Product Updates

SC Navigator 24.4.1Date March 19, 2024 New Features The System Configuration app has a new page "Case Management". This allows you to move Results Datasets (that are not shared) from one user to another. This is needed, when one user leaves their role and another user is taking over this role and needs access to the saved results. Improvements Data validation is added for the Whiteboard feature. Now, before the template is downloaded, the application will automatically validate the data and if any issues are found, it will show these in dialog. Another new data validation was added to the model. It will now give an error when there is a location without any supplier, warehouse, production, or customer on it, but there is a lane defined for it. The tooltip of the "Help" button in the bottom right corner (on the status bar) now indicates that it guides you to both the documentation and the release notes. On the Save Results Data dialog for saving Trade-Off Analysis Results, the "Results visible to everyone" switch is added, such that you can now also share Trade-Off Analysis results with other users. We improved the Trade-off Analysis code from a technical point of view, such that we can modify it more easily in the future. The performance of models with a high number of locations has been improved. Bug Fixes In rare instances, after running an optimization, it is possible to receive the warning message "A problem occurred during the optimization (...)". This message occurs when the app concludes that for that specific situation, it used too strict constraints during the optimization. We have adapted the model such that the constraints are no longer too strict in this case. The "Production Routing" Minimum and Maximum Capacity were incorrectly scaled when loaded from a dataset created in version 24.2.1 up to 24.3.3. Those datasets will continue to have this problem, however after this fix newly created datasets will not have this problem. When you use "Production Routing" Minimum and/or Maximum Capacities, we advise you to reload your data from your Excel template and save it as a new dataset with this new version of SC Navigator. After the recent update of the map colors, some custom node and arc color settings were prompting a warning message stating that a color "is not an element of the checked set Map_ColorPalette". Custom map color settings will no longer cause this warning. After a dataset or results dataset was deleted, the name was not removed from all lists, so it could still be visible. On page Center of Gravity, in rare cases, the algorithm behind the Solve Max Drive Time button could result in an Error: "The model was not solved, most likely due to an infeasibility". This could happen when some locations were distant from real cities, such that the algorithm was not able to generate a viable CoG location within the specified Maximum Drive Time. These distant location are now considered themselves as possible CoG locations, such that the model that is part of the algorithm, is no longer infeasible. On page Center of Gravity - CoG Settings, in widget General Settings, the transportation speed is now used correctly when calculating the drive times in Center of Gravity. On page Center of Gravity, in the Demand/Supply Distribution map, the Center of Gravity locations were not visible when loading a CoG results dataset, although the location latitude and longitude data were visible on the CoG Run Details page. When downloading the model output, the 'Force Close' attribute would not be exported to the Supplier sheet. Transport lanes were not appearing on the reference map when comparing results datasets that contained different products. Opening and Closing Costs were not applied in single-period models. This behavior has been adjusted such that these costs will always be applied when Initial Status Closed is set to 1. It was possible that Whiteboard Results would disappear from the list where they can be loaded, this version fixes that problem for the future. However, this does not fix Whiteboard Results that have already disappeared. If that happened to you, please contact us so we can fix this manually for you.

SC Navigator 24.3.1Date February 26, 2024 New Features The Whiteboard feature has been added: a powerful tool designed to streamline supply chain modeling. This innovative feature allows you to create a diagram of your supply chain network and translate it into an Excel template. The Whiteboard enhances the speed and accuracy of supply chain modeling, while also serving as an introduction to the SC Navigator approach of capturing the behavior and configuration of real-world supply chains in a spreadsheet. More information can be found in the Whiteboard documentation. Improvements The Inventory Cover functionality has been improved by introducing "Maximum Inventory Cover". The attribute "Inventory Cover" has been renamed to "Minimum Inventory Cover". With these attributes you can set the minimum / maximum number of next periods' outflow covered in inventory. On page Results - Transportation, the Transport Results table is added, showing all transport lanes including their capacities. The node colors on the main map have been updated to improve visibility and to better distinguish between different nodes and resource groups. The old colors are still available via the widget action Customize Nodes on the main map. Bug Fixes The Enforce Base Case Constraints option was not handled correctly when applying this via the scenario functionality. As a side effect, checking or unchecking that option will be faster. The Trade-Off Analysis did not work correctly. The model would sometimes report the solution incorrectly as infeasible. The changes made in version 24.2.1 with respect to group count constraints could result in very slow performance in instances with a high number of suppliers, productions and/or warehouses. This new version resolves those slowdowns. The "Risk" attribute for custom objectives was not populated correctly when generating templates. Values were written to the column of attribute "Refundable with Limit". SC Navigator would report models with inventory and {warehouse group} capacity constraint incorrectly as infeasible. This was due to a constraint being enforced for group values, but for one variable (outflow) the flow was calculated but for the other variable (inventory) it was not. The template was not generated correctly when custom objectives had a "-" in their name. When a custom objective was renamed, its previous name was still taken into account. When capacities were only defined at the product level, the tooltips of the charts on the result pages did not show them. On page Trade-Off Analysis, the Run button could be pressed multiple times, triggering more runs than needed. On page Center of Gravity, if the option Move to Closest City was selected, the tooltip and the result tables used different names for locations. When there was a Trade-Off Analysis run in progress and a new Trade-Off Analysis run started with a newly loaded dataset, the previously started runs and the new runs were conflicted. The Data Validation was numerically more strict than the network constraints. On the Circular Flow page and the Load Optimization Results dialog, some internal names were visible. These are now properly translated to understandable names. Forced Flow data validation with active inventory was not working correctly with groups.

