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Product News
 Project Simulator 2009 Has Been Released!
With a streamlined user interface and an easier-to-use methodology, Project Simulator 2009 is the quickest path to a realistic project plan. Consider the effects of uncertainty combined with resource contentions and interdependencies on your existing Microsoft Project 2007 plan to see how your plan will unfold into the future.
Gain insights into your plan that Microsoft Project alone can’t offer:
- What might result if the project were to go long and over budget?
- Where might I have extra capacity in my resources?
- What is the likelihood of reaching key milestones on time?
- How might the plan be impacted by changing schedules, unavailable resources, and unexpected delays.
What is New in this Version? Just about everything
- Intuitive user interface.
- No database to install and manage.
- Latest version of the simulation engine.
- Better validation of MS Project files for compatibility with the simulation engine.
 Process Simulator 2007 (version 5.3) released!
This version is available as an update using the Check for Updates feature or can be downloaded from the Solutions Café. It contains the following enhancements and fixes:
Enhancements
- Permanent Attach – if you are attaching entities to a base entity and never intend to detach them later on (i.e. in an assembly type of activity), then using the permanent attach feature is the recommended approach. By permanently attaching entities, cost statistics will be appropriately passed to and reported by the base entity.
- Simulation precision – you now have the ability to choose the simulation clock unit precision in Simulation Properties. This helps resolve an issue seen during the simulation where activity times were shorter because they were defined in seconds.
- New Shift Editor – the Shift Editor has been completely rewritten in .NET. You can more quickly define your shifts and breaks in an easier to use interface.
- Latest simulation engine files – this version contains the ProModel 7.5 simulation engine files.
- Zooming during simulation – Functionality for one-click zooming, zooming to a selected region, and mouse wheel zooming has been implemented or updated.
- Ctrl + Shift + Left-click – zoom in
- Ctrl + Shift + Right-click – zoom out
- Ctrl + Shift + Left drag – draws a region (or “box”) to zoom into
- Ctrl + Shift + Mouse wheel scroll – zooms in and out
- Panning during simulation – Functionality to click and drag the layout to pan to different areas of your model has been implemented and improved.
- Ctrl + Shift + Right drag – pans the layout
Fixes
- The error “Run-time error '381': Invalid property array index” was received when copying and pasting logic from one activity to another when the logic contained two or more local variables.
- A Continuous arrival connection would stop producing continuous arrivals if the entities were batched at the arriving activity.
- Too many exits of a particular entity were being reported if that entity arrived at an activity (through an arrival connection), created more than one other entity type through a create routing, and then exited the system implicitly (i.e. there was no route to exit connection defined at the arrival activity).
- The error “File conversion error in ‘Getting Entity Activity Data’ section of the file…” was sometimes encountered when attempting to view simulation results. This was due to changing from one entity type that is collecting statistics to another entity type that is not collecting statistics.
- In Windows Vista, the user specific working directories were not properly created for all other users of the computer except for the user who installed the software.
- Sometimes during simulation, the scale of the shapes and connections were huge while the animation of the resources and entities were on a smaller scale.
- Entity and resource graphics appeared smaller during simulation.
- A package file could not be installed if the path to the package file was greater than 128 characters.
- If an activity had two or more routes to Exit, each was listed with the same name in the Add Analysis Item dialog accessed from the Six Sigma Configuration window.
- When opening the Scenario Manager, a runtime error 457 was thrown. This was caused from two objects having the same internal unique ID.
- Resource units would not update properly when changing the number of units and then switching to another page in the Visio document.
- Attempting to generate Six Sigma reports in Minitab, on a non-English OS or with a non-English version of Minitab, was failing and giving an error, “*ERROR* Illegal Sequence arguments.”
- Using the same local variable name in the logic of two or more Ordered arrivals to the same activity would generate a simulation compile error stating, “The identifier is already in use.”
- There was a way to define entities, activities, and resources with blank names, which would cause errors when simulating.
- Entities would stop taking the second of two routes out of an activity, if the entity was given a new name for the second route and there was a Continuous arrival coming into the activity.
- Copying Activity, Arrival, or Routing logic from one document (or page) to another was not warning the user that references to Activities, Resources, Entities, Variables, or Attributes in the logic would be lost and must be reassigned for each statement that might use one of these model elements.
- The error "Unable to extract simulation data error 9" was occurring when a model built in version 5.1 with variable counter graphics was simulated in version 5.2.
- In a specific case, the error "Run-time error '13': Type Mismatch" occurred when attempting to open the Variables and Attributes dialog.
Includes 3DR version 2.0.11.93 containing the following fixes:
- When modifying chart items to add or remove series in an existing chart, the titles in the chart were being reset to their default formatting.
