Welcome back to the automation podcast. My name
is Sean Tierney from Insights. And this week
on the show, I meet back up with
John Dattellum of Siemens
to learn all about what's new in TIA
Portal
version 21.
Now before we jump into that, I do
have one short announcement,
and that is to thank this week's guest,
Siemens, for sponsoring this episode and helping underwrite
some of our costs to produce it. And
in appreciation for the sponsorship, we're releasing it
on all platforms ad free, and we're also
including some helpful links to this week's topic
in the description.
That said, let's go ahead now and jump
right into this week's episode of the automation
podcast and learn about what's new in TIA
Portal version 21.
John, welcome back to the show. I'm excited
to learn about what's new at TIA Portal.
But for anybody who hasn't watched I mean,
we've done so many episodes together over the
years. But for anybody who's new to the
show, would you just take a moment to
tell them who you are? Yeah. John DeSellum.
I'm with Siemens, of course, and my primary
focus has been the engineering software. The TI
portal
is is one of those key components.
And, yeah, you know, I come here a
lot
to focus
on the concepts of
the engineering software for the PLCs.
And, of course,
you know, we have my other counterparts that
do the HMI and drives and the other
product products as well. But, generally, I I
focus on the TI portal
and the overall
arching engineering software. Yeah. And I was looking
back at the previous episodes we did, and
there's some of the most popular Siemens episodes
we've done. Right? And so, thank you for
coming back on and to bring us up
to speed. And I believe TIA Portal v
21, did that release in the fall or
the winter? Fundamentally, November, December. Some of the
stuff was
published,
available for download, or delivered to customers on
annual agreements,
in December
and in into January.
So, yeah, it was it was fundamentally announced
at the SPS Nuremberg in Nuremberg,
and all the components and the PLC hardware
kind of roll out, December, January, February, March
because there's some things that kinda lag
after the engineering software. But, yeah, I started
doing,
TI portal step seven one cc safety
December 5, I think, when I first had
access to it in the cloud, and then
I downloaded the DVD one. So, yeah, generally,
what we do is we roll out every
year in November, December,
January
these core components.
TI portals, the overall arching framework
and everything sits within it. One of the
key components that your followers use is the
step seven for the PLC engineering
together with the safety,
PLC sim, PLC sim advanced, and then, of
course, WinCC for the HMIs,
cinemics for the start drive. And that's kinda
what I'll focus on today is those key
components.
But all the other components also
get revisions
related
to the rollout at the end of the
year, basically, every year to to kind of
bring forward
some
new enhancements and functionalities that benefit
our users, our customers in the field. Okay?
Yeah. Sounds good. I'm excited to learn about
what's new.
Yeah. So I'll focus a little bit on
on TF portal, step seven, some safety, PLC,
some advanced, PCI,
just as a hint,
and then some overview of that. But, again,
you know, I like to make sure customers
have the perspective,
you know, that they're gonna purchase a step
seven professional for the PLCs
or WinCC for the HMI.
Comes with star drive.
And then once they do that installation,
it becomes
the the overall software
of TIA portal. And, of course, like, what
we're focused on today, different from all the
other podcasts that you can find
in your thing in the past. I mean,
we go back quite a quite a few
years to v 17, I think. They're still
all there. But the the v 21 just
released, and this is what it looks like.
So, of course, I play around in the
real software. I do demonstrations for customers.
I I tweak into the new features, but
this is my view of my demo project.
It's based on some hardware.
This is real hardware in this case. We've
got the engineering Copilot
for Pierre Poreau. I'll mention that at the
end,
you know, as a little icon reminder there.
But all the other components that are built
in but the cool is a system centric
approach.
That's what we're doing with when when you
look at TF portal, my project file is
a project file
of of the automation devices
required for a solution.
So I could have multiple PLCs, multiple HMIs,
a slew of IO that's bridged across to
the PLCs
and drives. This is a small little factor.
But this is what's kinda cool about
the the the perspective of Siemens and SIMATIC
and TI portal is is a system centric
approach that brings the benefits of uniform usability
and consistent database for the whole automation solution.
