Product Updates

 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. 

We constantly work towards improving the efficiency and performance of the WebUI. One such improvement we have made, which will be part of AIMMS version 4.78, is smarter delivery of WebUI components. This is a backend improvement that is done on two major aspects of the WebUI. Network-bound optimization - This improves the loading of the application and mostly affects first-time visitors, basically when the application is launched the first time.  (due to caching after the first visit) CPU-bound optimization - This improves the rendering of the application which mostly affects second-time visitors, basically when the application is re-launched with the same version and the same browser. To improve the loading of the application we made the following changes:Combing all custom Javascript & CSS - Currently, we load both the components separately. Embed translation in the initial HTML - Currently, the translation file is embedded after the initial load. Compress all Javascript/CSS & HTML resources. Reduce the main Javascript bundle size by a factor of 10x. Parallelize fetching JS/CSS/Fonts resources. - Currently, we load the resources sequentially.To improve the rendering of the application post the first launch, we made the below changes:Loaded the contents in the navigation menu on demand and with caching, which means the navigation menu is constructed only when it clicked, and once it is constructed we cache it.   We optimized the jQuery core when rendering DOM elements.We recorded measurements to check the impact of our changes and we measured performance for real models. The overall results are as follows:30% faster load time for first-time visitor 22% faster load time for second-time visitor Some specific applications like our SC Navigator applications saw a 3x faster load for first-time visitors.There are some key points to see improvements:The more custom JS/CSS/Translation you have, the more impact you will see in load times. The larger number of pages you have in your application, the larger impact you will experience. The higher latency your end-user has, the more impact you will see.If your application is already fast or fairly fast, these improvements might seem to not make much of an impact. If you would like to have your model profiled please reach out to us and we will get in touch with details. Thanks,Team WebUI

In our November Product Update, we shared that we are making improvements in our Application Management tooling by extending the current Page manager into an Application Manager that allows you to manage pages and easily copy, rename and move widgets between them.There are some significant changes you will notice. First, the list of widgets is displayed under each page. Second, The flyout menu that displays the options for the pages and widgets is more descriptive and intuitive.  Page Options  Widget Options   Widgets can be copied and pasted multiple times on the same or different pages. Copy and pasting a widget creates an identical copy of the widget with the contents and properties that have been set. When a widget is pasted on a grid layout page, it is added to the ‘Unassigned Area’ in the Page manager. The widget that is copied is highlighted for easy identification.Widgets can also be Cut and pasted from one page to another. The cut widget is highlighted with a dashed line for easy identification.When a widget is copied or cut, the Paste Widget option appears in the page options.Widgets can also be dragged from one page to another, which is another action for Cut and Paste. We are working on Renaming of widgets currently. We would love to hear your feedback and any suggestions you might have. Do let us know if you have any questions as well.

AIMMS 4.77 comes with a completely new internal implementation of how cases are written and read back. This was needed because the old code had become too complex to maintain and had known issues that were impossible to fix. This complexity has grown over the years because of new case formats that needed to be supported and various bug fixes that did not really fit in the original design.So we changed it. We removed the support for really old cases but made sure that the code is still compatible with the case format that has been used for the last couple of years. In other words, we don’t expect any compatibility issues when you start using AIMMS 4.77. Even cases created with this version can be read back in previous AIMMS versions.But...We accidentally overlooked one feature of the old cases. This is the feature that you can store and read back the model text of a runtime library. So when you read a case file that contains a runtime library, this library is automatically re-constructed and added to your model. This could even imply that the runtime library that you created explicitly in the code got overwritten by the (older!) version stored in the case file. To be honest, we do not recall why we ever created this feature in AIMMS and what a valid use case could be.We believe that the majority of our AIMMS users do not even know that this feature exists, and we actually hope that nobody is deliberately using this. In the last couple of years this feature has given us a lot problems and our recommendation has been to explicitly disable this feature for every newly created runtime library (because by default it is enabled). The feature has side-effects that are hard to explain and sometimes are simply wrong.Usually, our policy is to first announce the deprecation of a feature that we would like to remove from the product, and then really remove it some time later. This time we decided to skip the deprecation stage. We believe that releasing the new case read/write implementation now is of more value than waiting until we have certainty that none of the existing projects suffer from the fact that this feature is no longer in. And we also don’t want to spend our development time in an area that is not (or hardly) used by anyone.So, please take notice of this change in 4.77. If you see that your model behaves differently after reading in a case, ask yourself the question whether this could be caused by a runtime library and whether your model really relies on reading back the runtime library from a case. Good to know is that this only applies to application specific runtime libraries, the libraries created by for example the WebUI already had the feature disabled long time ago.Reach out to our support team if you really have problems with this, so that we can help you to fix it. When we see that quite a lot of models are actually using this feature, we will reconsider our decision to remove it. 