If you are subscribed to the Product Updates on this community, you might have received an email notification on February 2nd in which the link to the product update did not work. With today's release, the links should work properly again.  SC Navigator 24.2.1Date February 15, 2024 New Features The name of the uploaded Excel file will now be stored together with the dataset. It is shown in dataset overviews. This allows you to see what the source of the data is. The model has been extended with two attributes "Minimum Capacity" and "Maximum Capacity" on the "Production Routing" sheet. That allows you to specify the capacity for a Bill of Material. (This value is in the same capacity unit as the data on sheet "Production".) A new sheet has been added: Bill of Material Groups. This allows you to create groups of Bill of Materials, in the same way that you create Product and Supplier groups. You can use {BOM} groups for the above-mentioned Minimum Capacity and Maximum Capacity. These capacities are also shown in the Results - Production page, as well as in the Excel and Database/Parquet results. The Minimum and Maximum # of Open Suppliers/Productions/Warehouses attributes have been added to the Supplier, Production, and Warehouse sheets in the template. These allow count constraints to be added for curly bracket location, supplier, production and warehouse groups. More information on count constraints can be found in the documentation: Count and Ratio Constraints. Improvements On page Results - Warehouse, when comparing scenarios, the "Throughput, Inventory" chart groups results by dataset. After feedback from various users, we have adjusted the behavior of the model when using a Bill of Material that is specified over multiple production facilities in the "Production Routing" sheet. In previous versions, such a bill of material was required to use all facilities. The current model can pick one or more, depending on how much production capacity is needed. If desired, the old behavior can be achieved, by creating multiple Bill of Materials together with intermediate products. On page Results - KPI Overview, and on the KPI Summary page, costs for Suppliers/Productions/Warehouses have been split into three buckets - Fixed Cost, Variable Cost, and Open/Close Cost. On the KPI Summary page, the Service Widget now also contains the Cost Per UOM and the (number of) Open Suppliers/Productions/Warehouses. The capacity on the server that is used to do all the optimization requests is shared by all users that use the same cloud. Previously, all optimization requests from all users were handled with the same priority. This means that a normal optimization request that was started by one user, had the same priority as Trade-Off Analysis or Risk Analysis requests that were started by another user. So, if you started a normal request after someone else started an Analysis request, it could take a long time before your request would be processed. Now, normal optimization runs have priority over runs from Trade-Off Analysis or Risk Analysis. On page Center of Gravity, the transportation speed can be changed now. The default value is the average speed of all transportation types in the dataset. In the dialog Add CoGs to the set of Warehouses, the values for Warehouse Group for CoGs and Location Group for CoGs are now initialized with the CoG Location Group/CoG Warehouse Group value provided in the template. We have removed the "Solution found" dialog message at the end of a Solve Max Drive Time run, to prevent an unnecessary click. By default, Suppliers are no longer included in the CoG calculations as many users ran into the warning Warning infinite capacity treated as zero. If you want to include suppliers, please select them again on page CoG Settings. You can now edit the Center of Gravity Wiggle Factor parameter. The initial value is set to the average of the Transportation Wiggle factor in input data. The tooltip for the CoG Weight Factor now includes a brief explanation of what this parameter controls. When exporting CoG locations, the CoG Primary/Secondary Transport Cost values will be used to populate the 'Cost Per Distance' for primary or secondary lanes connecting the exported CoG locations. This ensures consistency between the parameters used in the Center of Gravity analysis and the exported data to be used in subsequent network optimization workflows. SC Navigator could report models with inventory and {warehouse group} capacity constraints incorrectly as infeasible. Bug Fixes In some cases, saving the results datasets could be much slower in SC Navigator version 24.1.1, compared to the previous version. The Weighted Average Lead Time on the KPI Summary dialog was using the Maximum lead time, instead of the actual lead time. On page Results, the coloring in the Reference Result map was not correct. It used the same coloring as the Active Result map, while it should color based on the data of the Reference Result dataset. The calculation of Rate Card cost was not correct when lanes were defined with curly brackets. In that case, some costs were duplicated. The data validation executed after Add CoGs to the set of Warehouses could give incorrect data validation errors and warnings. The Trade-Off Analysis did not work correctly when having more than 10 runs and some of the runs would be marked as infeasible incorrectly. The model could incorrectly generate this warning when loading a dataset: There exists a warehouse that has 'Inventory Cover', but no 'Available (Inventory)' for next period.

SC Navigator 24.1.1Date January 11, 2024 New Features Risk Analysis simulates closing each location, one at a time, and assesses the corresponding impact. This will help you in finding the vulnerabilities of your supply chain. More information about the Risk Analysis can be found in the documentation: Risk Analysis. With Trade-Off Analysis you can do multiple solves, each with a different setup, and find the best trade-off between your KPIs. More information about the Trade-Off Analysis can be found in the documentation: Trade-Off Analysis. Improvements Previously, some pages displayed raw coding names instead of proper text. These have now been replaced with appropriate texts across all pages. The pages "Geocodes" and "Distance" are now also available when the data is loaded from a dataset. In that case, the data on these pages is read-only. The icons for the primary page actions on page "Geocodes" and "Distance", have been replaced by icons that match the action, instead of the generic AIMMS logo. Links to the latest e-learning material have been added to the template. Solving time for datasets with Single Sourcing data is decreased in case of both active and relaxed optimization options. The SC Navigator version numbering has changed. From now on, the first number will refer to the year in which the version was released. The second number still increases with every feature release. The third number increases for bug fix releases. Bug Fixes The data validation warning that appeared when a minimum number of Suppliers/Productions/Warehouses/Locations was provided without a maximum, is removed. When a results scenario was saved right after a Full Solution Export, the scenario did not appear in the list of results scenarios.

SC Navigator 4.05.01Date November 30, 2023 New Features From this version on, data can be stored in Parquet files in Azure Data Lake Storage. Using Parquet files allows for easier integration with other systems in your organization. Furthermore, reading and writing datasets can be faster, especially for larger datasets. We will contact you to plan when we will setup Data Lake Storage and convert your existing database to Parquet files. Improvements Data validation has been added for the case when the Maximum # of Source Locations data for customers is provided on the Product Location sheet. Please make sure to provide the Maximum # of Source Locations data for customers on the Customer Product Data sheet instead. The generated summary for scenarios has been improved to provide a clearer representation of the contents within each scenario. On page Results - Transport, the Rate Card Band results are now visible. On page Results - End To End, filters now operate independently from the filters on other pages, providing increased flexibility to alter the view. Additionally, a filtered icon indicator has been added for enhanced visibility. Bug Fixes In the Batch Run functionality, an error could occur when the solution was being saved to the database and the auto-generated scenario name was excessively long. As a result, the batch run process came to a halt because the long name could not be stored in the database. Now the app is able to automatically truncate the name into a shorter text, and include the original name as description. When comparing Results datasets, the KPI Summary dialog now shows the Results datasets in the columns instead of the rows in a table. On page Control Panel, the Model Control table now displays the section separation lines well when comparing multiple (newly saved) Results datasets. On page Data - Transport, in the Transportation Data table the Force Open and Force Close columns are now always visible. On page Results - Customer, the unserved demand is excluded from the lead time violation and the drive time distribution. In this case the drive time is not shown (zero). On page Results - Customer, if the demand is transported to a customer with zero distance, the drive time was incorrectly -inf. Now in this case the drive time is not shown (meaning: it is zero). When using side panel filters, the count of the Select/Deselect buttons were inaccurate and the clicking on the Deselect button would give an error message. On page Results, the tooltip for nodes on the map now shows the location description if the Use Description Location attribute is set. On page Data - Manage Data, when deleting one or more items, the text in the confirmation dialog is more accurate. On page Results - Production, clicking on a production in the bottom left chart, did not update the other charts based on this selection.

