Protecting and Saving a Project

Overview

EcoStruxure Machine Expert allows you to apply access protection to projects, libraries, as well as individual applications. In addition to write-protecting a project, it is a good practice to implement a user management (credentials, access rights) and encryption using certificates.

• The user management offers protection for the end user against accidental changes to the protected objects. The Project Settings > Users and Groups dialog box is used to manage user accounts and user access rights groups and the associated access rights. This allows you to control the access on EcoStruxure Machine Expert projects.

• The Project > User Management > Permissions... command opens the Permissions dialog box for configuring the rights to work on objects to execute commands in the open project or to modify the user management configuration.

• The user management does not serve as an Intellectual Property Protection (IPP) of the function blocks. Both EcoStruxure Machine Expert itself, as well as plug-ins and persons with knowledge of the project file format can view or change function blocks.

  NOTE: Intellectual Property Protection of libraries can be enhanced when libraries are delivered as compiled libraries. Therefore, execute the File > Save Project As Compiled Library command to save a library in encoded format. This library no longer contains source code. Only the compiler is able to interpret these data; other EcoStruxure Machine Expert components are denied this information.

• Intellectual Property Protection of projects can be greatly enhanced by encrypting the project file. To achieve this, activate the option Enable project file encryption in the Project Settings > Security dialog box, and select the encryption option that suits your needs:

  • Protection via Password

  • Protection via Dongle

  • Protection via Certificates

  NOTE: Losing a project password leads to the project being unable to open.

• The option Integrity check in the Project settings > Security dialog box saves the project file in a proprietary format. The integrity of the file is verified each time the project is opened.

  NOTE: The project file is not encrypted. To help protect your project from unauthorized access, select the option Encryption in the dialog box as indicated above.