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.  

In our June Product Update, we shared that we made a strategic turn in our Python Integrationproject. First, by making it more generic and thus enabling it to support scripting languages in general. Secondly, by decoupling the facilities from running these scripts from the AIMMS deployment options as those are widely available and needs vary greatly among customers making it impossible to keep ourselves. As a result, we have now developed and released the following: A rebuild AIMMS HTTP Client library to interact with external (computational) services that support REST API calls A new AIMMS Data Exchange library for format conversions (e.g. JSON to AIMMS identifiers). A first set of ‘How-to’s that shows how you can integrate scripting languages, and specifically Python into AIMMS Apps (more ‘How-to’s will follow).The combination of the libraries and documentation should give you ultimate flexibility in using the (scripting) service of the choice; now and in the future. It will allow you to leverage and customize your own scripting deployment environments and/or make use of specialized third party deployment services (such as Azure Functions, AWS Lambda, or any other services you might be aware of or already are using). Of course, the requirement will be that you need to have such a service in which you can host e.g. Python script, available to you. In the “how-to’, we discuss how to add a scripting service to your model and how a setup could look like, both for development (local desktop) or deployment (on premise servers, or AIMMS cloud). Check it out by starting here: https://how-to.aimms.com/Articles/494/494-overview-aimms-ds-models.html

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

AIMMS PRO 2.36.1.1 was released on 15 September 2020. Improvements include:Extended logging for AimmsPROAppLauncher Added possibility for normal users to write to the logfileand several resolved issues. For more details, see Release Notes. Visit our Downloads page to get the newest PRO.

AIMMS 4.75.1 was released on 9 September 2020.Several new features were introduced:KNITRO 12.2 Table Filtering in WebUI Grid Layout in WebUI (Experimental) DateTimePicker in WebUI (Experimental) Timezone Support in WebUI (Experimental)and several issues were resolved.For more information, see our Release Notes and New Features pages.

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 

Two weeks ago we release a new library in our online repository call “The AIMMS Data Exchange library”   This new library allows mapping multi-dimensional AIMMS data onto tree-based data formats such as JSON, XML or even CSV (as a trivial tree-based format). It does so by letting you describe the repetitive structure of a given JSON, XML or CSV format in a mapping file that you can subsequently use to read data of a given format into multi-dimensional identifiers in your model, or write multi-dimensional data in your model to a given format. If you have an example JSON, XML or CSV file, creating a mapping file with corresponding identifiers in the model to map the data onto is a fairly straightforward process.   The library is primarily intended as a complementary library to the HTTPClient library, allowing you, as a modeler, to interact with REST APIs in formats such as JSON, XML and CSV which are regularly used by REST web services to provide request bodies and/or results. 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 by e.g. Google and GraphHopper. Obviously, you can also use the library to read and write JSON, XML and CSV files in a standalone fashion.   Please find more details at https://documentation.aimms.com/dataexchange/index.html   To start using the library, go the the File-Menu and open the Library Manager. Select the Data Exchange library from the Repository:    

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. 

I like to inform you that a pre-release of the end user table filtering is now available for you to try. Earlier, this new feature has been discussed in https://community.aimms.com/product-updates-roadmap-36/filtering-in-tables-567. It will allow end users to more easily drill down into the data in front of them and focus on what they like to see. This first version will offer an initial set of possibilities and based on feedback and ideas we have to improve, the feature will be enriched. What you can do, after activating “Data Filter” in the experimental feature panel, add Filter Rules to both the columns and rows of a table.    There is a large set of predefined rules on board and depending on whether you have a string/element value, or a numerical value, you need to select e.g. ‘great than’ or ‘contains’. We also offer a ‘show top- or bottom-n’ (numeric only).  In the final release, a developer does not have to do anything to offer this to your end users. It will work ‘out-of-the-box’ and automatically become available in each table.    The pre-release, the release conditions, and current (draft) documentation can be found here (up to August 15). Of course, you need to have an actively maintained license to try it out.   Please add your feedback as a reply to this post. Happy filtering!

