Siemens Step7 TIA Portal

Overview

Copia provides support for Siemens Step7 TIA Portal v14.1 sp1 - v19, with advanced feature support for the following:

Siemens Step7 TIA Portal v14 sp1 & v15.0 have been discontinued. Due to this, Copia may be limited in its ability to support these versions going forward. Feature development for v15.1 and later is ongoing.

Configuration

General

To get set up, Copia will need your project data (in Folder or Archive format), as well as the add-on's or GSD files used in the project.

If your project uses mutually exclusive add-on's (such as including components from both WinCC Pro and WinCC Unified), Copia will not be able to provide advanced functions. This is due to limitations related to the Openness API.

If your project contains add-on's or GSD files, they will initially need to be installed on the Copia server to provide a graphical display of the project and differences. Copia will alert you about this during your initial commit, and provide instructions for pushing your data and authorizing access to the project to install the required add-on's and GSD files to our servers.

While Copia manages TIA Portal files in archive form, we give users the option of saving the unarchived project or global library folders in the repository. This opens doors to two storage possibilities:

Storing the Project or Global Library Folder
Copia allows the user to store a project or global library folder into the repository. We will auto-archive the project or library for the user, making for a more streamlined and user-friendly workflow.
Storing the Project or Global Library Archive File
Users can manually create and store their own project or library archive files in Copia. It will be required to manually create and extract the archives as needed.

Neither of these workflows affect the use of the Version Control Interface (VCI) in Step7 TIA Portal with Copia. If you are using the VCI, it will still require a manual export of the XML files into the repository.

Project or Global Library Folder

When the Auto-Archive feature is enabled, Copia allows users to store a project folder or a global library folder into the repository. This will automatically archive the project or global library for the user.

Auto-archive will create a .zap## file based on the folder name. See the Auto-Archive section below for more information about this feature and instructions for its setup.

All project or library contents must be placed inside a folder (directory), which is REQUIRED to be named the same as the S7 TIA Portal project (i.e. matching the .ap## filename).

Adding the contents of a project or global library folder (the .ap## or .al## file and respective subfolders) at the repository root is not supported.

Project or Global Library Archive

Users can also manually generate and place their project or global library archives into Copia. It will be necessary to manually create and extract the archive files when working with the project.

To generate a project archive file, navigate to the Project dropdown and click the Archive button.

Save your .zap## file to your repository to store it in the Copia system. You can either create an archive and drop it into the repository folder using Windows, or you can save it directly into the target path. Click the Archive button to continue.

To reduce file size, you can check the Archive as Compressed File and Discard Restorable Data options. The date and time are not necessary in the file name.

If you have already saved an archive to your repository, you may get a warning about overwriting the file. Git saves every commit in the repository's history, so as long as you commit your changes it is safe to overwrite by selecting Yes in the screen below:

Anonymous User

Copia provides support the the Anonymous user authentication feature for Siemens Step7 TIA Portal v17 and later. If a project is configured with anonymous user support, Copia will utilize this authentication for read access to the project for advanced features.

The anonymous user must be defined with a role that has at least read access rights, for this feature to work as expected.

Auto-Archive

General

Auto-Archive allows users to store project folders and global libraries within a repository in the original .ap## or .al## file format. Prior to committing, Copia will automatically archive the data into the corresponding .zap## or .zal## format respectively. This not only saves storage space and transfer times, but also allows a single file to be selected in the Copia client, which provides all display and difference details.

Auto-archive will create a .zap## file based on the folder name, and not the .ap## file name. As such, Copia recommends the project folder be named the same as the project for consistency.

To enable this feature in the Desktop App, click on the Options button under the File dropdown. Choose the Advanced section and check the Enable Auto-Archiving feature. Press the Save button to exit.

With Auto-Archive enabled, any project or global library folder added to a local repository will be auto-archived when the Desktop App is in a focus state (when it becomes the primary app open on the screen).

It is critical that your project folder is stored in the repository. To review this step, check out the Project or Global Library Folder section above.

Renaming and Deleting a Project

To rename a project, use the Save As function in TIA Portal to save as another project in the repository. Then, delete the old project directory.
When a project directory is deleted, the associated archived zap file will also be deleted from the repository.

Extra Considerations

There are a few things to understand when using Auto-Archive:

When saving a project or library folder (which contains the .ap## or .al## file and subfolders) in a repository, Copia will automatically archive the project and store the .zap## or .zal## file. As a result, when either the Web App or Desktop App is selected, you will only see the resulting .zap## or .zal## file.
The files outputted from Auto Archive are hidden from the Windows File Explorer by default to reduce confusion. If Windows is set to display hidden files, you will see these files appear in your repository folder.
Cloning, pulling, or creating and switching branches will automatically extract the contents of the archive files in the repository.
When utilizing Auto Archive, you might see a warning that the Step7 TIA Portal project needs to be closed. This occurs when the project is open and you're attempting to do one of the following:
- Switching branches
- Pulling from a remote repository (app.copia.io)
- Committing after adding or upgrading a new TIA project or library
  Subsequent commits can take place with the software open

Graphical Display and Differences

General

When the exported project file is selected in the Web App or Desktop App, Copia displays the project tree structure in a way that's familiar to users of the Siemens IDE. This way, you can easily navigate to a project item or identify differences.

