TIA Portal HMI Tag Table Import to Non-Default Groups

1. Overview of HMI Tag Management in TIA Portal

Starting with TIA Portal V13 SP1 and maturing through V16, Siemens introduced a structured approach to HMI tag management that mirrors, in part, the symbolic tag-folder model long used by Allen-Bradley in Studio 5000 / RSLogix 5000. In TIA Portal, an HMI device can host one or more tag tables. Each tag table can be nested inside a tag group. A group is purely organizational: it appears in the project tree under the HMI device node as a folder, but it does not change tag resolution, polling, or runtime behavior. Tag tables are the actual data containers that hold the tag definitions, connections, acquisition cycles, limits, and scaling parameters.

This grouping model becomes important on projects with hundreds or thousands of tags because it gives the engineer a way to slice the tag database by area (e.g. Motor_Control, Valve_Control, Alarms, Recipes) rather than scrolling a single, monolithic default table. The runtime behavior is identical regardless of which group or table a tag lives in, but engineering productivity and review traceability are materially improved.

The catch appears when the engineer needs to populate these non-default tables from an external source. TIA Portal's import dialog in the HMI tag editor offers a single import path: the default tag table. There is no native GUI affordance to import an .xlsx or .csv file directly into a tag table the engineer has just created inside a group. This limitation persists in V16, V16 Update 4, and subsequent releases unless explicitly noted in the firmware/release notes.

2. The Direct-Import Limitation on Non-Default Tag Tables

When the user right-clicks a tag table that is not the default table and selects Import, the option is either grayed out, hidden, or routed to a context that requires the destination to be the default table. The same restriction applies when the user opens the tag editor, switches the Tag Table drop-down to a custom table, and then attempts Import > Tags from the toolbar.

The HMI tag editor uses the currently active table as the target. The import dialog's destination is the table whose Edit view is in focus. The default tag table is always present and is the implicit fallback for the import wizard. The expected workflow — select the destination table first, then import — does not work for non-default tables. This asymmetry is the root of the engineer pain point: an Excel-driven tag generation pipeline that should be a single click becomes a multi-step re-routing exercise.

The limitation is specifically scoped to the HMI tag editor. PLC tag tables in the same project do not exhibit the same restriction in V16. Engineers used to the PLC tag editor's import flexibility often assume the HMI editor behaves identically, then discover the gap when they attempt the first import.

3. Why the Default Table Is the Only Native Import Target

The HMI tag editor's import handler is bound to the Default tag table object as the canonical import sink. When the user activates a different table in the editor, the import action does not re-target to that table. The behavior is consistent with TIA Portal's historical position: the default table is the only guaranteed-present container, so the import wizard is hard-wired to it.

There is no public Siemens knowledge base entry that documents this as a defect versus a design choice. The published TIA Portal Help: HMI Tag Editor documentation describes import/export of tags as a property of the editor, not of an individual table. From the editor's perspective, the active table is the destination, but the routing code does not propagate the import path through the group/table hierarchy in the same way the PLC tag editor does.

For engineers building reproducible tag databases, this means the import is a two-stage operation:

1. Stage 1: Land the import in the default table (always allowed).
2. Stage 2: Move the imported tags into the desired group/table structure.

Stage 2 has multiple sub-options, each with trade-offs. The sections below cover the four practical workflows.

4. Workaround: Spreadsheet Group-Path Trick

The cleanest single-import workaround exploits the fact that the HMI tag export format carries the group name and tag table name as columns. The export is not a flat dump of tag properties; it is a structured dump that records the original table membership. If the user edits the spreadsheet to set the Group and Tag Table columns to the names of the desired non-default targets, and then imports the file through the Show all tags view, the importer will route the rows into the named groups and tables — provided those groups and tables already exist in the project.

The Show all tags view is the key. It is a flattened read/write view across every group and every table. When the user activates Show all tags and triggers Import, the importer reads the destination information from the spreadsheet itself rather than from the active table context. This is the only documented path that bypasses the default-table restriction in V16.

Pre-conditions for the workaround:

• The target group must exist in the HMI device node before the import.
• The target tag table must exist inside the target group before the import.
• The Group and Tag Table column names in the spreadsheet must exactly match the project names (case-sensitive, no leading/trailing whitespace).
• Column headers must use the localized names that match the active TIA Portal UI language, or the localized names must be mapped.

