Tekla Integration is an optional add-on for PrimecutNE, and consumes a license.
Contact Kinetic for pricing and/or installation instructions.
Nesting Request Setup
Note that Tekla is installed by default to C:\Program Files (x86)\Tekla\Tekla EPM
Enable Nesting Extensions
To enable PrimeCut NE plate default nesting go to the File->Administration menu
Then go back to the menu bar and open the new Administration->Settings menu
Tick Enable Extension Directory and then click on Save
Configure the default nesting engine for plates to be PrimeCut NE (Optional), go to the Maintenance > Production Control > Company Standards menu option and click on Combining Optimizations
Now change Plate Nesting Software from Tekla EPM to Other
Extensions Folder and TeklaEPMPrimeCutNesting.dll
Find where any existing extensions folder is, this could be per PC or a common site wide folder. If one doesn't exist then create it.
Open Tekla EPM, login and then select File->Default Directories
Copy TeklaEPMPrimeCutNesting.dll to the extensions folder.
Fix for 64 bit access to Tekla
Some Tekla EPM installers did not fully setup integration access for 64 bit applications, if 64 bit access does not work the following or similar may need to be done.
Run a cmd prompt as administrator and enter the following
C:
cd\Windows\System32
copy ..\SysWOW64\FabSuiteAPI.dll FabSuiteAPI.dll
C:\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\regasm.exe FabSuiteAPI.dll /tlb /codebase
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\\regasm.exe FabSuiteAPI.dll /tlb /codebase
Note that the .Net framework may be a different version or in a different place. In the above registration example commands are given for 2 different locations.
Configure Integration Settings
Settings can be edited within PrimeCut NE and are controlled by the following two ini files.
1.TeklaEPMPrimeCutNesting.dll in the Tekla EPM extensions folder.
2.Tekla EPM.ini in the PrimeCut folder - Administrator access may be required to alter this.
To edit settings run PrimeCut NE and log in, open the Tools->ERP->Tekla EPM Settings menu
Configure settings for Tekla to create Nest Requests
Settings in the above screenshot are used by the Tekla Extension dll (TeklaEPMPrimeCutNesting.dll) to log into PrimeCut NE and process the nest request supplied by Tekla.
Users must have read/write access to the XML folder.
The datastore must exactly match the datastore (database) used by users when normally logging into Primecut and is case dependent,, ie production is different to Production
Passwords will be encrypted and stored in the ini files so will not be visible to anyone opening the files.
Temporarily the ini files can be edited and the ecp key/value line commented out and a non encrypted password line added for simple problem solving, eg
password=MYPASSWORD
•Set an appropriate log folder
•Tick Log XML requests and responses if problems with updating Tekla EPM occur
Under the Mapping tab you can customize how the different fields available in the XML of the Nesting Request sent from Tekla to Primecut resolves down to the fields within Primecut. Note that the PartName must be unique within a request so it is important to have a field included in the concatenation formula that will keep it unique (such as [PartID]). Tags must be integer values. Customers that don't exist in the database will be created (cloned from the last customer). If the invoice number is different for different parts in the request, seperate primecut workorders will be created for each. The XPaths/XQueries can be changed or added to if there are fields being generated by the FabSuiteWorkOrder that are not listed, and referred to by the square brackets in the primecut fields. The '%d' is replaced the index of the WorkOrderPart index before evaluation. It is important that this settings window be saved after you update to Primecut 4.134.38 or above, before nest requests sent from Tekla, or names will not resolve correctly.
Materials and Thicknesses
Please ensure that all materials/grades and thicknesses that are setup for plates in Tekla EPM are also setup in PrimeCut NE, with the same names.
STP Service
The STP Service will need to be configured to connect to Tekla, ideally via the Tekla Remote Connection protocol.
Consult with your Tekla representative to appropriately setup access on your Tekla server and add a user with appropriate remote access rights that the STP service will login with.
Configure the TeklaEPM.ini file in c:\PC4\STPService64 folder with appropriate login and folder settings (folders must exist)
A sample ini file follows
[Tekla EPM]
ExtensionsFolder=C:\Users\Public\Documents\Tekla\Tekla EPM\Extension
LogFolder=C:\Users\Public\Documents\Tekla\Tekla EPM\Extension\xml\STP\Log
LogRequests=1
server=TheTeklaServer
; port 3306 for Tekla database direct connect
; port port=9154 for Tekla remote connect (the recommended method that supports logging)
port=9154
;port=3306
user=TheTeklaRemoteUser
password=TheTeklaRemoteUsersPassword
remoteConnection=1
Firewalls
The STP Service will need to open ports 3306 and 9154 on the TeklaEPM server so please ensure any firewalls are appropriately configured.
Tekla Remote Connect installation for use by the STP service
The STPService uses a TeklaEPM/Fabsuite COM component to connect to the Tekla server. If a full TeklaEPM client has been installed the dll containing this component should already be installed/registered. Please note that older Tekla releases had a bug where they may not have copied and registered the dll correctly for 64 bit applications, if this is the case it will need to be fixed, see notes above .
If the Tekla client is not installed then copy it from a client machine, eg from c:\Windows\SysWOW64\FabsuiteAPI.dll, to the PrimeCut server's c:\Windows\System32\ and then register it as follows
c:
cd\Windows\System32
C:\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\regasm.exe FabSuiteAPI.dll /tlb /codebase
OR where ever the .NET framework is installed, eg
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\\regasm.exe FabSuiteAPI.dll /tlb /codebase