Supported Types

The following types are currently supported for graphical or enhanced viewing:

Copia is currently unable to render Password Protected projects, Know-How Protected blocks, F-type System Blocks and Device Proxies

OB, FB, and FC Blocks are supported in the following languages:
- Ladder (LAD and F-LAD)
- Structured Control Language (SCL)
  This corresponds to the Structured Text (ST) language defined in the standard IEC 61131-3.
- Statement List (STL)
- Function Block Diagram (FBD and F-FBD)
Project Libraries
Global Libraries (v15.1 or later, only)
Data Blocks (DB)
Instance DB's
PLC Tags and Tag Tables
**WinCC HMI's in XML including:
- Screens
- Screen Templates
- HMI Tag Tables
- Tech Objects
UDT (Data Types)
Devices
Device Configuration/Properties
Software Units
Technology Objects*
- Siemens continues to improve Openness support for Tech Objects. Some failures may be expected for older versions or certain objects not yet supported. For example, Sinamics objects fail in v17, but succeed in v18.

** Rendering for projects including WinCC are supported, as follows: - v15-16: includes WinCC Adv/Prof for TIA Portal. - v17: includes WinCC Adv/Prof/Unified for TIA Portal. - v18: includes WinCC Adv/~~Prof~~/Unified for TIA Portal. - v19: includes WinCC Adv/Prof/Unified for TIA Portal.

NOTE: Since WinCC Unified is not supported for export by the Siemens TIA Openness API, WinCC Unified HMI details are not supported for display/differences.

Rung Commenting for Code Review

Copia supports rung commenting for Siemens files for both Ladder and Structured Text.

Rung Commenting enhances the Code Review process once someone generates a Pull Request to merge a Branch. During the review process, users can add comments directly to the supported parts of the code.

You can watch an overview of rung commenting in the video below.

The product version in the video may be older than the current release, but the process is still applicable.

Advanced Merging for Conflict Resolution

General

While Copia provides the standard Git-based approach to merging branches and conflict resolution, it offers advanced, block-level merge capabilities for Siemens files.

For Siemens, the Advanced Merge function is currently only supported in the Web App. It works at the block level for OB, FB, FC and DB blocks of LAD, FBD, Graph, SCL or STL.

Due to limitations of the software or API, the Advanced Merge Tool sometimes cannot be used. We recommend you review these cases, which are listed at the bottom of this section.

You can watch an overview of Advanced Merge for Siemens Step7 TIA Portal in the video below.

The product version in the video may be older than the current release, but the process is still applicable.

Launching Advanced Merge

Advanced Merge is available to resolve a conflict during the merging of one branch into another. If two people worked in the same block after the branch was created, a conflict will occur.

When a Pull request has been made and it is ready to be merged, you will notice in the Web App that there is a conflict and that the Advanced Merge tool option will appear. You can either overwrite the target branch, or take advantage of Advanced Merge. Click Open Merge Tool to continue.

Advanced Merge will list the conflicted items on the left side of the screen, in a manner similar to the programming software. You can click into each item in the project tree to review changes. The number of conflicts are listed at the top of the merge tool.

Changes will be highlighted with an Edit badge, while conflicts will be highlighted with a Conflict badge.

View Options

View Options provides additional viewing options for the data provided.

Resolving Conflicts Manually

Select the conflicted item by clicking on it in the left side of the merge tool. You will be be presented with the changes that exist in the selected branch.

To review the changes in the alternate branch, toggle over to the other branch. You can choose the changes in this branch by clicking the Select to use changes in... option.

If you need more context for the review, you can enable the Show Unmodified Networks toggle.

After the desired branch is selected, the previously conflicted banner should update to a "resolved" state. If there are several conflicts to resolve, perform the same process by clicking into each project item, reviewing each branch, and making a selection. To accept the changes, press the teal Perform Merge button about the project tree.

After completing the Advanced Merge, you'll be placed back into the standard merge process. Copia presents you with multiple opportunities to provide details and feedback, and to confirm that the merge is desired. Continue through these final screens and add any additional details. Press the Merge Pull Request to complete the process.

Once the Pull Request is merged, you will be given the opportunity to delete the branch by clicking the Delete Branch button. This is an optional step that will only delete the branch in the remote repository -- the local branch will remain unless it is deleted locally.

Resolving Conflicts with Bulk Resolve

If you want to accept all changes from a certain branch, you can click on the Bulk Resolve button and choose a specific branch.

Limitations

There are some known cases that prevent Advanced Merge from operating as expected.

Adding an HMI to a branch may cause a conflict that cannot be merged
If a project is renamed in one of the branches, a proper merge will not occur
Projects with password protected content cannot be merged
Initially adding the project in both branches will cause a merge problem (since there is no "base" to compare against). This is rare, and would only happen if you branched prior to adding the project.
Libraries are not supported for merge operations
Know-how protected blocks cannot be merged