The invention relates to a device and method for configuring, projecting, documenting and/or diagnosing modules and/or automation components in an automation system or process control system. The aim of the invention is to link automation components into an engineering system of the automation system or process control system. To this end, a released interface which is, in particular, versioned is provided via which a software component of an automation component couples to the engineering system. The automation component is made known to the engineering system and offers its functionality thereto. The software component can likewise interrogate relevant information of the engineering system via corresponding interfaces.