- When changing the decimal precision, the chart title was being reset to its default formatting.
- In Windows Vista, scroll bars in reports and charts were being clipped so that they were only partially in view.
- 3DR would throw an error and not load the statistics RDB file if the path and filename were longer than 128 characters.
Process Simulator 2009 (version 6.0) and ProModel 2009 (version 8.0) are currently being worked on.
Look for more information about these releases in the coming months, but for now here are some of the features we are working on:
Process Simulator 2009
- Export/Import to and from Excel – model information will be exportable to Excel to not only view all of it in one place but then some information can be changed and then imported back into Visio.
- Calendars – definition of shifts and time off (holiday, vacation, etc.) for activities and resources will be done using a calendar interface.
- Pattern Arrival – this new arrival type will allow for a cyclical arrival definition where a user-defined pattern over a specified period of time can be setup and repeated throughout a simulation run.
ProModel 2009
- Minitab integration – Six Sigma Analysis will be possible using ProModel and Minitab
- Calendars – definition of shifts and time off (holiday, vacation, etc.) for locations and resources will be done using a calendar interface.
- Graphic support – more graphic types such as JPG will be supported for importing. And we might be able to support a direct import of DWG files!
Product Updates
 ProModel/MedModel/ServiceModel 7.5.1.308 Update available!
This update is available using the Check for Updates feature or can be downloaded from the Solutions Café. It contains the following enhancements and fixes:
Enhancements
- Zooming – Functionality for one-click zooming, zooming to a selected region, and mouse wheel zooming has been implemented and updated in both Edit and Simulation mode.
- Ctrl + Shift + Left-click – zoom in
- Ctrl + Shift + Right-click – zoom out
- Ctrl + Shift + Left drag – draws a region (or “box”) to zoom into
- Ctrl + Shift + Mouse wheel scroll – zooms in and out
- Panning – Functionality to click and drag the layout to pan to different areas of your model has been added to Edit mode and improved in Simulation mode.
- Ctrl + Shift + Right drag – pans the layout
- Cursors – Dynamic changes to the mouse cursor have been made throughout the application to provide visual feedback when you are in different modules graphically manipulating objects (such as moving or sizing locations) or defining objects (such as path networks and routing).
Fixes
- The Trace option in Simulation Options has been added to the ActiveX interface as Field ID 43.
- In the Portuguese version the Array Information window viewable during simulation was not resizable.
- In foreign language versions of the product, buttons in the Logic Builder were missing.
- Search and Undo buttons in the Edit Logic window, which can be invoked to fix logic compiler errors during simulation translation, were not working.
- Buttons and other parts of the interface would turn black and would not reset unless the application was restarted.
- Clicking the Compile button in Initialization or Termination Logic would set the cursor to the first line in logic rather than staying on the line it was on before compiling.
- Background graphics would disappear, if Snap to Grid was turned on, when moved to the top left corner of the Layout.
- Graphics would disappear in the Graphic Editor if moved to the top left corner of the Layout.
- Merging nodes in Path Networks didn’t always work.
- Using the mouse scroll wheel or keyboard down arrow, several Attribute, Array, Subroutine, or Macro records could be mistakenly created.
- You could not delete the last remaining Attribute, Array, Subroutine, or Macro record.
- Could not change the color of an EMF graphic after selecting it for an Entity, Resource, or Location.
- In some models where an entity activated a subroutine and then executed a WAIT UNTIL statement, the entity could mistakenly assume the attribute values of a different entity.
- If multiple LOAD statements were executed at the same location (in particular, when the location state does not change between LOAD statement executions), the IN <time> timeout value would only be triggered for the first LOAD statement executed.
- In some cases where a resource has a downtime and requests the use of another resource during the downtime, if the captured resource is preempted away, when it returns to resume being used in the downtime the application may have crashed.
Look for more updates to Process Simulator 2007 and ProModel 2007 over the next couple of months.
 Portfolio Simulator 2008 7.0.2 and Portfolio Builder Add-in 1.0.1 Have Been Released!
The powerful combination of Portfolio Simulator and its flexible Portfolio Builder add-in are now available! Getting your organization’s portfolio data into Portfolio Simulator for strategic analysis has never been easier.
Portfolio Simulator 7.0.2 Changes and Fixes
- Improved support for add-ins. Version 7.0.2 is required for the latest add-ins.
- Progress bar for upgrading sessions is now animated.
- Fixed issue where database update message would not close if the message was moved during update.
- Automatic updates now shows clearer message when the update server is not available.
Portfolio Builder 1.0.1 Changes and Fixes
- Option to toggle Microsoft Project Summary Task import on and off.
Included an additional calendar option in the Excel import template. |
