A method for configuring a control device for integration of intelligent electrical field devices into a control or automation system having a flexibly expandable hardware structure is disclosed. A configuration of the system is created by a device configuration tool and a system configuration tool. Device configuration data is produced in the device configuration tool from a configuration device description and from a system configuration description provided by the system configuration tool. Project-specific libraries of the logical node types for the user-programmable controller can be created by a logical node type editor. A controller configuration tool can select for the created project-specific libraries to produce device-specific configuration descriptions.