Bob
In answer to your questions
To go online you will need to create a program first, it can be as simple as just creating a new project with an M340 cpu. But I would suggest also configuring the io at this stage, because this will help in the io testing part of your question.
The io cannot be directly addressed as bits of a word (Yes this is a feature I have used on other systems and I do miss in Unity). However when online you can click on each card in the configuration and the last tab is debug (or diagnostic). Im doing this from memory so forgive me any lapses. In this tab you can directly see the state of digital and analog values, and I think for outputs you can force them here.
Anyhow I hope this helps
Geoff