UPDATE. Got this resolved with the help of StackOverflow:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29659544/angularjs-ui-tabs-first-tab-automatically-selected

Hi everybody,

I have preferences form where I defined the following states:

 app.config(['$stateProvider', function ($stateProvider) {
        $stateProvider.state('home', {
            url: '/',
            controller: 'prefsAcsController',
            template: ''
        }).state('edit', {
            url: '/edit',
            controller: 'prefsAcsCrudController',
            templateUrl: '/customerAccounts/PrefsAcs'
        }).state('accountUDFs', {
            url: '/AccountUDFs',
            templateUrl: '/customerAccounts/PrefsAcs/AccountsUDFs'
        }).state('invoiceUDFs', {
            url: '/InvoiceUDFs',
            templateUrl: '/customerAccounts/PrefsAcs/InvoiceUDFs'
        }).state('confirmationText', {
            url: '/ConfirmationText',
            templateUrl: '/customerAccounts/PrefsAcs/ConfirmationText'
        });
    }]);

and in the prefsAcsCrudController I have the following:

 $scope.tabsViews = [{
                index: 1, name: 'accountUDFs',
                invalid: false, title: resourceFactory.getResource('Labels', 'xUDFs').format(resourceFactory.getResource('Labels', 'account'))
            },
                 {
                     index: 2, name: 'invoiceUDFs', invalid: false,
                     title: resourceFactory.getResource('Labels', 'xUDFs').format(resourceFactory.getResource('Labels', 'invoice'))
                 },
                 {
                     index: 3, name: 'confirmationText', invalid: false,
                     title: resourceFactory.getResource('Labels', 'confirmationText')
                 }
            ];

            function objectFindByKey(array, key, value) {
                for (var i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
                    if (array[i][key] === value) {
                        return array[i];
                    }
                }
                return null;
            }

            $scope.previousIndex = null;

            $scope.selectView = function (viewIndex) {

                var newView = objectFindByKey($scope.tabsViews, 'index', viewIndex);

                if ($scope.previousIndex != null) {
                    $scope.tabsViews[$scope.previousIndex - 1]["invalid"] = $scope.form.$invalid;
                }

                $scope.previousIndex = viewIndex;
                if (newView) {

                    var viewName = newView["name"];
                    $state.go(viewName);
                }
            };

and in the chtml page I placed:

 <div class="col-lg-2 col-md-2 panel-container">
                        <tabset vertical="true" type="pills">
                            <tab ng-repeat="tab in tabsViews" select="selectView(tab.index)"
                                 class=" {{tabsViews[tab.index-1]['invalid'] ? 'invalid-tab': 'valid-tab' }}">
                                <tab-heading>{{tab.title}}</tab-heading>
                            </tab>
                        </tabset>
                    </div>

                    <div class="col-lg-10 col-md-10 panel-container">
                        <div data-ui-view data-autoscroll="false"></div>                    
                    </div>

All seems to work nicely.

Now, in the Customer Accounts/Invoices/User Defined I placed the following

 <div class="col-md-12">
                <div ng-bind-html="noInvoicesUserDefined"></div>
            </div>

where noInvoicesUserDefined is this:

 $scope.noInvoicesUserDefined = resourceFactory.getResource('Messages', 'noUserDefinedConfiguredX').format(
         "<a href='/CustomerAccounts/PrefsAcs#/InvoiceUDFs'>" + resourceFactory.getResource('Labels', 'invoices') + "-" +
         resourceFactory.getResource('Labels', 'preferences') + "</a>");

It also works nicely and automatically the second tab is selected when I click on the link. This is exactly what I want. The only problem here is the active class is still on the very first tab (e.g. I see the UDF for Invoices but on the left I see Account User Defined highlighted tab).

Do you see what should I fix to make the invoices tab to be highlighted when I access it this way?

Thanks in advance.