SC Navigator 4.04.01Date October 23, 2023 New Features The Center of Gravity App has been integrated into the SC Navigator App. This brings a streamlined process enabling analyzing Centers of Gravity within the same dataset and application. When there is a circular flow in the solution, a new page "Circular Flows" will show up. This page will help you finding the cause of the circular flow, such that it can be fixed in the input data. Improvements On page Scenario - Control Panel, more attributes can be handled. On page Results, colors of the node types have been changed to colors used in Network Design, and their icons also have changed for easier identification. On page Results, the View options side panel now shows the colored icons in the Filter By Node Type widget. This allows you to quickly identify the node type of nodes on the Results map. On page Data - Manage Data, the Scenarios table now includes an auto-generated scenario summary. This summary provides quick insights into each scenario without additional loading actions. The Save Scenario Dialog and the Load Scenario Dialog show this summary as well. Please note that the summary is only available for new scenarios. Data validation has been added in case the Average Load Size data is missing for a row with Cost Per Distance / Cost Per Trip / Minimum Cost Per Trip. Bug Fixes The list of Result Datasets that are generated during a batch solve, was not displayed correctly. The changes made in version 4.03.04 with respect to the E2E volumes could result in very slow performance in some instances. This new version will be faster than before, although it will be slower than before 4.03.04. The following data validation messages will no longer occur when the Available data is missing for a row with a curly bracket group in it: "WARNING: There are one or more attributes defined for (<combination including a curly bracket group>). However, this <warehouse/supplier> is not available for this product. You can make it available by specifying the 'Available' attribute on sheet '<Warehouse/Supplier (Product)>'." The data validation for Base Case Volumes now shows an error when Base Case Volumes on a last mile lane are different from the sum of demands at the customer location where the lane goes to. On page Results - Transport, the charts incorrectly displayed a duplicate transportation volume due to the inclusion of both product groups and individual products in the calculation of transportation data. On page Data - Transport, the Custom Objective input data for transport step was not visible when the data was not (yet) saved to the database. On page Scenario - Transport, the Relative Change value was not being applied properly. On page Scenario - Production, the adjustment data related to the Bill of Resource data was not being saved correctly. On page Data - Warehouse, in the Inventory (Product) Data tables the Force Open and Force Close columns are now always visible. On dialog page Custom Objective settings, the 'Include in model objective' variable can now only have binary values.

In this post, I like to highlight the main developments that we will be focusing on in 2022. This roadmap has been created based on various inputs, including many customer & partner discussions, stakeholder interviews we did in 2021, incoming requests, and market trends so we can provide an even greater impact and more benefits to you and your users. In addition, these inputs have allowed us to adjust and finetune our product vision.  An important component of our vision is that we want to provide you AIMMS as a complete service in the Cloud where customers can find ready to go Supply Chain applications, run their end-to-end optimization practices using bespoke applications, and partners are able to build a thriving business. This means, we have adopted a Cloud-first strategy with a strong focus on deployment of applications and optimization engines (API-based), and the integration of external services (be it data, machine learning or AI). We want to allow more connected and integrated decision making such that more impact can be achieved by a growing community of users, easily.  In our Cloud-first strategy, we are also moving from AWS to Azure to benefit from the partnership Microsoft can offer to us and to many of our customers.In the Roadmap 2022 table below you can see that some of these items are not exactly specified yet as they also depend on our customer use cases and feedback during development. For example, in the AI/ML incorporation, as well as the understanding of optimization results, we are looking forward to your input. So please do reach out to us if you have specific use cases you are looking to address, or respond to requests and use the ideation on this community.  Timing of all initiatives is purely indicative; we’ll update this table as frequently as possible.It’s good to know that next to those main developments, lots of smaller improvements are developed and released on a regular basis. In addition, we are continuously improving our architecture to assure maintainable, and robustness of use. As always, you can expect from us to stay up to date with the latest solvers. Please be sure to regularly check the release notes of our various products you use.  Table updated July 4, 2022 Focus Area Details Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Next Gen SC Navigator Our next generation supply chain application consolidating our existing apps and delivering; improved UX for working with scenarios, more optimization options, improved inventory modeling, and improved data modeling.       Beta Data Exchange Library Multi-functional library to generate both REST API servers and clients and easily map data onto AIMMS models, designed to minimize the programming effort for app developers (OAuth, OpenAPI, …) More details here. Parquet-file support OAuth support OpenAPI support Incremental releases PRO REST services Providing programmatic access to our cloud deployment platform for publishing apps, running apps, managing users/groups/permissions, etcetera. More details here.   Users, Apps Sessions   Incorporating AI/ML into models Making it easy to incorporate AI/ML functionality into AIMMS-cloud-powered analytics/optimization flows (Azure ML, Bring-Your-Own-Scripts, connect to your ML platform, …, TBD).   DIY via DEX BIY via Azure ML DBA (Done by AIMMS) Beta UI-builder: improved tabular data manipulation Step-improvement in tabular data manipulation (removing one hurdle from switching from WinUI to WebUI) More details here. Scope clear Beta released V1 V2 ­­UI-builder: widget upgrades + DIY widgets New visualization widgets + easier widget customization or even creation of custom widgets by app developers More details here. New Combination Chart Theming, Extensions Combination Chart, more Tooltip support Incremental releases Incremental releases UI-builder: flow widget Providing app developers with a flexible tool for creating data-driven diagrams (removing one hurdle from switching from WinUI to WebUI)       V1? Optimization results easier to understand Exploring how to improve the experience of understanding solutions and handling infeasibilities to better serve app developers and end users ongoing ongoing ongoing Ongoing Azure Cloud Switching from AWS to Azure as Cloud Service Provider for AIMMS Cloud Platform, including ‘transactable’ in Azure Marketplace    new customers + migrating   target completion      

