Prerequisites for Tekla Model Sharing

Before you can start using Tekla Model Sharing and share your models, the following prerequisites must be met.

Tekla Structures installed.

All users of the same shared model must have the same Tekla Structures version, and use the same latest service pack.
A personal Trimble Identity connected to an organization.

All sharing actions require authentication, and the authentication is based on Trimble Identity.
An internet connection to share and download changes.

You must connect to the Tekla Model Sharing service to perform any model sharing actions. Ensure that the TCP port 443 (the default HTTPS) outbound is open, and if using an HTTP proxy, it must support HTTP 1.1. For further information, see TCP ports, URLs and IP ranges used by Tekla Model Sharing.

Cloud-based Tekla Model Sharing service

When you start to share a model using Tekla Model Sharing, the model is connected to the cloud-based sharing service.

To send model changes to the sharing service, you write out.
To fetch other users' model changes from the sharing service, you read in.

When you read in changes, the updates to your local version of the shared model are delivered as incremental packets. This means that when you read in, the data that is fetched from the sharing service is merged with the data on your computer. You must read in all shared changes before you can write out your own changes to the sharing service.

Note that there is no central model in the sharing service as such, only a model instance that consists of a model baseline and incremental updates. You cannot open the model in the sharing service or access any files.

The model data is stored to the sharing service. Each user fetches the model data from the sharing service to their local versions of the model when they read in. User authentication is based on Trimble Identity.

If you cannot use the cloud-based sharing service, an alternative is the on-premises sharing service for Tekla Model Sharing. The on-premises sharing server requires a separate subscription and installation. For more information on how to set up and install the on-premises server, see Install an on-premises sharing service for Tekla Model Sharing.

Cache service for Tekla Model Sharing

You can also install a separate cache service for Tekla Model Sharing that downloads and caches the model changes on behalf of the Tekla Structures client workstations. Using the cache service for Tekla Model Sharing makes downloading model data faster when the same data is requested multiple times, such as when several users in the same office are working in a shared model. The cache service is particularly beneficial in locations where download speed might be limited.

The cache service downloads model data from the Tekla Model Sharing service and stores the data in the file system in a local area network (LAN). The first time that a user reads in and fetches a packet from the Tekla Model Sharing service, it is stored in the cache. Any later requests for the same packet are served from the cache in the LAN. The cache is not used for packets that are written out.

The cache service is useful even if there is only one Tekla Model Sharing user in the office. For example, rejoining a model is faster because the model data is available locally. Additionally, since the model data is always loaded in small data blocks, the cache service can download any missing blocks later if the download is interrupted.

You can download the cache server installation file from Tekla Downloads.