Now I wanna say something here for those
who are listening. You're gonna like it because
it looks just like version 20. So don't
think like it's this brand new interface, and
it's totally different. I'm looking at this, and
I'm like, I feel so comfortable.
You know, it's a it's the same user
interface we all, you know, have learned to
love and use over the years with Siemens.
So it's not some major redo. It looks
very similar to '20 and '19 and '18
and '17 and so on. So sorry. I
didn't mean to interrupt, but I wanna let
the the audience know that that you haven't,
like, totally changed the user interface. It's the
it's what we're very comfortable with using today.
Yeah. And and that's a that's a very
big point that I I I I I
I wanted to bring up in one of
our tech tips that we're gonna do in
the next couple weeks or a month. But,
yeah, the the cool part is I can
download v 21. I can upgrade my v
19 or v 18,
and it's still all fundamentally
the same core functionality
and the same usability. You there's not a
need to relearn anything because
the changes are enhancements
to the existing
what you're used to over the years. And
the cool part is, as we see in
some of the tech tips we're gonna do,
is I I I can start small and
use v 21 on my v 19 project
and
and still tweak around and and click around.
But
everything stays functional
fundamentally the same except for, you know, a
a few enhancements
in the PLC hardware,
in some of the functionality they bring brought
forward because of customer feedback. But they're they're
generally, like you said,
not impactful
to a big level. They're bringing more and
more functionality, which is great stuff for our
customers as we look into the future into,
you know, twenty thirty and twenty forty. This
is still gonna be, you know, the beast
for doing audios.
Yeah. And there's something about that that's just
so positive that, you know, I jump around
from 16 to 17 to 18 to 20
and depending you know, I've done I don't
know. I think I did 20 or 30
Siemens videos last year, and it just it
doesn't matter. Like, there's small differences between them,
you know, these new features and and and,
you know, newest stuff you can do with
the newest software, but you can be just
as efficient, in my opinion, in 16 as
you can in 20. And I just love
that, but let me turn it back to
you.
Absolutely. Yeah. Some of the some of the
key things that, you know,
come the reality of why v 21, it's
it's the next generation hardware,
the the the some of the functionality in
the hardware that customers need, and then some
of the enhancements that just take us to
concepts that a lot of the
automation guys are using. And we'll touch on
some of that stuff today. But I pulled
out this is the eye chart of all
the things that get documented from all the
different components from the WinCC, the step seven,
the start drive, the cloud services. Basically, it's
TF portal in the cloud.
And then all these options, like I mentioned
before, but every one of the product managers
in headquarters,
you know, drives some functionality improvement
in the yearly releases of of these different
topics
to enhance it for our user experiences so
that it gets better for the for the
future. But you're right. It doesn't derail it
from a perspective of having to start all
over again. So I only picked out a
a couple highlights on here, and then what
I'm hoping to do is in a in
a couple of our tech tips, we we
help our customers or your followers
dig into this deeper on their own. One
of the cool things that, you know, I've
always
been adamant about is why is TIA Portal
not tracking all the data of the
information that I'm changing. And it's a lot
of noise if I turn it on at
the wrong time.
But if my machine is up and running
and I'm making a change or two related
to enhancement on my machine,
changing the the the block or the PLC,
what they what they allowed is the ability
to turn on a log and start filling
a file on your computer
with some of these things that happen while
you're clicking through TF work. So this is
new in v 21
is this log file
and the ability to turn on the log
and then,
save it on your local computer as a
log file. It's it's fundamental.
It's simple. It's not the elaborate
tracking of some of the other systems that
are third party
backup and restore, but it is basically, fundamentally
capturing some of the stuff in TI portal.
And it's the first rendition, so b 21.
So I I think this is gonna be
something that we see evolve over time with
more and more availability of the information that's
there and and ability to to manage it,
so it doesn't become too overwhelming.
Yeah. I think for a somebody who's managing
a maintenance department, turning that on would be
great. Because if Joe is out sick and
you're like, well, what did he do yesterday?
