User guide

Start and connect to TIA Portal

1. On the computer with TIA Portal, start the PLC Sidecar helper (desktop icon). It finds open TIA Portal windows by itself.
2. On your computer, open the PLC Sidecar app. In the left panel, under Target, you see the open projects.
3. Click the project you want to work on. A green dot means the connection is fine.

The app tells a test copy from a production project by itself. For production it always asks twice.

PLC Sidecar

Load the program

1. Open Blocks. You see the program tree just like in TIA Portal.
2. Select blocks and click Pull. The block text appears in the editor.
3. Open graphical blocks (LAD, FBD) in the LAD / FBD tab — they are drawn network by network.

PLC Sidecar

Edit with AI

Tell the AI what you need in plain words: “add supervision of the analyser communication and a message on the panel”. The AI reads the blocks, proposes a change and edits them in the editor. You see every line.

1. Ask AI sends the selected block and the lines you are on.
2. You can always edit the code by hand, as in TIA Portal.
3. The standards library makes the AI write in the style of that customer.

PLC Sidecar

Review before pushing

Before every push an overview opens: on the left the state in TIA Portal now, on the right what will be sent. Each block shows lines added and removed; a click opens a line-by-line comparison.

If somebody changed a block directly in TIA Portal in the meantime, the app stops and offers to take it over.

PLC Sidecar

Push, compile and save

1. Click Continue to push. For a production project you type its name — a safeguard against mistakes.
2. The app creates a version, pushes, compiles, saves the project and checks that TIA Portal is still running.
3. The result is in Jobs: what changed, the compile result and the changed lines.

Nothing is downloaded to the PLC. Downloading to a running machine stays your step, in TIA Portal.

PLC Sidecar

Versions and rolling back

Every change has a version before and after, with a short AI description in several languages.

1. Open Versions. For every version you see what changed and why.
2. Compare with current: the version against what is in TIA Portal now.
3. Roll back to this version: the whole version, or only selected blocks from the list of changes.
4. When you finish your edits, the app can also save a TIA Portal project archive.

PLC Sidecar

HMI and watch tables

In the HMI tab you browse screens, see tags and events for every object and let the AI prepare a new screen or tags. Watch tables for diagnostics are one request away.

PLC Sidecar