As already mentioned, the first step will be to launch a Project in Tekla Structures (minimum version 2021). In this example, we will use a Project in Tekla Structures 2023 that represents a warehouse dock.

IMPORTANT Note: The Tekla Project will not be provided for this training due to the sensitive information included in a Tekla Project. You will need to use one of your own Tekla projects. Make sure to use one project with different types of elements, so that you can test as much of the software´s functionality as possible.

The next step will be to launch the IMPACT Project Manager (PM). In PM we will need to create a new Project. The steps for creating a new Project and getting acquainted with the PM interface are explained in the following chapter of the training.

Activate Modules in PM

• Search and open the IMPACT Project Manager 17.1 from your Windows toolbar.

• Press the back button, find the modules on top of your screen, and then activate the Project Manager Module. Press the 3-line button and you will see that all the functions on the start side of PM are activated. See the following .gif.

Note: The start page of the Project Manager can also be used to find useful information about our software, such as new release notes, future webinars and nice articles on how IMPACT is used in real-life projects.

Create a Project in PM

• Press “New” to create a new Project.

A dialog box will pop up and the only thing that it is necessary to fill out is the Project Number. The Project number can only be 12 characters and from special characters, only the underscore (_) can be used. Fill out the name by writing your Tekla Project number or any name that will make it easy for you to find the test project. For this training, I will use name TBT_TRAIN.

Note: The project number is not editable, so please make sure that it matches the number of the project in your finance system!

Note: There are many open fields in the “create new project” dialogue box that you can fill out; from the title of the project to the address of it. Explore the general tab and the addresses tab for future reference.

PM Layout

In this subchapter, we will have a small introduction to PM.

On the left, there is the Project Browser, in the middle the Model View, as well as all the main tabs for the IMPACT PM and on the right, you will probably get the Element/Drawing Properties.

All windows are moveable. You just need to drag and drop them to different locations grabbing them from the blue header line. Follow the .gif below

Whenever you finish moving things around and decide what the best layout for you is then Go to “View” --- “Layouts” and save the layout that you would like to have for the future.

Note: You can save both a local layout and a common layout that anybody in the company can use.

Note: If you close PM then it should remember the last layout you used when opening it up again.

In the View tab, there are a few settings that are proposed to be done to optimize performance. Those settings include setting “anti-aliasing” to “off” and detail to medium.

Note: For some special cases where the model is extremely big we have developed the feature for opening the project without loading the model. That would in theory take a few seconds for a project that consists of 20.000 elements.

Building and Floors

Ideally, we would like to recreate the project environment from Tekla to match the Project environment in PM. For example, if we have 1 building and 10 floors on our Tekla project then we should be able to do that in PM. Any new project in PM consists of 1 building and 1 floor. 

If you want to create a new floor then:

• Right-click on building 1 and select floors.

• Add a few new floors and give them a name. Press OK.

The floors are created in the Project Browser.

IMPORTANT Note:  The dimensions of the floors, do not play an important role for elements that are coming in from Tekla. The x,y, and z placement of the element will automatically be transferred from the Tekla Model. If you want to match the elevations from Tekla to IMPACT then this is the place that you can adjust those.

• If we want to create multiple buildings then we need to right-click on the Model and select Buildings & Floors.

• We can now duplicate the first floor of Building 1 and then change the name to Building 2.

• We can also add multiple floors under the building number 2

• In our case, we do not want to have multiple buildings and therefore we can press Cancel.

Now that we have a quick understanding of the different layouts from the PM, and can create floors and buildings, it is time to transfer the elements from Tekla to the IMPACT database with the use of Tekla Base Tools (TBT).