With Live Collaboration for Tekla Structures you can collaborate in real time between 3D models without exporting or sharing any files. Live Collaboration brings a project team together to review work being carried out in Tekla Structures and Trimble Connect.

Tekla Structures 2025 introduces the Live Collaboration functionality as a Preview feature. To find out more, see Preview features in Tekla Structures 2025.

As a part of the review process, Tekla Structures users can share their model modifications live to other Tekla Structures and Trimble Connect users, and see the modifications and the navigation of other collaborators in their Tekla Structures model. Model changes are visible to all collaborators, but each user can edit only their own model. This means that you can see other users' model objects as an overlay among your model objects in Tekla Structures, but you cannot edit them or convert them to native Tekla Structures objects. Trimble Connect users can also share models which are stored in the Trimble Connect project.

Before you can start using Live Collaboration, the following prerequisites must be met:

• Your Tekla Structures model needs to be linked to a Trimble Connect project. See instructions here: Link a Tekla Structures model to a Trimble Connect project.
• Invite your collaborators to the Trimble Connect project. All the collaborators using either Tekla Structures or Trimble Connect need to be members of the same Trimble Connect project to be able to join the same Live Collaboration session. See instructions here: Inviting users.
• In Trimble Connect for Browser 3D viewer, go to Settings and enable the Live Collaboration extension. The Live Collaboration functionalities then become available.

Start a live collaboration session in Tekla Structures:

1. In the Tekla Structures side pane, click to open the Live Collaboration side pane window.

2. To start a live collaboration session, click next to the Start a session or join a session with a link box.

   If needed, you can enter a name for the session. Otherwise the session name will consist of the date of the session.

   Sessions can be started both in Tekla Structures or in Trimble Connect for Browser 3D viewer. The same sessions appear to the list of sessions in the Live Collaboration side pane, regardless of the application where the session was started. The collaborators using Tekla Structures or Trimble Connect for Browser can then join the same session.

   You can join any of the sessions that are visible in the side pane. The model names, collaborator names, and the used application names are visible for each collaborator. To join an existing session, click next to the session name.

   Collaborators can join the same session multiple times, from different applications, devices, or using different instances of the same application. If needed, you can also share the link of the session, for example, in a calendar invite or in an email.

3. When the session has started, click Share to add your model to the session and make it visible to other collaborators.

   

4. Start working in the model or follow other collaborators.

   You can see other collaborators' model edits live in the 3D model view. You can share your location and navigation and see the location and navigation of each session participant live in the 3D model view.

5. To leave the session, click .

   If you want to return to a session, click next to the session name.