He can go and look at the log
and say, oh, he added that screen or
he changed that wrong or whatever he did.
So back to you.
Yep. Yeah. I I think this is gonna
be a good thing. I I think, you
know, it's a it's a thing to explore
and a thing to give us feedback as
to what it's missing or or what its
what its capabilities need to be be considered
for the future. But, yeah, I think it's
a huge step to the fact that TI
portal knows the mouse click that you've done
and what was what was done to a
block, to a PLC tag,
to a value in the in the data
value. And the ability to kinda just land
that somewhere so that you could filter through
it is a is a great step. So,
fundamentally, I you know, one of the first
things I do is try to figure out
where it's at and how to do it.
But I I I went in here and
I turned on
the log changes,
turned on my usernames that are set up
in user management, and then I just went
in and clicked through to make sure that
it gave me a change. The cool part
is in the log
inside the project
file,
there's a go to button. That little green
arrow is always a help. If you have
an error or a message related to a
compile of your code, you click on that.
It's gonna go right to where this object
is so so you can see exactly what
happened.
Thanks. So I I think this is, you
know, the this is new in v '21.
This is a good thing for our customers
to turn on and explore
how it looks and what it gives them
and then how they potentially could use it
into the some of their management systems and
other tools that they're using there. And also
our third party partners that do these kinds
of backup and resource systems accessing this log
might also be helpful. Another thing that's that's
pretty significant that we've been working on the
last couple years based on a lot of
feedback from customers and the evolution of version
control tools,
a continuous integration,
continuous development,
is is a need for our PLC,
ladder files or function block diagrams or
the
SCL documents, STL documents to be more user
readable.
In in the past,
if I did an export of my TI
portal ladder file,
it was XML document and and very hard
to read and very hard to pull out
what the simple logic was behind it. Our
our development folks have, you know, taken into
consideration what users are trying to do
with the version control interfaces,
with text based documents,
with their own openness tool sets,
and they found a way to basically
export
the document or the ladder file XML.
Instead of going to XML as the format,
they're saving it as what's called SD source
document.
It's kind of a simple name, but, fundamentally,
what they're doing is saving it
as simple text. One cool thing about this
is if I do this, it's gonna be
versioned independent. So you look at this. I
can save this off as my ladder file
for my interface to my control, my valve,
or my robot.
And and when I save that off
and I wanna replicate it, it's version independent.
So there's no versioning
built into it. So it will
be it will live longer in my evolution
of my automation
when I use a version 22 or version
23 in the future because that version data
is not inside there and it's just that
text. And, again, the the concept is that
we're adhering to some DevOps
concepts,
continuous integration, continuous
development,
version management,
tracking,
source control. All those concepts that you you
use in the software world, the programmers are
evoluting or maturing to the concept. I can
I wanna do that in the automation world?
Well, the good news is you can still
do it with TI portal, and we're building
in the tools to to enable
the the source documents
to be
interface to a version control interface and to
be managed the same way you do other
documents in Versus Code and other tool sets.
So that's that's a that that's an interesting
topic, and a lot of users are using
TI portal with all the tool sets, the
libraries, and the other tool sets
to manage their projects in the engineering for
efficient engineering to be more powerful. This is
a big complicated slide that shows the the
repositories
and that kind of stuff that is part
of it. And and this is a document
that we can get into later or
a tech tip that we can talk about
later. This is this is another example of
using
in, one block. I don't know if you
know you could do this, but even if
it's a ladder block, I can mix, SCL
together with FPD.
And the cool part is now we don't
care what you're doing in a ladder block.
If I have a function block that's for
drive control
and it's function block x y z, I
can mix some s c SCL for doing
my mathematics for setting up the scaling or
the following
of the motion control, and then I can
use lateralizer for some discrete all in the
same single block. Now this isn't new. Right?
You've always been able to have, like, network
one b function block, network two b SCL,
network three b
ladder. I think what's new here is that
you're supporting this in the source document export.