Curious about the features and product updates our team released in 2021? We collected the highlights below.  AIMMS Development   AIMMS Community Edition Since its launch in March 2021, many users around the world are using AIMMS Community Edition! In case you haven’t requested yours yet, this free AIMMS license gives you access to our extensive capabilities for model diagnostics, data connectivity, web application building and visualization, case management features, and more. AIMMS Community Edition also includes access to the open source solvers CBC (for linear and mixed-integer problems), and IPOPT (for nonlinear problems), as well as the AOA solver (for mixed-integer nonlinear problems). It’s ideal for personal projects and training purposes. Request AIMMS Community Edition todayWebUI  We released a new Application Management capability as experimental feature in February and released this as a standard feature in September. This allows you to more easily copy, move and rename widgets on your pages.  Read more   The Grid Layout became a standard feature in July. This gives you far better control over where widgets are placed on your pages, dialogs, and side panels using pre-defined or custom layout templates. Read more  You can now download widget contents as an image - one of the many ideas submitted in our community.   You can now add custom tooltips for the X-, Y- and Size labels in your Bubble Chart widgets, which can further increase the clarity of the data that you are presenting to your users in this widget type. We also added support for custom tooltips to the Button, Upload and  Download widgets – another idea submitted in our community.  We announced a new WebUI Widget Framework, which will make widgets more flexible, robust, and easy to use for us and our users to manage, and hosted a live product update to provide a demo of upcoming features.     We extended the Text Widget to support a string parameter as its content. This means that you can now dynamically specify the content of this widget.  PLUS we would love your feedback on the new widget types we are building. Take a short survey.  For a complete overview of new features, check out this page.  Algorithmic Capabilities As of this summer, Gurobi can now be used on applications running on the AIMMS Cloud Platform - thanks to Gurobi’s new Web License Service (WLS). This expanded the choice of solvers you have across AIMMS products. In AIMMS 4.83 (released in November), we added support for Gurobi 9.5, which comes with performance improvements for LP, MIP, MIQP models and for convex and non-convex MIQCP models. This release also shipped with the following:For most GMP procedures used to modify columns, rows or coefficients, we added a ‘raw’ variant which uses a set of columns and/or row numbers as input. You can now use a new procedure GMP::SolverSession::GetIIS to retrieve an irreducible infeasible set (IIS) for an infeasible math program. It returns the row and column numbers of the rows and columns in the IIS. The IIS will be calculated by the solver and is supported by CPLEX, Gurobi and BARON.Besides this, we released other algorithmic capabilities this year, such as:  The use of quadratic structures in solvers, including Knitro 12.3 (or higher)  Support for blockmatrices in submodels  For more information about the latest algorithmic capabilities, click here.   Data Exchange Library The Data Exchange library now enables you to expose procedures in your model through a REST API. We also announced several improvements in the Data Exchange library last month, including:  A new annotation-based JSONDocument generator that creates a mapping for a standardized nested JSON document to read and write all data for a given collection of identifiers in a model.  A new function dex::ResetMappingData() to empty all identifiers, sets, and reset counters used in a particular mapping.    AIMMS Network Design  We started the year by revamping the user experience in AIMMS Network Design, check out this post for details.  You can now generate Geocodes, Trip Times and Distances automatically.   We released features to make maps in AIMMS Network Design more customizable, easier to use, and visually appealing.  The app now enables you to model non-financial objectives, like carbon emissions and power consumption, to assess sustainability trade-offs. Watch a demo and learn more  AIMMS Docs: Now open source  We opened our documentation’s source code in an effort to make it easier for users to provide feedback and contribute to the improvement of our products. Read more  AIMMS Academy: More training possibilitiesThis year, we expanded the course offering on AIMMS Academy to include:Error Handling WebUI Advanced User Interaction  Inventory Planning Execution Efficiency Remember that you can get certified in several of our courses. Enroll today! 

You now have the ability to model non-financial objectives, such as carbon emissions and other sustainability goals, in AIMMS Network Design. Using the custom objectives functionality, you can now define objectives in units of measure other than costs (for example, carbon emissions in tons). You also have the ability to run scenarios to evaluate the trade-offs between financial and non-financial metrics, and apply to constraints to both, in order to find the right trade-offs between costs and carbon emissions. This is the first release of this functionality, more enhancements and functionality on this topic will follow in future releases.  Please feel free to let us know if you have ideas in this regard by replying to this post, or sharing your ideas in the Ideation section. See a demo and tutorial of this feature in our Network Design user group 

We have added a new functionality called Take or Pay in Network Design. This feature is useful when you have a type of contract where you are forced to ‘take’ a certain amount of volume from a supplier at a given cost or ‘pay’ the supplier if you decide not to take the volume.  To add the option in your template you must activate the take or pay fixed cost of transportation option within the Cost component section of your Configuration.Learn more about this feature in a Tutorial on our Network Design user group page

Update: the features in this article were released on April 21, 2021 - Read the release notesIn the next release of the Network Design app, we will add some features that make the map more customizable, easier to use, and visually appealing.  Below is a short demo video to get you started using these new features :Customize nodes and lines (size, color, icons, etc) Filter which information is displayed on the map Show DC service areas in different colors, etc Show node and arc information in hover boxes Save and recall custom map zooms Overlay heat mapsSee a demo on our Network Design user group page 

We have released a new version of AIMMS Network Design, with functionality that enables you to model more complex constraints in an easier manner. Example use cases of how these new constraints can be used include:cross country/state restrictions different resources for slow movers/fast movers open/close multiple DC types and production lines at a single location simultaneously restricting certain modes of transport from entering or leaving a resourceWatch the demo video on our Network Design user group page 

Update: these new features have been released in AIMMS SC Navigator 2.27.01. This topic has been updated with more information.We have integrated the GIS data service LocationIQ into Data Navigator and have built significant new functionality that will allow you to automatically generate geocodes together with real trip times and distances in AIMMS Network Design. This has two important benefits:  Geo-Coding :  In addition to importing latitude and longitude directly, you can now import address data (country, state, city, street and zip code), and then use the geocoding function in Data Navigator to generate geo-codes based on the address data. You can now also manage the quality of the geocodes generated.  Trip times and distances  In addition to importing actual trip times (used for lead time constraints) and distances (used for cost per km or cost per mile transport costing), you can now generate these automatically in Data Navigator.  You can also adjust these for different modes of transport. Moreover, it’s now possible to combine straight lines (plus a user configurable factor), input data, and data generated by LocationIQ in a way that makes sense for your model. Watch the demo video on our Network Design user group page  

 Update: The UX enhancements announced in this post were released in SC Navigator 2.26.01. Read the release notes.As we mentioned in January, our next release of Network Design and Center of Gravity will come with a UX revamp. We also made exciting changes to the Data Navigator UX. Highlights include:A new side panel on the left for improved navigation   A status bar for easy access to data configurations and applications Handy overview of data issues, with colors that flag the most urgent ones A new in-product help feature for improved access to supporting documentationCheck out the video below to see the new UX in action. We expect this to be released in the next few days. Keep an eye on your inbox or watch this space for updated release information. If you need help navigating these changes, contact support@aimms.com. 

 Update: The UX enhancements announced in this post were released in SC Navigator 2.26.01. Read the release notes.Our next SC Navigator release will include a complete UX overhaul for Network Design and Center of Gravity. Among other things, we added the following to make the user experience as pleasant as possible:Workflows Side Panels Status Bars Widget Actions Filters The new user experience should be self-explanatory, but things will look a bit different. Watch the video below to get acquainted with the new interface.  Got feedback or questions? Feel free to leave a comment below. If you need assistance with the new UX once it’s released, please do reach out at support@aimms.com. 

