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Introducing SmartAdvisor V21.6 for TIA Portal

Picture of Hardik Thakkar, Siemens Product Specialist in Southern California

2025_06_SIOS

Siemens' modular add-in for WinCC Unified project analysis and optimization has been updated with full TIA V21 support and several new features for engineers.

The SmartAdvisor Add-in is a modular tool developed by Siemens that extends TIA Portal functionality through the TIA Openness interface. It's designed specifically to support the analysis and optimization of WinCC Unified projects — helping engineers identify inefficiencies, improve performance, and simplify ongoing maintenance through a structured, step-by-step workflow.

What's New in V21.6

  • Adapted to TIA V21, supporting all Openness interface changes in this release
  • Screen name is now replaced with full screen path information in exported data and analysis output
  • Screen Window Navigation usage suggestions added to analysis
  • Overlapping buttons are now detected, with optimization suggestions provided automatically
  • Import and export now distinguishes between original files and custom files in the Content Collector

How It Works

SmartAdvisor uses a four-step modular approach that can be applied to an entire HMI project or targeted at individual screens. Each step builds on the last, giving engineers a clear path from initial data collection through to final optimization.

1 Content Collection
The Content Collector provides an overview of all HMI devices in the TIA Portal project, including quantity structures related to screens, dynamizations, scripts, and events. This step also supports import and export, with a clear distinction between original and custom files.
2 Analysis
Using the output from the Content Collector, the analysis step surfaces important configuration information about the TIA project. Detailed analysis files are generated for individual elements — text boxes, symbolic I/O fields, buttons, and more — and stored in the UserFiles/Project directory as .csv and .js files for traceability.
3 Optimization
Based on the analysis, SmartAdvisor suggests improvements across several categories including text box usage, button-to-text-box conversions, symbolic I/O fields, visibility dynamization, tagset and textlist expressions, and variable declarations using let and const. Importantly, these suggestions are added as supplementary configurations — the original implementation is never modified.
4 Removal
Once an engineer is satisfied with the proposed optimizations and ready to finalize the project, the Removal step allows original objects to be deleted in a single click — leaving only the SmartAdvisor-optimized configurations in the project.

 

Important Note

The Removal step permanently deletes the original configurations. This action cannot be undone and the original objects cannot be restored. Make sure all optimizations have been reviewed and validated before proceeding.

Installation Requirements

  1.  Install TIA Portal in the version corresponding to the add-in release — TIA V21 for SmartAdvisor V21.6

  2. Install Node.js and JSCodeshift to enable script optimization features.

  3. Add your Windows user account to the Siemens TIA Openness security group.

  4. Place the .addin file into the AddIns folder of your TIA Portal installation directory 

Key Benefits 

  • Saves time by automating routine checks and code improvements that would otherwise be done manually
  • Improves performance and long-term maintainability of HMI projects
  • Provides documentation of project quality through generated reports for traceability
  • Reduces risk by flagging system limit violations before they cause issues in production
  • Enables safe refactoring — original configurations are preserved until the engineer is ready to commit

Known Limitations

 As with any add-in, there are a few things to be aware of before using SmartAdvisor in your project: 

  • Faceplate contents are not optimized
  • Grouped objects may lose their position after optimization
  • Optimized objects are always added to the first layer (Layer_0)
  • Some system functions are replaced with equivalent scripts
  • Only certain fonts are supported: Arial, Times New Roman, Simsun, and SiemensSans