Skip to main content

Tekla Developer Award 2019 Winner Shares the Secrets of Their Success

 
The Tekla Developer Awards is an annual competition, where we showcase the world’s best Tekla developers. Now in its tenth year, the competition is open to all Tekla developers from around the world, whether customers or partners. What’s more, Tekla Campus students, universities and educational institutes are also invited to enter. Your application can be commercial, free, internal, a build for a student project – anything as long it utilizes Tekla APIs.  So, if you want to showcase your skills, gain some glory and win a Mavic Pro drone, head on over to the Tekla Developer Awards 2020 entry page.
 

Introducing the 2019 winner  

Last year, the top award went to Paul Deckers from BIMcollab for a solution called BIMcollab BCF Manager. This is an integration for Tekla Structures and BIMcollab, an issue collaboration platform. The application adds cloud-based issue management capabilities to Tekla Structures, allowing users to create and modify issues and communicate them directly from within the application through BIMcollab. Needless to say, this is a big help when it comes to managing any issues that come up while evaluating a digital model’s results.
 
So, what can you learn from BIMcollab’s victory and how can their advice help you scoop the top prize?  To find out, we spoke to the winner and asked them to share the secrets of their success.
 

1.      Make the most of BIM’s openness

"We believe in open BIM. The concepts of open BIM and issue management stand or fall with the ability to connect BIM applications in various ways, ” says Decker. “Having a powerful and straightforward API is essential for creating these connections. The Tekla Open API is such an API."
 

2.      Helps users use their own software

“Nobody tells a carpenter which hammer to use, they always know the best option. It’s good to understand that there’s always the best tool for each situation. When we developed BIMcollab BCF Manager, we said “we really need to connect to all those tools.” We need to let users use their software and enhance it. We brought Tekla Structures into our world of issue management and allowed it to play well with many other products out there.”
 

3.      Start learning the API as soon as possible

”When you start with Tekla, you have to start with [The Tekla Open] API. Like many APIs, it’s all about learning. It’s pretty quick to do as the documentation was fairly complete, which you don’t always see. Once you’re done, developing involves a lot of trial and error and experimenting. Happily, these kinds of APIs allow you to do just that.” You can start learning with this free eLearning course for Tekla Open API.
 

4.      Focus, focus, focus  

”Really focus on going for it! We were very happy that we won out of 24 competitors. It shows this is an interesting area to be working in, but there’s still lots that can be done. So, this motivates people to think of these great applications.”
 

5.      Keep it simple

They don’t always have to be elaborate products. Sometimes even the simplest tools can have a huge impact. So, if this inspires you, do it. Get something done and submit.
 

6.      Have fun!

It’s great that Tekla organized this competition. It gave our developers, people with real technical know-how, the chance to spend a lot of time and effort on getting the task done. This really helps highlight the engineering and development need, while showing what’s hidden behind the curtain.
 
Hopefully, this has given you some insight into what it takes to be a winner. If you want to get involved, you have until July 31st to submit your application. We look forward to checking out your entry.