In July, we shared the most popular new features released in the first half of the year. Today, as 2020 draws to a close, we’re happy to bring you another collection of features - Volume 2 in our product greatest hits!  Integrations for AIMMS and Scripting languages like Python You can now easily include the power of Python (and other scripting languages) into your AIMMS model, for example to pre-process input data using Machine Learning. We released a combination of libraries and documentation to give you ultimate flexibility in using the (scripting) service of the choice. Learn about these resources here. Curious about the benefits of combining machine learning and AIMMS? Read this article.   AIMMS Developer New features  AIMMS 4.75 and AIMMS 4.76 were action-packed releases with new features. Highlights include: The Grid Page Layout, which introduces the CSS Grid concept of visualization in page layouts - a widely-used standard in web design. Table filtering options, which allow you to narrow down the data in your table, helping you view only the information you need. Date-Time Picker, which makes it easy to differentiate between dates and maintain a reference when dates are used in tables. TimeZone support to configure multi-user time zone applications, ideal for teams using apps in several locations across the world.Check out these best practices and a working example for multi-time zone applicationsKnitro 12, the latest version of this solver. Bar-line Chart, a new visualization feature that’s in high demand.  New Data Exchange Library   We also launched version 1.1. of the new Data Exchange Library (Version 1 shipped on July 2020). This version now also supports read/write capabilities to and from Excel and comes with improved (auto-)mapping features. To be precise, we added:   The ability to read/write tables to Excel, one table per sheet.   The ability to auto-generate mappings for JSON, XML, CSV and Excel based on model annotations, as well as new mapping attributes to support this.    AIMMS Network Design Bill of Materials modeling and Custom Costs shipped in AIMMS Network Design AIMMS Network Design now includes Bill of Materials modeling. This allows you to configure the Bill of Materials (BOM) and specify production conversions, extending your modeling capability to the end-to-end supply chain (including raw materials and intermediate products). Custom costs can also be added at all points in the supply chain where physical costs are incurred. Example use cases are the addition of taxes and duties, carbon costs and inventory holding costs to the optimization. Check out this tutorial and learn to model Bill of Materials and Custom Costs in AIMMS Network Design Data ValidationWe added validation checks to trap common data mistakes before they are imported. Improved Control Panel and Spreadsheet templateWe extended control over scenarios from the control panel in the browser so that the user can spend less time in the Excel template, and more time in the browser to configure scenarios. We also made changes to the input data template to make it more intuitive and easier to capture data required by the model.Transport costingWe added further capability to model transport costs such as stepwise cost functions, and take or pay arrangementsData separationWe added the ability to separate data between different business units and projects in the same environment.UX 2.0: We are nearly complete with the UX (User Experience) upgrade for both Network Design and Center of Gravity, announced in last month’s update. In January 2021, you can expect workflows, side panels, status bars and other enhancements that will improve the user experience in the apps.  

Product Update - November 2020: AIMMS Academy, ODH-CPLEX webinar, WebUI and Network Design news This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, @Gertjan de Lange. We have great news this month, including: The launch of our new training and certification platform: AIMMS Academy! New in the AIMMS WebUI and SC Navigator. An upcoming webinar where you can learn more about ODH-CPLEX.  Become a Certified AIMMS User      AIMMS Academy is officially live! We are very excited to bring you this new learning center. AIMMS Academy will offer courses for all AIMMS users, from beginners to expert modelers. It helps you: Develop your modeling skills Improve team collaboration with AIMMS feature Advance your career through certifications Browse available courses and follow trainings at your own pace. You can expect advanced courses and trainings covering all AIMMS domains, from supply chain planning to modeling, UI and deployment.  Sign up today AIMMS WebUI Roadmap Update   We are currently making further improvements in our Application management tooling. First, we are adjusting the Page Layout for Dialog pages and Side Panels (for pages this is already available as an experimental feature in AIMMS 4.76). Second, we are extending the current Page manager into an App Management tool to allow you to manage pages and easily copy, rename and move widgets between them (see preview below).    Webinar: Improve Runtimes with ODH-CPLEX   As mentioned in last month's update, we have seen significant improvements in runtime for customers using ODH-CPLEX in the AIMMS Platform. To help you learn more about this add-on, we have invited its creators, Optimization Direct, for an upcoming webinar. Join us on Thursday, December 10 at 8 AM PST/ 11 AM EST/ 5 PM CET. If you can't make it, sign up anyway to get the recording. We will cover:  Examples of problems that might benefit from using ODH-CPLEX Computational examples of ODH-CPLEX A demo of an actual use case running ODH-CPLEX Sign up New in AIMMS SC Navigator     We recently released two new features in AIMMS Network Design:  Stepwise transport cost functions: this gives the user greater flexibility when specifying transport costs. For example, volume based pricing discounts, take or pay arrangements, and costing applied to combined transport constraints.  Data separation: it is now possible to separate data in different schemas in the database. For example, if you wish to separate data between 2 business units.  Watch this space! In our next release, we plan to upgrade the user experience of both the Network Design and Center of Gravity Apps.    Gertjan de Lange Product Owner

Product Update - October 2020: AIMMS 4.76.1, Scripting language integration, runtime improvements and new features This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, @Gertjan de Lange. We released some exciting new features this past month. Here's an overview of what you'll find in this email: 1. Integration options for Python and other scripting languages 2. Library updates: Data Exchange, AXXL and Forecasting 3. Solver updates for runtime improvements 4. AIMMS 4.76.1 release 5. New in AIMMS SC Navigator 6. Inspiration for Data Chart Styling 7. Language Reference now in HTML Easily include the power of Python into your AIMMS model, for example to pre-process input data using Machine Learning     Interested in using the combined power of machine learning and AIMMS to improve decision making? Now you can! We have released new features to provide support for scripting languages in AIMMS, including a new HTTP Client Library, a new Data Exchange Library and supporting documentation in How-To. More information is available here. The combination of these libraries and docs should give you ultimate flexibility in using the (scripting) service of your choice; now and in the future.To learn more about the differences between mathematical optimization and machine learning, and how you can use them together, check out this post in our community. Library Updates      Data Exchange   We launched version 1.1. of the new Data Exchange Library (Version 1 shipped on July 2020). This version now also supports read/write capabilities to and from Excel, and comes with improved (auto-)mapping features. To be precise, we added:  The ability to read/write tables to Excel, one table per sheet.  The ability to auto-generate mappings for JSON, XML, CSV and Excel based on model annotations, as well as new mapping attributes to support this. AXXL and Forecasting Library   Until now, both the AXXL Library (for reading and writing XLS/XLSX files) and the Forecasting Library have been system libraries and part of each AIMMS installation. However, all newer libraries have been released via the online AIMMS Library Repository, allowing us to be more agile and creating less dependency on specific AIMMS releases. Therefore, we are close to completing the move of those two libraries. We will keep you posted in this Product Update email or in the Community.  Solver Updates That Improve Runtimes by 75%   Did you know some solver updates can improve runtime by 75%? Don't forget to update your version of AIMMS to benefit from this and all the new features we launch. One of our customers saw an improvement of 50% in models that run over 1 hour by moving from CPLEX 12.7 to CPLEX 12.10 (running the defaults of CPLEX 12.10, no tuning needed). When they added the new ODH-CPLEX add-on, runtime was sliced in half yet again. This meant a 75% total improvement in runtime. We see the same kinds of improvements for other customers. I recommend you update your version and use this add-on. Contact us if you want to learn more.    AIMMS 4.76.1 Feature Release   AIMMS 4.76.1 is out, including the new Bar-Line Chart in WebUI. Read the release notes for more details.  New in AIMMS SC Navigator     In case you missed it, earlier this month, our team released a new version of AIMMS SC Navigator with some exciting updates:   A new Inventory Planning App that can be used in combination with other SC Navigator Apps, like Network Design, IBP and Demand Forecasting. An enhanced IBP App with updated Project Management Phase functionality to give you more flexibility to plan out project phases during the IBP process, resulting in better plans.  Custom Costs in Network Design. These costs can be added at all points in the supply chain where physical costs are incurred. Example use cases are the addition of taxes and duties, carbon costs and inventory holding costs to the optimization.   Community Insights: Styling Data Charts     Many AIMMS developers are interested in different ways to style data charts. In AIMMS, you can do this by using style annotations in combination with CSS. The example below shows how you can visualize forecast data differently from historic data. There are several examples in our Community: Visualize historic and forecast data Creating a Waterfall chart  General info about adjusting chart styling    Language Reference Now Available in HTML      Just like the Function Reference, the AIMMS Language Reference is now available in HTML and crawled by our search engine. We will soon connect it to our ”Help on” feature in the AIMMS IDE.  Gertjan de Lange Product Owner