We’ve added a new page in documentation that outlines deprecated features and functionality.   It provides a timeline for the planned “end of life” of all deprecated features, so you can prepare your projects and plan upgrades.   Check it out now: https://documentation.aimms.com/deprecation-table.html

Today (23 June 2020) we released the AIMMS 4.74.1 Feature Release, including: Scaling linear models in the Math Program Inspector ODH-CPLEX Solver Updated to Version 5.0 WebUI Item Actions Improved Bubble Chart Widget Missing Values and Areas in Line Charts Sorting Dates in a Table Online Function Reference Used in Help For details on the features released, read new features.For details on all changes and fixes this release includes, please refer to the release notes.   

Product Update - June 2020: AIMMS 4.74, WebUI Improvements, SC Navigator Apps, Python, and Deprecated Functionalities   This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, @Gertjan de Lange. I hope this email finds you well. We have a lot of exciting announcements this time, so this Update will be longer than usual. Let's take a look.   New AIMMS Release AIMMS 4.74 was released today. This feature-packed release offers new benefits for you. We have upgraded the ODH-CPLEX Add-on (version 5). This can be hugely beneficial for complex scheduling models, or models that decompose well. If you want to try it out, let us know!   A new Scaling Tool in the Math Program Inspector prevents numerical instability and/or performance issues due to poor scaling. This is a unique tool in the market and can be tremendously helpful to improve your models with limited effort. Our Function Reference is now accessible directly from the modeling IDE.   Many of the WebUI improvements we shared in earlier Product Updates are included in this release. These range from Item Actions for chart widgets to date sorting in tables and improved Bubble Chart sizing.   WebUI Developments  Speaking of WebUI improvements, we are also working on: Page Layout V2: We are making good progress on the improved layout of your pages and started our initial test with our own SC Navigator Apps. The feedback and results so far are encouraging. As you can see in the screenshot below, we have made a better use of real estate and improved resizing.      Filter for table data: Soon, end users will be able to filter table data. This is especially handy for tables with large data sets, where scrolling is not ideal. Date Time Picker: We still have some work to do on the Date Time Picker. We hope to release it this summer and provide you with best practices on how to leverage this in applications that are used in multiple time zones.  Improvements in SC Navigator Apps Demand Forecasting It’s been 3 months since the first release of Demand Forecasting Navigator and we have gathered lots of feedback from customers. We have focused on the following UI improvements:  A more intuitive workflow  Easy and quick navigation to move from one forecast record to another, and a zoom functionality to work at different levels in the forecast pyramid  Quickly understand where you are in the process and review open tasks Summary views to see totals by product, customer, and location groupings  The ability to add additional reference lines to the forecast chart; previous, top down, and bottom up forecasts.  We have also worked on:  An option to adjust the amount of history used to generate the statistical model  An option to add a damping factor to any models that include a trend  A refinement to the learning algorithm to more heavily weight the impact of recent history   We’re excited about this major update to the app and expect it to be released around the end of this month. Inventory Planning Our Inventory Planning App is coming soon. It will allow users to answer the following three questions:  For network design, what’s the inventory consequence of my network design?  For S&OP, what inventory targets should I use to support my desired service levels?  For inventory planners, what’s the health of my current inventory position?  Stay tuned! We will provide more details in the next Product Update. Python Integration    Based on our experience with the R-link, trends in building computational landscapes and discussions with customers, we have made a strategic turn in our Python Integration project: We will make it more generic, supporting multiple scripting languages  We will not provide facilities for running scripts, those are widely available and needs vary greatly among customers As a result, we will develop:  An AIMMS library to interact with external (computational) services that support REST API calls   An AIMMS library for format conversions (e.g. JSON to AIMMS identifiers) Our new Supporting Scripting Services will give our customers ultimate flexibility in using the service of their choice (now and in the future). It will also allow them to leverage and customize their own scripting deployment environments and/or make use of specialized third party deployment services (such as Azure Functions or AWS Lambda). Reach out if you would like to learn more. Deprecated Functionality    AIMMS PRO Cluster We have deprecated the AIMMS PRO Cluster as it was too complex to maintain. For most customers, the AIMMS Cloud Platform provides the scaling and business continuity features that the AIMMS PRO Cluster was intended to provide. We will soon publish documentation to assist you with this change. If you are considering using the AIMMS PRO Cluster, please contact us so we can work with you to find the best approach.Tableau TDE Provider We have deprecated the Tableau Datalink Provider. Our focus has moved to making good, general data interfaces possible, so our customers can use of those to connect with any tools available. Customers using the Tableau Datalink Provider can convert the data to a regular data txt representation (instead of creating TDE-files) and enable any update needs within the Tableau product itself.  Please let me know if this update was useful in the comments below.   Gertjan de Lange Product Owner 

View the recording of the recent AIMMS Webinar: ETL-based Integrations as a Service (May 2020)     In this interactive webinar, we provided information about our new managed service for integrating different ERP systems and other data sources with AIMMS applications. We introduced the service proposition and explained how it's different from more traditional approaches. The webinar contains a demonstration of an end-to-end integration powered by the innovative SnapLogic integration platform. The presentation was carried out in collaboration with our partner Lucas Laumans at Rojo Consultancy.   (Further discussion and questions on this topic welcome in the comments!)