Is that what I am I understanding that
correctly? Exactly. Yep. Okay.
Yep.
In in in version 20,
it was strictly latter. But in version 21,
they do all that for the function block
diagram and the SCL as well. And now
if customers have this concept of mixed
language editors in one block, they can also
do this with the source document.
Nice. And then in the settings of the
workspace of TF portal, now you can set
it up so that if you click and
export the
code instead of it being XML,
you can set it to SD source document.
You can set that so that it goes
there. And you see the ones that are
still gonna be XML, s t l, which
is a German
editor for the old statement list stuff, and
graph has gotta be XML because it's so
complex. But you can see all the other
ones that now in b b 21
support this concept of simple text, readable text.
And then this is what the version control
interface. Basically, inside my TI portal framework as
an engineer,
I have a repository,
for example, git or other,
and I I I I wanna manage my
text code blocks
related to the the version January
x y z.
And this is the version interface that's been
I think it's been in since e sixteen.
And it's evolved with more and more functionality
up to where we are now today. So
it includes the ability to do library objects,
and it now includes
the ability to do types. And a type
block is where it's a it's a block
that's kinda managed, like, outside the project file,
and the versions are tracked in my project
library or my global library
and applied
as a standard type. Cool. Yeah. Very cool.
Alright. Kinda changing topics. Another cool feature that
that kinda came through in b twenty one
and related to the the new firmware
used right here, firmware 4.1
of the 1,500,
is the ability if I have a a
data block
that was set up
and running in my production machine
and I set up all the data values
for a recipe or
for how I wanna run the machine.
If we're running the machine and doing production
for a set period of time, and
I went back and I added a a
variable
to that block,
in the past, you had to do some
steps
to ensure that you saved off the running
values of the value of the
values as a into a start value and
a reset
to ensure that you didn't lose your recipe
or your setup values. Well, in version 21,
this is a nice enhancement or feature
brought forward to overcome that problem
or that work
process that was in there. And now I
can modify a data block, a set of
variables,
where I modify or add additional
variables in that
data block,
and the running values that exist in the
PLC will keep their actual values.
Now let me ask you about this. So
in the course I teach,
I have to walk I have to really
walk through students to make sure they understand
this because
in in prior to '21,
you had to do this beforehand.
In your project, you have to you have
to say in your data block, keep actual
values and it assigned some memory for that.
And you you may have to update that
over time if you didn't assign enough memory
to begin with. So what you're saying here
is that this is a different way of
doing it where if I make a change
and then I wanna download it, it will
give me the choice to keep actual values.
Am I understanding that correctly?
Exactly. Yep. Very that's very cool. Yeah. So
the one thing about the data blocks that
contains our variables for the process,
the the one thing that was done inside
Siemens different than some of the other guys
is the setup of an an initial value
or a start value. So I I build
the machine,
and I and I set up the control
for a station or a or a motor
or a valve, and I know the the
values of certain variables
that represent how it should always start up
after a a shutdown
or a reset
so that that those
values are
initialization values or startup values so that I
know my machine is gonna run the way
I engineered it. And in in in the
world of Siemens, that's known as the start
value
or the initial
value.
And and basically on a you know, my
machine is all hosed up. I don't know
what the maintenance guys did with some of
the values.
I I put it to stop
or I power cycle it, and I start
it back up. And the good news is
I know that my start values are going
to
reinitialize
to what was in engineered
for the system.
Without having to have a separate routine that
does the initialization,
which is what we would do in other
PLCs.
We would have to have a start up
routine that says, you know, we're starting up.
Let's reinitialize everything. But then on the flip
side,
we have a lot of instances where the
operator is, like, he's the brain trust behind
the machine, and he puts all the information
in through the HMI.
And so we don't wanna lose those values
because, like, what if he's on vacation and
nobody knows the secret sauce to all those
values? So we don't want to we wanna
avoid making a especially an online edit. If
you take an old copy and download it,
we always expect something bad to happen, but
or potentially happen. But, you know, if somebody's
making an online change, they're gonna fix something,
you know, you you you wanna be cognizant
of, hey. Will this erase all the values
that were entered in the HMI?