Below you’ll find a summary of the latest features in AIMMS Network Design.Custom CostsYou can now configure custom cost elements to include in the optimization. These costs can be added at all points in the supply chain where physical costs are incurred. Example use cases are the addition of taxes and duties, carbon costs and inventory holding costs.Watch a demo of custom costs in Network DesignData ValidationWe have added some data validation checks in Data Navigator that will pick up common data issues before saving the dataset, so that these can be fixed before running into infeasibility issues in the Network app. Learn more about data validation in this article: Expanded Control PanelWe have expanded the current control panel to give the user more options and control to configure a scenario from the control panel in the browser, instead of having to return to the Excel data template. For example, it is now possible to switch on minimum and maximum constraints separately from the control panel.  It is also possible to edit key parameters like supply and resource capacities and costs directly from the control panel in the browser.Excel Data TemplateWe have made some changes to the Excel data template to make it easier and more intuitive to capture data.Despite these changes, it will still be possible to upload old data templates that use the old format, subject to a warning message, so that users do not have to reconfigure old data templates.Transport costingWe added further capability to model transport costs such as stepwise cost functions, and take or pay arrangementsFind out more about Take-or-Pay in this article: Find out more about Step cost transportation: Data separationWe added the ability to separate data between different business units and projects in the same environment.UX 2.0:We are nearly complete with the UX (User Experience) upgrade for both Network Design and Center of Gravity, announced in last month’s product update. In January 2021, you can expect workflows, side panels, status bars and other enhancements that will improve the user experience in the apps.  

Product Update - September 2020: AIMMS 4.75 and 4.76 highlights, SC Navigator Apps and Training Resources This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, @Gertjan de Lange. We have an action-packed Product Update for you this month, with exciting announcements and feature enhancements in AIMMS and AIMMS SC Navigator. Let's dive in! AIMMS e-Learning Platform Coming Soon     We will soon launch the AIMMS e-Learning Platform. Anyone with an AIMMS license will be able to access it and become a certified AIMMS user! The platform will offer training for beginners and advanced courses for those who are more experienced. Keep an eye on our Online Community, newsletter and social media to get notified when we launch.  New in AIMMS 4.75 and 4.76   In case you missed it, we released AIMMS 4.75 earlier this month. We'd love to hear your feedback on new features, like the Grid Page Layout, Table filtering options, the Date-Time Picker, TimeZone support and Knitro 12.  Share your feedback Barline ChartDid you know you can suggest feature ideas in our Online Community? Many of our users were looking for options to plot multiple identifiers in lines and bars, using the same Y-axis.  We are currently developing a combo Bar-Line chart to address this need. We expect to release a first version of this chart in AIMMS 4.76. We will make visual enhancements and include additional options in future iterations. Check out this discussion for more information and bookmark this section of the Community to share your ideas!    Core Engine Developments Many of the features we build are visible, but in the back-end our Core Engine team is also working to improve how AIMMS runs your code. These are some of the highlights: We've done an internal rewrite of the code that saves and reads cases. The new code uses the dependency between identifiers to determine the best order to read them. The format of the cases has not changed, so they are still compatible with previous AIMMS versions. However, we did remove support for cases that were created in AIMMS versions that were more than 15 years old.  We're working on "just-in-time compilation" of procedure bodies. This feature improves the startup time of an app, especially those that are deployed to end users. A procedure will be compiled when it is called for the very first time. In relation to "just-in-time compilation," we want to add a feature where identifiers created during runtime can be referenced in ordinary procedures (and definitions), from your main project or libraries.  Let us know if you want to test these features.   AIMMS SC Navigator Apps    Bill of Materials Modeling Now Available in AIMMS Network DesignThe latest release of AIMMS SC Navigator includes Bill of Materials modeling for Network Design. This allows you to configure the Bill of Materials (BOM) and specify production conversions, extending your modeling capability to the end-to-end supply chain (including raw materials and intermediate products). More information will follow this week!   More Features Coming Soon  In our next release, we will include additional functionality to allow you to add custom cost elements to the objective function, such as Taxes, Carbon, Inventory Holding and more. We will also add: Data validation checks An improved spreadsheet data template More control to configure and run scenarios without creating new datasets Inventory App     Another big highlight coming to SC Navigator is our Inventory App. The App has been designed to complement other Apps in our suite. It allows you to assess the inventory impact of a given network design in our Network Apps. It also calculates inventory targets for use in AIMMS IBP, and can use demand variability and forecast accuracy from AIMMS Demand Forecasting for use in the safety stock calculation.The Inventory App will allow you to: Instantly calculate minimum, maximum, and average amount of inventory split by: Safety stock   Cycle stock In-transit  Work in Progress Define service level requirements using segmentation, based on the rate of sale and demand variability. Get detailed insights on inventory health (too much, too little, within target grouped by location and also SKU detail). Export results to be used as inventory targets in AIMMS IBP or external planning systems. Integrations for Python, other scripting languages, and Azure Functions      We are close to completing a new version of the HTTP library and accompanying documentation to help you enable third-party (Python or R) scripts and services like Azure functions in your AIMMS applications. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and how you will be using this new feature!  Join Conversations in our Online Community    We are happy to announce that we are opening the product roadmap, all product updates, and product ideation sections to all of our Online Community users. We invite you to join ongoing discussions, start your own, give feedback, and share your AIMMS knowledge with others! If you're looking for a place to start, check out this post by Marcel Roelofs, our Portfolio Architect, and share your feedback on Data Exchange.  Join the conversation Gertjan de Lange Product Owner