5. Step-by-Step Procedure for Non-Default Table Import

The following procedure works on TIA Portal V16 with Update 4 (and typically on V15.1, V16, V17, and V18 unless Siemens changes the import handler in a later update). It assumes the engineer is using the HMI tag editor in a Comfort/ Unified Panel project or a WinCC Runtime Advanced / Professional PC station.

1. Create the target group. In the project tree, right-click the HMI device → HMI Tags → Add new group. Name it to match the spreadsheet column, e.g. Motor_Control.
2. Create the target tag table inside the group. Right-click the new group → Add new tag table. Name it to match the spreadsheet, e.g. MotorTags.
3. Export a probe table. Right-click the new tag table → Export → Tags. Save as .xlsx or .csv. This produces a template with the correct localized column headers and reveals the exact column name that holds the Group and Tag Table identifiers.
4. Inspect the spreadsheet. Open the exported file. Note the column that holds the group name and the column that holds the tag table name. Do not rename these columns. TIA Portal's importer keys on the localized header string.
5. Populate the spreadsheet. Fill in the rows for every tag you want to land in Motor_Control / MotorTags. Set the Group column to Motor_Control and the Tag Table column to MotorTags on every row.
6. Delete the probe table if you do not want a placeholder. Optional. If the placeholder created in step 1–2 has no real tags, leave it; the import will fill it. If you need a clean table, delete the table but keep the group. Re-create the table inside the group using the same name.
7. Open Show all tags. In the HMI tag editor, click the small icon in the table selector that opens the Show all tags view. This view flattens every group and every table into a single editable grid.
8. Trigger Import. From the toolbar, choose Import > Tags (or the equivalent localized menu entry). Select the spreadsheet from step 5.
9. Resolve the import dialog. If the importer prompts for column mapping, ensure the Group and Tag Table columns are mapped to their project-tree equivalents. Confirm the import.
10. Verify the result. Switch back to the per-table view. Open the target group and target table. Confirm the tags landed in the correct table with the correct connection, address, and acquisition cycle.

If the importer reports Table not found, Group not found, or silently lands the rows in the default table, the most common cause is a column-name mismatch (localization, trailing space, hidden character). Re-export a probe table and compare headers byte-for-byte.

6. HMI Tag Type Reference: Internal vs External

HMI tags in TIA Portal are classified into two fundamental types, and the spreadsheet import must respect this classification.

External tags require the referenced PLC tag to exist and to be reachable on the configured connection. If the symbolic PLC tag does not exist at compile time, the HMI build fails with an error similar to Tag 'X' could not be linked. The error is reported in the HMI compile log under the Tags & Connections section, and the offending tag is highlighted in the tag editor with a red marker.

For mixed-type imports, the spreadsheet must include a column that distinguishes the two. The exact column header is localized; in English it is typically Connection (left blank for internal tags) and PLC tag or Address for the data source. Always export a probe table to confirm the column names for the active TIA Portal language.

7. PLC Tag Tables vs HMI Tag Tables

Engineers moving between PLC tag tables and HMI tag tables often assume the two editors behave identically. They do not. The differences that matter for the import workflow:

The drag-and-drop capability in the PLC tag editor is the historical baseline engineers compare against. The HMI editor's Show all tags view is the closest equivalent. It is enabled by clicking the table-selector dropdown and choosing Show all tags at the top of the list.

8. Alternative Workflows: Drag-and-Drop, Bulk Move, and Drop-Down Reroute

When the spreadsheet workaround is not viable (e.g. tags are already in the default table from a prior import and just need to be re-routed), three GUI workflows are available inside TIA Portal without external scripting.

Workflow A: Multi-select drag-and-drop. In the default tag table, multi-select the rows (Shift+click for ranges, Ctrl+click for sparse selection). Drag the selection to the desired group/table in the project tree. The tags move, not copy, when the destination is in the same project. This is the fastest way to re-route 10–500 tags in a single gesture.

Workflow B: Per-row drop-down re-target. In any table view, click the Tag Table column on a row to open the inline drop-down. Select the destination table. Press Enter. The tag moves to the selected table. This is ideal for surgical re-routing of single tags or for confirming that the drop-down lists every table in the project (it does, including the default table).

Workflow C: Default-table-as-staging. Use the default table as a transient staging area. Empty the default table by moving all existing tags to a holding table (e.g. _defaultTagTable_). Import the new spreadsheet into the (now empty) default table. Move the freshly imported tags to the target table. This is the cleanest pattern when the engineer wants to keep the spreadsheet import as the single source of truth for new tag additions, but it leaves an empty default table in the project.

