Flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) has become the main development direction of power system in the future, so scientific configuration method of FACTS device is very important. At present, the configuration method of FACTS device has been explored to some extent, but there is still a lack of comprehensive summary of FACTS device configuration method and scientific configuration methods of FACTS device adapting to various application scenes in power system. To this end, this paper summarizes research progress and research prospects of configuration methods of FACTS device. Firstly, starting from the single device configuration within three types of FACTS devices and the multiple device configuration of several types of FACTS devices, research progress of the configuration methods is summarized. Then, from four perspectives which are multiple targets, multiple types, power-supply planning and power grid planning, realization ideas of configuration methods with multiple targets or with multiple types, and the configuration methods considering power-supply planning or considering power grid planning are all are proposed in this paper, which can meet the development needs of power system in the future. The summary of research progress and the four proposed adaptive configuration methods done in this paper aims to provide a reference for the subsequent research on configuration method of FACTS devices.