That's that's where something like this just gives
me another way to avoid that. Correct. Yep.
100%.
Yeah. This is this is 100%
the the big benefit
of the new firmware 4.1.
And the version 21 is that in a
production environment, the the the operator or the
maintenance guy makes a change to a a
data block as a variable, he has the
option to keep the values. 100%.
Nice.
Another cool feature that's kinda evolved to v
v 18, v 19, v 20
is the safety validation
assistant and and tool set. And and it's
kinda based on the concept that, again, all
the components that are related to an e
stop
or a contactor or a drive safe
torque off
are all part of the devices that are
in my automation solution because I'm doing everything
inside TF portal. So I have
the the IO, the estop
represented in my hardware configuration
on PROFINET or wired to an IO point.
I have my evaluation logic and my PLC,
and I have my
outputs
or my drive
all connected into TF portal.
So some of our our smart application engineers
in in headquarters has identified the ability to
kind of
write a little script to monitor
the the the status of something that might
be the estop or the safety gate related
to the detect,
what we intend that that should be done
when that happens, and how to verify
what the output does in the in the
end result. So the Saiki validation assistant
was evolved
in v 21 I mean, v 20 and
v 21. It's it's in the project tree.
It's a cross functional device
because
it allows me to pull
inputs,
input data from wherever the ESOP might exist
and
check how it's being controlled and then monitor
what's happening to my output device. So it
allows it allows me to write a safety
validation
against what my safety expectations are for the
system. So it basically
works on the 15 hundreds, the 12 hundreds,
and the g two.
It it is
fundamentally based on, you know, the concept of
wherever I can get the input data,
evaluate
the results, and then determine what's going on
there.
And I basically write a little test, and
it will validate my safety function outside the
PLC code.
And it generates a document,
and it provides me a way of validating
a safety function on my automation system before
I start production.
And then I can save that off in
the library. I can save that off in
exported tool sets.
And then
six months from now or a year from
now when somebody makes a change,
I can run that test again to make
sure that they didn't disrupt my expectation of
the safety. So this is a cool tool
set that I kinda feel like everybody should
be evaluating if it gives them
a secondary
way of validating
a safety function in their in the tool
set to ensure that it it remains
as expected in the functionality that was intended
in a process in their world. And and
this is another thing that we could do
as a as a tech tip later on.
Yeah. I'd love to hear from anybody out
there who's using fail safe controllers to, CPUs.
Let us know. Run through this and let
us know what you think. I don't do
it. You know, being an instructor or in
a in a YouTuber, I don't I don't
I don't do a lot of safety, but
I'd love to know what the field what
the people out there in the field think
of this. So back to you, John. Yep.
Absolutely.
The other new key thing is the the
next generation s 1,200. You you've got some
of the first generation stuff there in your
in your lab and your your training. But
last year in January,
Louis Navaros launched
this second generation.
It's kind of a redesigned hardware
of the 1,200. It's intended to go longer
into the future with the 15 hundreds.
The objective is,
is smaller footprint,
less general for those types of critical,
small spaces that these kinds these kind of
devices fit into. And then the other key
core to the to the actual
functionality running in the PLC is it is
truly more of a
full blown 1,500 inside
than it
is of what was the gen one s
seven twelve hundred that was a little bit
different. So this is what it looks like.
It's it's it's a little bit, I think,
taller off the DIN rail,
a little a little bit bigger this way,
but the intent is to be a smaller
footprint when it's mounted.
There's these signal boards
that allow you
to expand this compact
CPU beyond the
IO points that are there. So I can
add a signal board here that gives me
more functionality, and then you've got your modules
that sit there. Now this this device, there's
a couple new ones at 12:16
and 12:17.
And then, of course, it's got PROFINET built
in,
and it can connect to e t 200
SP remote IO or anything else that's on
PROFINET and be a scanner just like anything
else.
