A method and device for managing and configuring field devices in an automation installation with a configuration tool operative to physically detect a field device in the automation installation, logically incorporate it into the automation installation, and configure it in the automation installation, the configuration tool resorting for this purpose to a predefined first field-device-specific information packet which at least partially describes the functions and data of the field device and for this purpose has a predetermined set of predefined graphical elements. The configuration tool may have a set of freely defined graphical elements, each freely defined graphical element corresponding to a predefined graphical element of the field-device-specific information packet, the functionality and appearance of the freely defined graphical elements being freely definable, and the configuration tool being operative to extract the predefined graphical elements from the field-device-specific information packet and to replace them with freely defined graphical elements.