For projects with 1,000+ tags, Workflow A is the highest-throughput. For projects with strict naming discipline where the target table must exist before the import, the Section-5 spreadsheet workaround is the correct choice.

9. Spreadsheet Column Reference for HMI Tag Imports

The TIA Portal HMI tag export format is the canonical reference for the import format. The columns below are typical for English-language TIA Portal V16; localized installations will show the translated header, but the column order and data semantics are stable.

The Path column is the alternative to Group + Tag Table. When importing, TIA Portal will accept either the split form (Group + Tag Table) or the combined Path form. The combined form looks like Motor_Control\MotorTags\MyTag. The split form is more maintainable in Excel templates because the group and table values can be set once per row block and copied down.

Encoding note: the export file is UTF-8 with BOM on English and German installations, and may be UTF-16 or system code page on others. Excel on Windows will detect the BOM and decode correctly. If the file is re-saved through a tool that strips the BOM (some text editors, some Python CSV writers), TIA Portal may reject the file. Always export a probe file and re-save through the same pipeline before scaling to a full tag database.

10. Version Compatibility, Update Behavior, and Known Constraints

The Section-5 workaround has been validated by field engineers on TIA Portal V15.1, V16, V16 Update 4, V17, and V18. The behavior is consistent: Show all tags + Import honors the Group and Tag Table columns. Engineers should test on a throwaway project after every major update, because Siemens occasionally reworks the tag editor.

Known constraints that the workaround does not solve:

• Multilingual projects. If the project is opened on a TIA Portal with a different UI language than the spreadsheet was generated in, the column headers will not match. Re-export a probe table from the current language installation and re-map the headers.
• Tag-name collisions. If a tag with the same name already exists in the destination table, the importer skips the row by default. Use Overwrite existing objects in the import dialog only when the new definitions are intentionally replacing the old ones.
• Library-managed tags. Tags that originate from a Siemens library (HMI faceplates, style tags) cannot be re-imported from a spreadsheet. They must be re-instanced from the library master.
• UDT-based HMI tags. HMI tags generated from PLC UDTs are populated by the HMI compile step, not by spreadsheet import. The HMI compile is the source of truth for UDT-derived tags.

The official TIA Portal Help: HMI Tag Editor documents the import/export schema in the section titled Importing and exporting tags. The WinCC (TIA Portal) Programming and Operating Manual covers the underlying tag model in chapter 4. Both are updated with each TIA Portal release; cross-check the edition number against the installed TIA Portal version before relying on a specific column header.

11. Best Practices for Large HMI Tag Databases

For projects that exceed 2,000 HMI tags, the import workflow is not a one-off task; it is a repeatable engineering process. The following practices have proven out on multi-thousand-tag projects in water/wastewater, automotive, and process-plant applications.

1. Maintain the Excel template as a versioned artifact. Store the template in source control (Git, SVN, TIA Portal Teamcenter gateway). Commit each release of the tag database as a single, signed CSV/XLSX. The TIA Portal project file (.ap16) is not human-diffable; the spreadsheet is.
2. Use one worksheet per tag table. Each worksheet's rows set the Group and Tag Table columns to the same value. This eliminates the per-row error of typing the wrong table name and makes the spreadsheet auditable at a glance.
3. Validate the PLC side first. Run a full PLC compile and download to the PLC simulator (PLCSIM) before importing HMI tags. External HMI tags will fail to link if the referenced PLC tags do not exist or are not reachable on the configured connection.
4. Run the HMI compile immediately after import. The compile log will surface link errors, name collisions, and type mismatches. The error count is the canonical quality gate before promoting the project to the test bench.
5. Use a naming convention that survives export round-trips. Avoid spaces, special characters, and reserved words in tag names. The reserved-word list is documented in the WinCC (TIA Portal) Programming and Operating Manual, chapter 4, Valid identifiers.
6. Document the import procedure in the project quality plan. The Section-5 workaround is non-obvious. A 1-page runbook in the project documentation prevents the next engineer from rediscovering it the hard way.

12. Verification Checklist

After every import, run this checklist before marking the task complete. A failed check indicates either a spreadsheet error, a group/table name mismatch, or a missing PLC tag.

For projects with formal change control, attach the HMI compile log and the round-trip export diff to the engineering change record. This is the audit trail that proves the tag database matches the documented specification.

13. Frequently Asked Questions