EPLAN Electric P8 and TIA Portal in one IDE

What the EPLAN integration in Studio does#

Studio connects to your local installation of EPLAN Electric P8 and uses your existing EPLAN licence. From the EPLAN tab in the activity bar you open an .elk project file or a project from the list of recent projects. When several EPLAN variants are installed, you pick the one you work with once, and Studio remembers the choice.

You then see the project in the side bar:

• Pages: every schematic page with its name and page type. You can filter the list by name and description.
• Devices: the devices of the project. A selected device shows its properties in the Function Properties view.
• Page preview: a double-click opens the page in its own tab. Zoom with the mouse wheel, pan with the middle mouse button, and a crosshair follows the pointer across the whole page.

You edit device data right in Studio: change properties such as the description or the part number in Function Properties, and drag a device to a new position in the page preview. The changes go into the EPLAN project. Schematic and PLC program stay in the same tool in which you also write, test and version SCL.

From the schematic to the TIA hardware#

The most important hand-over between electrical design and PLC programming is the hardware. Instead of rebuilding stations, racks and modules from the schematic in TIA Portal, Studio reads the PLC hardware from the EPLAN project and compares it with the hardware already in the TIA project. The workflow:

1. Open both projects: the EPLAN project in Studio and the TIA Portal project the hardware should go into, connected over the official Openness interface.
2. Start the import: with Import Hardware from EPLAN… in the Command Palette, with the circuit board icon in the title bar of the EPLAN Project Explorer, or by asking the agent in the chat.
3. Review the comparison: the comparison view shows the hardware as a tree from the stations through the racks down to the modules, with name, type, part number, firmware and address. A status badge tells you for every row whether it is New, Changed, Unchanged or Only in TIA. The station filter lets you focus on a single station.
4. Import the hardware: when the comparison looks right, a click on Import Hardware brings the EPLAN hardware into the TIA project. A message names the number of imported stations, and Refresh shows the new state in the comparison.

Because you see the difference before the import, there are no surprises in the project: what is new, what differs and what only exists in the TIA project is on screen beforehand. From there you continue in the same tool with AI-assisted SCL programming, the import over Openness and unit tests on PLCSIM Advanced.

AI chat and the EPLAN Engineer agent#

In the AI chat you ask what is open in EPLAN right now, which pages a project has or which properties a device carries. For work on pages, devices, exports and reports you pick the EPLAN Engineer in the agent picker. It opens and searches projects, edits devices, produces exports and reports and, on request, starts the hardware import into TIA Portal. It opens the comparison view only after your confirmation, and the import itself runs as usual through the button in the view.

You decide which tool calls the agent may run without asking through the approval levels in the chat: allow once, allow for the session, always allow or always deny. You choose the model freely, as with every AI feature in Studio: Claude, GPT, Gemini, more than 20 other cloud providers with your own key, or a local model via Ollama or LM Studio. How the agent works in the TIA project is described on the AI for TIA Portal page.

Reports and exports#

To hand a project over, the Project Explorer offers the Export Project… action with two formats:

• PXF: the lossless EPLAN exchange format, suitable for re-import into EPLAN.
• PDF: all schematic pages as a flat PDF, for example for acceptance or commissioning on site.

On top come project reports that Studio generates through EPLAN: as PDF, Excel, CSV, XML, text or as DXF and DWG drawings. You choose the target path in the save dialog, and longer exports show a progress indicator. You can leave this to the agent as well, for example by asking it to put the schematic pages as a PDF into the project folder.

Requirements and limits#

The EPLAN integration is included in the Pro+ and Enterprise plans, with no separate purchase. The 30-day trial unlocks every Pro+ feature, EPLAN included. Prices are on the Studio page.

• EPLAN Electric P8 must be installed on the same Windows computer as Studio, with an active licence in the EPLAN License Manager. Studio does not bring its own EPLAN licence.
• The EPLAN API Extension module must be active on your EPLAN licence. EPLAN only lets an external application work with projects, pages and functions when this module is active; the API Extension Partsmanagement module is not enough. When it is missing, Studio names the missing module and links to the documentation.
• For the hardware import you also need an open and connected TIA Portal project on the same computer.
• Changes to device properties and positions take effect in the EPLAN project right away, just like in EPLAN itself. There is no separate save step, so check the values before you apply them.
• Studio does not replace EPLAN as a design tool. You keep drawing schematics in EPLAN; Studio brings the data to where you program the PLC.

Every step in detail is in the documentation on the EPLAN integration and the EPLAN to TIA hardware import.