We are excited to announce two powerful new features for our Advanced Merge Tool (AMT) for Siemens TIA Portal projects: Data Block (DB) and Tag Table merging.

With these updates, you can now resolve conflicts at a more granular level within DBs and Tag Tables, rather than being forced to choose between entire branches. This enhancement offers greater flexibility, enabling teams to collaborate more effectively by selecting specific variable changes from each branch and reducing the occurrences in which you are required to manually resolve these conflicts outside of the Advanced Merge Tool.

These features allow smoother project development and reduce the time spent manually resolving conflicts. We’ve designed these tools to align with the current Rockwell tag-level merge tool, providing a consistent, efficient experience.

Read more about Copia's Advanced Merge Tool for TIA Portal project in our Documentation.

Happy merging!

We're excited to announce that our Source Control app now supports rendering for Schneider Electric Control Expert's .STA format, in addition to the existing .STU support. If you've already been version-controlling .STA files, there's nothing you need to do—previous commits will automatically start rendering. This update enhances your workflow by giving you the ability and flexibility to visualize your changes to both .STA and .STU formats.

You can read more about our Source Control support for Control Expert in our Documentation.

Happy committing! 🚀

Hello Copia users!

We are excited to announce the latest enhancement to Copia's DeviceLink platform: seamless integration with Siemens' Step 7 5.x software. This integration is a game-changer for organizations utilizing Siemens PLCs, enabling a new level of efficiency and collaboration within your industrial automation processes.

With Copia DeviceLink and Step 7 5.x integration, you can:

• Streamline PLC Programming: View the most recently backed-up version of your industrial code and easily compare that code with the version of record 
• Enhance Visibility and Control: Visually compare code revisions in one place for quick troubleshooting and management of code changes
• Best-in-Class Code Change Management and Practices: Get a handle on code drift by monitoring the frequency and content of unexpected code changes.
• Backup and Rapid Disaster Recovery: Schedule and review automatic backups of PLCs and other devices from anywhere and receive notifications of any code changes by email
• Dashboards and Metrics: View backup performance, current status, and statistics

This integration builds upon the proven benefits of Industrial DevOps, as highlighted in our recent report, the 1st annual State of Industrial DevOps:

• 97% of respondents agree that their team would benefit from Industrial DevOps
• 2.5x more employee time spent on value adding work vs. unplanned work and/or rework when using Industrial DevOps
• 50% of all downtime currently caused by industrial code

Unlock the full potential of your Siemens PLC systems with Copia DeviceLink and Step 7 5.x integration. If you have any questions about these new features, please contact us. To learn more on your own, please visit our documentation center.

Sincerely,

The Copia Team

Hello Copia users!

Have you been using DeviceLink’s Graphs? A few weeks ago, Copia introduced these features to provide a visual overview of your backup job runs across all sites in your organization.

With DeviceLink Graphs, you can:

• Spot Trends: Quickly identify patterns in failed or timed-out job runs, helping you proactively address issues.
• Monitor Code Changes: Observe which projects have undergone code modifications and get a complete picture of how quickly your organization's operational code is changing.
• Diagnose Errors: Easily navigate to the details view of failed jobs for efficient troubleshooting.
• Customize Your View: Filter by date range, job status, and more to tailor the graphs to your specific needs.

Ready to see your backups in a new light? Log into DeviceLink and give these Graphs a try!

If you have any questions about these new features, please contact us. To learn more on your own, please visit our documentation center.

You can also access more information and see images of these updates in our recent blog post here: Copia Blog | Product Launch: DeviceLink Graphs 

Sincerely,

The Copia Team

Have you ever wanted to copy a rung or two of Ladder Diagram from another Rockwell PLC project, but don't want to go through the time and effort of downloading the project, waiting for it to open in Studio 5000, just to copy/paste a rung? Well now you don't have to! Copia has added the ability to copy the Neutral Text directly from the PLC file viewer for pasting directly into the IDE. See the video below for a demonstration of this in action!

Read more about Rockwell Neutral Text copying in our Documentation at this link. 

Hello Copia users!

We are excited to announce a new improvement to our web application that we believe will make your experience even better. You will now see a dedicated "Commits" tab on the repo page in our web app.

What does this mean for you? Well, let us explain.

Previously, to view the commit graph and history for a specific repository, you had to navigate through a few different pages. We understand that this was not the most convenient or accessible way to view this important information, especially for new users. That's why we have added a new tab dedicated to "Commits" on the repo page. This means that with just one click from any page of a repository, you can now easily access the commit graph and history for any repository you are working on.

We believe this change will not only save you time but also make your workflow more efficient. No more jumping back and forth between pages to view the commit history. It's all right there in one place, easily accessible.

Happy committing!

We're excited to announce an important update to Copia's Desktop app: starting with Copia Desktop v0.0.110, all commit messages must be unique. Previously, users were able to commit with the default commit message of Update . This highly-requested enhancement aligns our app more closely with standard Git clients and offers several key benefits:

• Consistency with Git Standards: This update ensures our app adheres to best practices followed by traditional Git clients, fostering a more familiar and seamless experience for our users.
• Enhanced Context and Searchability: Unique commit messages provide richer context for each change, making it easier to search and identify relevant updates. This improvement streamlines code reviews and troubleshooting, ultimately boosting productivity.
• Improved Collaboration: By requiring unique commit messages, we encourage more descriptive and meaningful entries, enhancing communication and collaboration within development teams.

We believe this change will significantly improve your workflow and code management. Thank you for your continued support as we strive to make Copia the best tool for your industrial automation needs.

Happy committing! 🚀

We are pleased to announce that Copia now provides source control and ladder rendering support for Siemens Step7 5.x (versions 5.6 SP2 – 5.7 SP1). This allows engineers users to easily visualize their ladder logic, while providing a complete git-based source control experience in the cloud. This makes it easier than ever for users to track changes and view revision histories.

Copia also includes an auto-archive feature, similar to Siemens Step7 TIA Portal, to save time and manual steps.  In addition, code-commenting enhances the code review and collaboration process, by allowing users to add comments directly on the Ladder during the Pull Request process.

We hope these new features will help engineers get the most out of their Step7 projects!  If you have any questions about these new features, please don't hesitate to contact us, and to learn more about this new feature, see our documentation!

Copia now formally supports Schneider EcoStruxure Machine Expert for Source Control operations.  This includes:

• Project navigation of differences, additions and deletions
• Graphical rendering of Ladder Logic
• Graphical rendering of Function Block Diagrams
• Graphical rendering of Sequential Function Charts
• Code Commenting during the Code Review process via Pull Request

We are committed to continuously improving our products and providing our customers with the best possible experience. If you have any questions or feedback about our new feature, please don't hesitate to reach out.

We are excited to announce that Copia now offers a graphical rendering feature for Codesys SFC (Sequential Function Chart)!

With this newly added graphical rendering feature, users can easily view and compare their SFC-based logic directly in the Copia Desktop and Web App, in it's native form. This feature simplifies version control by providing a straightforward overview of the project’s logic, making it faster and easier to identify differences between versions.

In addition, we also provide Code Commenting for this feature as well, to allow users to add comments directly on the graphical code, for quick and easy code review!

We’re proud to offer this new feature and we hope it will help our users better manage their automation projects.