Yeah. I would say to anybody out there
using the, original s seven twelve hundred, which
is a great small PLC,
definitely check out. We had Lewis on. He
did a a physical tour. I did an
unboxing. Lewis went through the detailed slides. There's
two of those. There's like the preview slides,
which we did a long time ago, but
the latest version of that was the detailed
final slide. So definitely wanna recommend anybody who's
wanna look at the g two, check it
out. We have plenty of content on it.
And this this page shows, what's new in
version 4.1.
Yep. Exactly. Yeah. So
and and
4.1,
the g two just got released earlier this
week, so I'm just now gonna try and
get some my hands on that firmware on
the support side. But, yeah, the the OPC
UA, this is cool about our our PLCs
is, you know, it's truly a setup
inside the hardware. It's not a third party
device or
secondary device slapped on the backplane of the
PLC. It's actually built into the controllers,
server,
and client.
Web pages are powerful. I I got a
slide on that. Motion control is a big
topic.
What's new in v '21 and the PLC
sim advanced is the 1,200.
G two is now supported in PLC sim
sim advanced.
There's a app near field communications
that you see the little
symbol on the front of the PLC, and
then some of the other functionalities come out
coming around in the PLC. Now some of
the hardware modules that are related to the
g two,
specifically,
like, fail safe IO modules for the g
two
plan for May
2026,
so later this year. But you can still
do safety with the e 200 SP if
if that's how you wanna start. Web pages
are really a cool thing. You can set
them up so that the user, even though
they ping the IP address,
they they have to log in with some
login information.
But if you give them the rights on
the web pages,
this this is the kind of a cool
thing that you can do either from your
workstation.
Maybe you don't wanna get online with TI
portal. You don't have TI portal or you
wanna access it from your HMI.
But there's a slew
of read only
diagnostics
or information related to the PLC that you
can get here without needing TI portal. And
then if you enable some of the right
functionality,
you can actually reset, run, stop, and do
some other functionality.
But, yeah, fundamentally, the the new
web pages
on the full corner are intended to kinda
be a new look and feel. And this
is another slide that kinda highlights the the
concepts of the new web pages
for the for the PLCs.
Very cool. So like I mentioned earlier, the
other product managers for the other components around
the TI portal also release version 21 for
the PLC
sim that's built in. PLC sim is the
the the DVD that comes free with TF
portal step seven that allows you to fundamentally
simulate the PLC in a in a simple
perspective the way we've always been able to
do it. A PLC sim advanced is the
tool that's used at a higher level for
interfacing to
other APIs and other technologies. But the PLC
sim d 21
brought some new user functionality for the user
that brings more value for using PLC sim.
Instead of using hardware, I can use PLC
sim to test my system. It's I I
love the PLC sim. That's what I fundamentally
use together with the HMI sim and this
and the stuff that comes around the motion.
So there's functionality user new simple user interfaces
that that evolved in the PLC seven v
21.
And PLC seven advanced
rolled to version eight point o. And in
that version eight point o, it it also
evolved with a lot of enhancements that are
related to hardware
and other tool sets that are required. Now
with the advanced, of course, it opens up
the ability to
have open interfaces of my Ethernet port on
my PC
or use an API to connect
to third party or Siemens,
tools
that allow me to simulate or do virtual
machine software. Another cool thing that that that
that's gonna be rolled out in the version
eight point o is the ability to kinda
simulate the display that you see on the
hardware PLC. This display is a very powerful
interactive tool set that gives you all the
informations
going on with PLC.
And
a lot of users have asked, can I
get the display somewhere else, which doesn't hasn't
ever been evolved?
It's basically the web pages are intended to
do that. But now it's gonna be possible
to kinda use it in the PLC some
advanced
as well. Another cool thing that's kinda come
out is the documentation,
the how to, the help.
There's there's a new
online view of the docs
documentation,
the help files
that allows you to get to some more
tutorial videos,
some overviews of what's new. And and those
are pretty powerful tools that you can use
to also
evaluate what's new in g app portal v
21. So here's
I always go to the what's new in
the help. So k. Yep.
