactly one TIA Portal tag uses that address.
3. Pick the PLC assignment list scheme from your EPLAN master data that EPLAN reads the changes with.
4. Studio runs the EPLAN project check first. When the check reports open errors, nothing is written; see EPLAN Project Check.
5. A message tells you how many rows were written, how many PLC objects EPLAN changed and how many new messages it reported. Rows that the EPLAN assignment list of the PLC does not contain are counted as not found. The comparison then runs again.

TIA Portal is only read. The push needs the PLC Assignment Lists module of your EPLAN licence; without it, Push to EPLAN is greyed out and its tooltip names the missing module. When none of the selected rows has anything to push, a message tells you so and nothing is written. When EPLAN refuses the list, the error message also shows what EPLAN reports, for example the line it could not read. You can also ask the EPLAN Engineer agent to import a PLC assignment list into EPLAN; its changes can be reverted in one step with Discard AI Changes.

Notes

• If the PLC has no signals in EPLAN, the view shows "No EPLAN PLC signals were found for this PLC."
• If no target PLC is chosen, the view shows "No target PLC was selected."
• To get the PLC signals as an Excel workbook or a CSV file instead, see EPLAN PLC Lists. To bring the PLC hardware into TIA Portal, see EPLAN to TIA Hardware Import.