Product Update - August 2020: New Website, Solver announcements, Data Exchange and WebUI news This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, @Gertjan de Lange.We have an action-packed Product Update this month! Highlights include our redesigned website, new WebUI features and solver announcements. Let's take a look.  AIMMS has a new website! You may have noticed our re-designed website: www.aimms.com. We are super excited about this next step and would love to hear what you think. There are a few important changes you need to know about. Our Support and Developers sections are completely reorganized – we've pared it down to bare essentials, letting our Documentation and Community take over much of the content. We have a new Support Center, which you can access from the home page. This will be your new hub for AIMMS documentation, product downloads and resources. Watch this 1 minute video to learn more. Got questions or feedback? Let us know. WebUI Developments  Last month, we made a pre-release of Table Filtering available for you to try. We expect to release the first version of filtering in our upcoming AIMMS Feature Release.  Furthermore, the DateTimePicker and TimeZone support are close to completion. Soon, you will be able to build multi-time zone applications and allow end users to easily pick calendar elements (no long drop-down lists). This should also become available in the next AIMMS Feature Release.   We expect to start a test with the new Page Layout in September with a subset of our customer base. If you are interested in taking part, please let us know so we can inform you about the options. SC Navigator Updates We recently started another round of enhancements to our Network Design application. We will be adding new functionality for production conversion, and the ability to add custom costs, such as taxes, carbon, and inventory holding costs. We will also be working on ease of use and user experience enhancements.  We expect this development to continue over the next few months and will keep you posted on our progress. Watch this space!   AIMMS PRO  In our June Product Update, we announced the deprecation of the AIMMS PRO Cluster (valid for AIMMS PRO on premise setups). To help you address scaling, backups and continuity without the AIMMS PRO Cluster, we have released the following to How-To articles:  Scaling AIMMS PRO Protect AIMMS PRO installation for business continuity Nonlinear Algorithmic Capability Updates      We completed the upgrade to KNITRO 12.2, one of our key NLP solvers. The upgrade provides performance improvements for large-scale problems and a few new settings. More details will be provided in the new Feature Release.   We also have exciting news, as we are working on integrating a new parallel MINLP solver, Octeract Engine from Octeract Ltd. Octeract Ltd is a relatively new, UK-based, company that is making great strides in becoming a best-in-class vendor in the MINLP solver space. We are excited to work with them and are looking forward to providing the combined value of AIMMS and Octeract Engine to you soon. New Data Exchange Options for JSON, XML and CSV   A month ago, we released a new library in our online repository called “The AIMMS Data Exchange library."  This new library allows you to map multi-dimensional AIMMS data onto tree-based data formats. It's ideal for data exchange through REST APIs.   The documentation contains an example project with mappings for the request body and result formats of a couple of well-known geocoding and distance services (such as Google and GraphHopper). You can also use the library to read and write JSON, XML and CSV files in a standalone fashion. For more information, check out this post in our Online Community. Deprecated Functionality   You can now find a list of deprecated functionality in our Product Lifecycle documentation section. You will notice that we explicitly do not mention any start dates or the version of deprecated functionality. This is because functionality is deprecated for all versions available as of the moment announced, and our plan is to remove or replace it.  Although we plan to use this Product Update to make new announcements, we ask you to check this published table to ensure you have the latest information. Gertjan de Lange Product Owner 

We released many new features and products in the first half of this year. Let’s review the greatest hits.  AIMMS Developer   Improvements in the Math Program Inspector   Scaling  A new Scaling Tool in the Math Program Inspector (introduced in AIMMS 4.74) scales linear optimization models to determine scaling factors for all (symbolic) variables and constraints.   This is a unique tool in the market, making scaling factor determination quick and painless, and preventing numerical instability and/or performance issues due to poor scaling.   After using the tool and viewing the results, you can decide to incorporate the suggested scaling factors into your model as you see fit.  The Matrix View of the original model on the left side and of the scaled model on the right side. Scaling the model resulted in a significant decrease in the maximum constraint violation, and in a large decrease in the maximum solution value of a variable (in an absolute sense).   Support for Stochastic Models  We've also expanded the debugging capabilities of the Math Program Inspector. It can now be used with stochastic programming models.    More options in the Map Widget  The Map widget in WebUI had many major improvements in AIMMS 4.73 and we upgraded its internal framework, allowing for future developments. The widget is even more versatile.   New Heatmap functionality applies coloring based on 'heat value' you assign to coordinates. This feature gives immediate visual cues about the data presented in your map.   Heatmap for WebUI Maps Maps can be served from Omniscale for better rendering and scaling.  Maps in AIMMS can be provided by Google Maps instead of the default maps server, using an API key for Google Maps services.  Google Maps in AIMMSItem Actions in All Widgets Item Actions are now available for all data and chart widgets with AIMMS 4.74! This feature enables item-specific options with a context menu on items in a widget, such as a cell in a table or a node in a map.  Item Actions on right-click for a Map nodeOnline Function Reference Available The “Help on...” feature in the AIMMS IDE now takes you to the online version of the AIMMS Function Reference, making it even easier for you to find and navigate through this crucial doc.   Read more about how we made this possible or go straight to the AIMMS Function Reference to check it out.  For a complete overview of new features in AIMMS, see our New Features page.   SC Navigator    Demand Forecasting Launch  SC Navigator's new Demand Forecasting app allows you to forecast demand with powerful machine learning algorithms.  Using sophisticated machine learning, the App finds the best statistical model and automatically chooses the correct amount of history to generate the most accurate statistical forecast. The machine learning algorithm then continually fine tunes the model through each forecasting cycle. As a demand planning professional, you remain in control and can change the statistical model with a simple click.  Our customers find that they can generate a more accurate baseline forecast from their history,  automatically. They require little to no intervention from planners, as opposed to their existing spreadsheet or ERP process. See it in action in this demo. Check out our Demand Forecasting research report for insights on this topic.    IBP (Integrated Business Planning)   In June, we launched AIMMS IBP. This new App, which is mapped to the Oliver Wight methodology, is very robust.  It supports every step in your IBP (or S&OP) process with features that are unique in the market, such as integrating products still in the ideation phase. You can use it to:  Create projects for new products and manage each project through different stages, from idea to business case, development, test & value, and launch.  Create vulnerabilities and opportunities for both demand and supply, and use these to create multiple demand and supply scenarios for evaluation  Visualize the performance of previous plans and understand the gap to strategy of the current plan  You can do all of this not just through the lens of volume, but also revenue and margin.  Demand Scenario Evaluation in IBP Check out our Supply Chain Response Hub for sample scenario assessments you can perform using AIMMS SC Navigator Apps.     Network Design improvements     We have significantly improved the Drive Time Scenario in Center of Gravity Navigator, part of our Network Design Apps. With the improvements we released, the model selects the minimum number of DCs that is necessary to reach all locations within the specified maximum drive time, and minimizes the total distance traveled. This results in fewer Centers of Gravity and greatly improved solution quality.   For more on AIMMS SC Navigator, check out our documentation.   Integrations Service    We launched a new managed service for integrating different ERP systems and other data sources with AIMMS applications. Learn more in this webinar. 