And then I drag drag drag onto there.
Let me share one of my screens real
quick. Yeah. So here's what I mentioned a
minute ago is the, docs,
tiportal.cloudcloud.
You can get to this without an installation
of t I portal,
but
it's TIA,
TF portal. It's all online.
I'll send I'll get you this link so
you can publish it as well. What I
use is that docu folder, and I'll send
you the link to that or this. And
I'll go read in more clarity the, definition
of what's new in v '21. What's cool
about this is you can go back to
the other versions and see what was new
in v twenty one and get a perspective
about what was gone in the back. I'll
also jump to the sales and delivery release
real quick
and show you kind of, you know, how
that's structured.
This is the support site in our Siemens
portal,
and it highlights, you know, the concept of
what was released in b twenty one.
There's the detailed slides that I'm kinda going
through here so anyone can download those.
It's about 300 slides because of the detail
of it. And then this is where you
can get to the specifics of the details
related to step seven
what was
detailed in in the release of step seven.
And this is where you can get to
the trial download of
downloading the software. This is where I usually
send our customers to go and get DVD
number one
and download this TI portal sub seven safety
one cc version 21.
And this will give them
the basics
of
TI portal because it's all inclusive.
And then, like, we always try to promote
is,
yeah, get the PLC sim. Absolutely.
When you seek PLC sim version 21, this
is the free unlicensed,
and this will allow you to simulate PLC,
the HMI,
and the start and basically do what most
of us wanna do. Yeah. And then if
you wanna do more enhanced, then you can
do a trial of the PLCs in advance.
What's significant is every one of these things
supports
about a twenty one day trial.
When you download it, it activates step seven
or wincc,
gives you a chance to get time to
get the licenses.
Which is great for students who just you
know, they're they wanna go through and do
all their labs. Maybe they have a license
at work, but they're maybe they're learning at
home. Yeah. So it's great that they can
just go up there, grab a twenty one
day when they're ready to do their labs.
Don't do it before. They can't reset that
twenty one days. But when they're done the
course, they're like, oh, yeah. I'm gonna do
my hands on. You know, they can go
get a a trial for home. And, of
course, they could do that with the cloud
too. They don't actually have to download and
install it on their own PC. Right? They
could do a trial in the cloud as
well as we've covered on the show previously.
Yep. Exactly. Yep. So that that might be
a a tech tip that we show, hey,
how to get started with TF portal that
I was thinking that we would do
in the next week or so, one of
the key things to help.
Of course, this is another tech tip that
we talked about doing was, you know, making
an upgrade to v 21.
The v 21
will open anything as far back as v
14. So I just basically
select the project, and it's gonna do this
little upgrade. I just did
a test to see before I installed start
drive that I needed to make the installation
of the start drive because my project had
drives in it. But that was no big
deal. I installed start drive, and then I
was able to complete the upgrade. But that
that's another topic that I think we can
do as a would affect the base. How
easy is it to upgrade
on my v 21?
And if you have a V21 license,
that license is good for v 20 and
v 19 and v 18 and so on.
Right?
Correct. Yep. So if you're upgrading from 15
or 16 or 17 to 21,
you'll also have a license that works with
all the previous versions down to
is it v 14 or is it v
16? I know that license goes back so
far.
There's step seven that'll go back to v
11. So, yeah, if I'm a user and
I have t f portal v 19 on
my computer,
my projects are v 19, my license is
v 19.
Right now, let's say that I just do
the installation of v 21
and I upgrade my licenses,
my v 19 step seven, my v
19 WinCC and safety will upgrade
to a v 21 license. And when I
launch v 19,
it will still see that v 21 license
as licensing for my v 19.
Nice. And same with basically, step seven goes
back
to v 11. WinCC Unified goes back to
v 16 when Unified was introduced. So there's
there's some differences in some of those things,
but our objective is that
a user that's running the machine at v
19
can upgrade
his workstation to v 21, upgrade his licenses
to v 21, and he can still work
in v 19 on the machine and do
everything that he still needs to do with
his equipment.
