1. Introduction
The B&R Community was established at the end of 2023 as an open technical platform where B&R users and experts exchange knowledge, solve technical problems, share real-world project experience, and collaborate on solutions.
Since the beginning, the Community has been free, publicly accessible, and available 24/7. Over the past three years, it has developed into an established and trusted source of technical information about B&R technologies.
How the B&R Community Has Evolved
The basic idea behind the Community has remained the same: connect people who work with B&R technologies and make their technical knowledge available to others.
Over time, new categories and channels have been added to support different types of technical content and collaboration. Today, users can not only ask technical questions, share practical experience, and publish How-Tos and best practices, but also learn about new technologies and releases, collaborate on community-driven projects and tools, and use dedicated knowledge channels.
At the same time, AI-based functions are gradually being introduced to help users access, structure, and find information more efficiently.
These AI functions include:
- Translation into English, allowing users to write in their native language
- Automatic title creation
- Automatic tagging
- AI-generated summaries of discussions
- AI-assisted Community search
A recent addition is Ask AI, which extends the internal search experience by generating answers and summaries based specifically on content available in the B&R Community.
AI is becoming an important part of how technical knowledge can be accessed and processed. However, the Community remains centered around people.
The questions, answers, technical discussions, shared experience, and collaboration come from users and experts working with B&R technologies. AI helps make this knowledge easier to access and use, while people remain the source of the content and interaction.
2.A Technical Platform for B&R Users and Experts
The B&R Community brings users and experts together in one place. Its purpose is not only to answer individual questions, but also to make technical knowledge reusable and accessible to others facing similar challenges.
Users can:
- Help each other solve technical problems
- Share experience from real applications and projects
- Get technical input from B&R experts and experienced users
- Collaborate on community-driven tools and solutions
- Find practical information about B&R technologies and innovations
- Reuse solutions that have already been discussed and validated by the Community
The platform is free, open, and available 24/7.
3.Key Values of the B&R Community
The Community combines public technical information with the practical experience of B&R users and experts around the world.
24/7 Access
The Community is available independently of local business hours. Users can search existing discussions, solutions, and technical articles at any time.
This is particularly useful when an answer already exists. Instead of waiting for a new support interaction, users can immediately search for similar applications, problems, and solutions.
Public and Open Access
Community content can be read without logging in. Public content can also be indexed by search engines, making technical information easier to discover outside the Community itself.
This open approach also makes the content suitable for modern AI-based knowledge retrieval.
Global Expert Audience
Questions are visible to B&R users and experts around the world.
A technical problem encountered in one application or region may already have been solved somewhere else. The Community makes it possible to reuse this experience instead of solving the same problem repeatedly in isolation.
Easy Knowledge Exchange
Users can search, filter, and reuse existing technical discussions and solutions.
The Community therefore works not only as a place to ask new questions, but also as a growing technical knowledge base containing practical information created through real support cases, projects, discussions, and technical contributions.
Community-Driven Solutions
The Community also provides a space for projects, tools, and other solutions developed by users or together with users.
This extends collaboration beyond traditional questions and answers and allows technical solutions to evolve through contributions and feedback from the Community.
AI-Powered Assistance
The platform and the way Community content is structured are designed to work well with AI-based tools.
Community knowledge can therefore be used in several ways:
- You can reference B&R Community content in a prompt to your AI assistant.
- An AI agent can use Community information as one of its technical knowledge sources.
- Community knowledge can be integrated into agentic AI workflows.
- MCP servers can be used as part of an architecture that allows AI agents to access relevant Community knowledge and combine it with other technical sources and tools.
This allows the same technical knowledge that is useful to engineers to become useful input for AI assistants and agents as well.
4.Who Is the B&R Community For?
The short answer is: anyone working with B&R technology.
The Community is intended for B&R users regardless of their role or level of experience. This includes customers, partners, engineers, developers, system integrators, support engineers, and other users working with the B&R ecosystem.
Typical reasons for using the Community include:
- Collaborating and innovating with B&R technologies
- Solving a challenge while developing an application in the B&R ecosystem
- Finding existing approaches instead of starting from scratch
- Checking whether someone has already solved a similar problem
- Accessing practical how-to guides that complement official B&R documentation
- Getting help from experts and experienced users
- Accessing the latest Automation Help online
- Using the Consult AI Help chatbot
- Staying informed about technical aspects of B&R innovations
The experience level is not important. A question can come from someone working with a B&R product for the first time or from an experienced engineer dealing with a specific technical challenge.
5.How the Community Complements Other B&R Channels
The B&R Community does not replace existing B&R support, training, or engineering channels. Each channel has a different purpose and should be used accordingly.
| Reason | B&R channel |
|---|---|
| First place to look for existing answers and technical knowledge | B&R Community |
| Urgent assistance or reporting a bug | B&R Support |
| Structured training on B&R technology | B&R Automation Academy |
| Comprehensive development services | B&R Automation Engineering |
For many technical questions, the Community is a practical first place to search. An existing discussion, how-to article, or solution may already provide the required information.
B&R Support remains the appropriate channel when urgent assistance is required or when a potential product issue or bug needs to be reported and handled through the support process.
For structured learning and training, B&R Automation Academy provides the appropriate learning environment.
B&R Automation Engineering provides comprehensive development services when engineering support beyond technical knowledge exchange is required.
The channels therefore complement each other rather than compete with each other.
6.Community Content and Forum Channels
The Community contains several types of technical content. It is not limited to question-and-answer discussions.
Ask Questions
Users can ask technical questions and receive input from the global audience of B&R users and experts.
These discussions also remain available afterwards, allowing the resulting knowledge to help other users with similar problems.
Share Information and Ideas
Users and experts can proactively share technical knowledge instead of waiting for someone to ask a question.
Typical content includes:
- How-to articles
- Technical tips
- Best practices
- Project experience
- Practical solutions and implementation approaches
This type of content complements official documentation with experience from practical applications.
Innovation & Release Highlights
The Community also provides technical information about new functionality, releases, and B&R innovations.
The focus is on explaining the technology from a practical and technical perspective, including information that helps users understand and apply new functionality.
Community-Driven Projects and Tools
The Community supports projects and tools created with and for B&R users.
This provides a place where users can share solutions, contribute to development, provide feedback, and collaborate on tools that address practical engineering needs.
7.From Community Knowledge to AI Knowledge
Since the end of 2023, the B&R Community has grown from a technical discussion platform into an established and trusted source of information about B&R technologies.
The value of this knowledge is no longer limited to people browsing or searching the Community directly.
Because the platform is public and its information is structured in an AI-friendly way, Community content can also become part of AI-assisted engineering and support workflows.
A user can reference Community information when working with an AI assistant. More advanced implementations can enable an AI agent to use Community knowledge together with other sources. In agentic AI architectures, MCP servers can provide a standardized way for agents to interact with available knowledge sources and tools.
This creates several possible ways of using the same technical knowledge:
Engineer → Community → Technical information
Engineer → AI assistant → Community knowledge
AI agent → Knowledge sources and tools → Community knowledge
Agentic AI → MCP servers → Community and other technical sources
The Community therefore serves two related purposes: it provides technical knowledge directly to users, while also making that knowledge available for AI-assisted workflows.
Join Community to your AI solution.
8.Summary
The B&R Community is more than a forum. It has evolved into a technical knowledge and collaboration hub for B&R users, with AI-ready content for modern engineering and support workflows. Everyone is welcome to join and contribute.
9.Not sure where to start?
Explore our Getting Started series or try the free online course created by our Automation Academy