Product Update - January 2020: New Drive Time Scenario, MPI update, AOA and WebUI changes   This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, Gertjan de Lange. The new year brings new opportunities to improve our product for you. We are excited to share what's on our roadmap and will keep you informed in our Product Updates and Online Community. We also want to hear from you as much as possible! Help us improve AIMMS further, grow our community and reach the next level in decision support applications.  Tell us how we can improve our product We'd like to invite you to share your product improvement ideas in our Community, as often as you can. Please provide as much detail as possible to help us understand your need. It helps us a lot to receive ideas in the form of user stories: “as a user I want to be able to do XYZ, such that I can achieve Y.”  For example, instead of "Please add support for touchscreen," phrase your request as such: "As a production floor manager, my users need to be able to use my app on a touchscreen tablet so they can mark which machines are down while walking around." If you need help suggesting ideas as user stories, let me know. We will post some guidance in the Community as well. We look forward to hearing from you!      Share your ideas Improved Drive Time Scenario in Center of Gravity Navigator   We are pleased to announce that we have significantly improved the Drive Time Scenario in Center of Gravity Navigator, part of our Network Design Apps. With the improvements we are releasing, the model selects the minimum number of DCs that is necessary to reach all locations within the specified maximum drive time, and minimizes the total distance traveled. This results in fewer Centers of Gravity and greatly improved solution quality. The feature will be updated for our next release, so stay tuned!     Internet Explorer 11 no longer supported   As we announced in our Online Community, we have stopped supporting Internet Explorer 11, following Microsoft's announcement that it will end its support of Windows 7. We assume many of our Windows users are running on Windows 10 and/or use Edge or Chrome as their default browser. We recommend Chrome and will focus on both Chrome and Edge for further product developments.  Share your application screens You may recall that we're building a new Page Layout manager, as mentioned in our previous Product Update. We could really use some customer application examples to understand how your Apps can be mapped onto the new layout. The more we get, the better we can serve you. Please share some screenshots of your Apps with us, they will help us greatly! Share your screenshots Math Program Inspector updates As of AIMMS 4.71, the Math Program Inspector (MPI) will be using GMP functionality. Until recently, it used an interface that was created before GMP functionality existed. This change has several benefits:  The MPI code is easier for us to maintain, making it easier to add new functionality in the future. For example, we will work on an auto-scaling feature in the first half of 2020. The MPI can now be used to inspect stochastic programming models. That is, math programs generated with the function GMP::Instance::GenerateStochasticProgram.   Several minor bugs have been fixed.  The "new" MPI is slightly faster than the previous MPI.  Do you have the latest AOA version? Please note that we have released a new version of the AIMMS Outer Approximation Algorithm based on GMP functionality. The old version is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. You can read more about both versions on this page. WebUI Improvements we're working on We will release a number of new WebUI items in the coming months. We are creating a new Page Layout and tooling for Widget editing. We have worked on an initial version that will contain the core functionality to apply a new Layout mechanism to Pages (and enable safe conversion from old to new pages).   Furthermore, we are developing a series of stories of Map Widget extensions to improve usability for some of our customers. Think of tooltips, icon usage inside nodes, a heat map layer, the ability to open a right mouse menu, and more node size controls.  We are also working on the following: The ability to hide the Navigation menu   Perform inline Widget title edits (previously, a full replacement was needed)  Position a subtotal on top or at the bottom of a table (or combined)  Moving the Workflow Panel and Status Bar out of Experimental Features Please let me know if this update was useful in the comments below. Gertjan de Lange Product Owner 

Product Update - November 2019: Important Deprecations, SC Navigator updates, Documentation Improvements and Survey   This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, Gertjan de Lange. The year is almost coming to end. Let's cover some important news and feature releases you should be aware of as we head into 2020. By the way, if you have colleagues who would benefit from receiving upcoming Product Updates, ask them to sign up on this page!     Important: Deprecations coming up   As we announced in previous Product Updates and through product notifications, there are a number of deprecations coming up. Here's a reminder:  As of this month, the Map Widget V1 and Page Actions V1 in WebUI will be removed from our releases. Please make sure all your Apps are converted to the new Map Widget (available since AIMMS 4.61) and built using the new Page Actions identifier setup (available since AIMMS 4.68). Please use AIMMS versions 4.68 or 4.69 to do so.  Starting in January 2020, all AIMMS software releases will be 64-bit only. Per January, all AIMMS software releases will no longer support dongles. Contact us to request software nodelock licenses.     AIMMS SC Navigator  Since the introduction of AIMMS SC Navigator, we have been expanding the number of Apps as well as the functionality of the Apps themselves, based on our vision and customer feedback. Most recently, we enhanced AIMMS Network Design Navigator with the following features:   Executive review: The new scenario comparison functionality allows you to drill into more detail (transport costs, cost/unit) and compare scenarios side by side to evaluate differences and impact.     Demand simulation capability: Tackle demand uncertainty by simulating how changes in customer demand would impact your network’s capacity and costs. Assess how much additional demand your existing solution can accommodate and where it becomes infeasible.  Detailed cost breakdown by location: This new functionality provides you with insight into how various cost components (fixed cost, variable cost, supply cost, transportation cost) are influencing the cost to meet the demand for a given product at a given location.    Custom CSS via Annotation   We have seen many developers making use of annotations to adjust the look and feel of widgets in the WebUI, so we created documentation to elaborate on the changes we currently support and added some examples. We hope this gives you more guidance. Click here for details (see “Widgets and CSS properties supported for Annotation”).     Calendar and Time Zone Update In our September and October Product Updates, we mentioned that we were rolling out a DateTime picker in combination with Time Zone support. Unfortunately, we are facing some development challenges. Last week, we decided to halt the development of these features and re-group, as we were unhappy with the results. We are looking into possibly releasing the DateTime picker without the ability to set different application time zones, so Apps that do not run on multiple time zones can already benefit from it.   If you are running Apps in multiple time zones, please let us know so we can perform tests with your use case.   Help us improve our support resources by taking our survey! You know best what you need - please tell us in this brief survey! It should take about 5 minutes, and your input will help us greatly in deciding what to focus on as we improve and expand our product documentation, developer resources, and community content.   Tell us what you need   New Search in Documentation and How-To Speaking of improving support resources, we have added a search functionality in How-To and our Documentation. Check it out and don't miss the handy new Keyboard shortcuts list for developers.   Cloud Uptime Stats Did you know we've had 100% uptime in our AIMMS Cloud Platform for the last 6 months in a row?   I hope this Update has been useful. Please share your feedback in the comments below.  Gertjan de Lange Product Owner