And then he could work on an a
new PLC,
an add on somewhere else that is using
the latest and greatest stuff. Yeah. That means
too. If you have a plant full of
v 18
and you need one more license,
that license is gonna work on a new
laptop on v 18 as well as v
21.
Yep. So it's just it's just the way
it just it's it's very well thought through.
Yeah. Exactly.
So I I do get that exact same
thing where, hey. I I I I I
want B 18.
I need a new installation. I need a
new license. I'm like, buy B 21.
The license will work for B 18.
You can download B 18 on our support
site. So I tried to keep this to
a short minimum so that it was digestible
by your audience.
Like you and I talked about, there's some
tech tip topics that we could break into.
These are just some of my suggestions
that we do in the next that I
think will you know, how to get started,
you know, with the with the cloud or
the DVD one, DVD
PLC sim.
You and I talk about upgrading the licensing.
So in the case
you're a user that has a v 16
step seven, a v 16,
once you
see unified,
what does that look like when I get
an upgrade license and how do I upgrade
it, project update, and then some of these
other topics that we can talk about in
a minute. Yeah. That's awesome. And what we'll
try to do too is include that link
to the full slide deck for because I
know some of you out there are gonna
wanna know every gory detail to see how
it can help you in your day to
day. So we'll try to include that in
the description as well since it's published and
it's available on their website
as we saw on the previous slide. So
that's pretty awesome. And really appreciate you coming
back on, John, to do this. I know
the audience really loves to know what's new
and what's happening, what new features are available,
and, that was a pretty good list you
put together.
Yeah. Couple couple more things just before I
sign off. Our our somatic PG, our laptop
computer, these are pretty powerful. These are pretty
I think you have the old m six.
These things are leaner,
tighter, smaller. And, actually, last night when I
left the restaurant, it fell out of my
truck, and, and it survived. Hit the ice
and snow, and it was on it just
slipped over the top of the clothes that
I had in in the back of the
truck. But it landed on its on its
edge, and it still works today. But what's
cool about that is is the MD 57
a, somatic PG, I call it, but it
does deliver a fee 21. And then the
other two topics, I don't know have you
met Kristen Quasi?
We had Kristen on to go over industrial
computers.
Oh, yeah. That's right. And the yep. She
was the IPC.
She's now kind of taken over a new
role related to our our next next gen
topics. So this is her and I working
together, MIA,
last May, looking into the crystal ball into
the future. So I I talked to her
about getting on the on the on the
call to talk about our industrial copilot for
engineering for TF portal. Oh, yeah. Great.
So we'll do that in the next month
or two. And then the next generation is
gonna be this Medic AX
toolset
that gives users that wanna be in that
Versus code editor the ability to to code
in a different way than what what they
do today with TF portal. But there'll be
an overlap.
Thanks, Sean.
I really appreciate the time to kinda just
give your folks
an overview and then how to go out
there. I'll send you the links on how
to get to to to more information
so that they can learn more about it,
and they can always reach out to us
on, you know, your email, your social media,
or LinkedIn.
Yeah. I appreciate it. I try to check
that at least every day or two. Appreciate
everybody who, puts, questions up there on any
of the platforms.
Really appreciate you guys. I do try to
check them and, you know, finances when I
can. But in any case, John, thank you
again for coming on the show and bringing
us up to speed on TA portal
v 21. Well, I hope you enjoyed that
episode, and I wanna thank John again for
taking time out of his busy schedule to
come on the show and bring us up
to speed on TIA Portal
version 21. I also wanna thank John for
providing the links in the description.
So if you guys wanna learn more, they're
all right there. I also wanna thank Siemens
for sponsoring this episode, helping underwrite some of
our course to produce it.
And, in appreciation, we released it on all
platforms ad free, and, of course, include those
links in the description.
That said, I also wanna thank you for
tuning in this week. You know, if you
have any thoughts or comments
on this week's episode, please leave them in
the comment area wherever you're watching this. And
I also wanna wish you all good health
and happiness. And until next time, my friends,
peace.