Product Update - May 2020: New WebUI features, improved math program scalability and deprecations   This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, @Gertjan de Lange. I hope this email finds you well. I'm very excited to share the developments below with you.  WebUI Improvements AIMMS 4.73 was a loaded release, with many improvements for the Map Widget. We have many more interesting developments on the way:  We are adding the ability to have line breaks and area coloring in line charts. We just finished extending Right Click actions to the Table, Scalar, Bar, Line and Gantt-chart. Other charts (Pie, Tree, Bubble) will follow. We improved Bubble sizes on the Bubble chart.  We are making nice progress on the Table Filter, allowing your end users to "drill into" table data.   Scaling Math Programs  We are working on a scaling tool for LP/MIPs in the Math Program Inspector. This will allow you to improve models that have stability or performance issues due to poor scaling. AIMMS will provide you with suggestions to change your model in order to improve its behavior. So far, this is a manual task for AIMMS model developers. This new tool will take a lot of work out of their hands. If all goes well, we are looking to release this towards the end of the quarter.   Deprecated Functionality    WebUI wizard  With the new Workflow panel introduced, we have deprecated the WebUI wizard. Please check out the Workflow panel (if you haven't already). It's used extensively and considered very valuable. We will inform you of the complete removal of the wizard in due time.    Excel Add-in  As of now, we will consider the Excel Add-in deprecated functionality. This means we won’t further support it or fix any issues. In time, it will be removed completely and no longer function. There is no direct replacement for this functionality as our focus has moved to deploying Apps on the AIMMS Cloud or on AIMMS PRO on premise, where either a WebUI or PRO-API call is used to interact with models. All data exchanges with xls-files goes via the available functions of AXLL Library which is independent of the need to install Excel locally or server side. If you have concerns about this, please contact us.  Map V1 and Page Actions V1 Map V1 and Page Actions V1 were deprecated in 2019. Please note that both of these will be fully removed. It's important to upgrade to Map V2 and/or Page Actions V2 in AIMMS 4.73 if you haven't yet.  Please let me know if this update was useful in the comments below. Gertjan de Lange Product Owner 

On April 29, we released AIMMS 4.73, a release with a number of exciting new features for the Map widget in the WebUI. For all the details, please refer to the release notes and the new features section of our website. Regards,Mischa

Product Update - April 2020: AIMMS 4.73 coming soon, new features in S&OP Navigator   This post is an archive of the Product Update email sent by AIMMS Product Owner, @Gertjan de Lange.   I hope this email finds you in good health. We have some exciting releases lined up. AIMMS 4.73 coming soon with new features, including Map extensions As I mentioned in last month's update, we are working on some exciting Map widget extensions and are close to releasing these in AIMMS 4.73. Soon, you will be able to add a heat map, color and store focus arcs, icons to nodes, create tooltips, and more! For details, check out this post. Item Actions on the Map widget We are adding Item Actions to widgets in a right-click context menu, starting with the Map widget and the Table widget soon after. This feature allows you to define a set of item actions based on the identifier name. It's similar to the Widget Actions feature. Item Actions allow you to target a specific part of the data with custom actions. Using this in combination with Store Focus gives you even more control. Other widgets will follow. Stay tuned!  Adding model annotation support for an UponChange procedure   Just as we enabled you to create model annotations for flags, tooltips and such, you will be able to specify an UponChange procedure that will run if an identifier changes a value in the WebUI. This allows you to use the same procedure for multiple identifiers, instead of creating one for each identifier.  Math Program Inspector, and support for Infeasible Solutions    In the upcoming 4.73 release, the Irreducible Inconsistent System (IIS) will be retrieved from the solver by default, if this action is selected in the Math Program Inspector. In previous versions, an algorithm implemented in AIMMS was used. This new feature offers several advantages, including speed. For models with integer variables, it also retrieves the IIS if the infeasibility is triggered by the integrality of some of the variables.   IBP support coming soon to S&OP Navigator   We are developing new functionality for S&OP Navigator to support Integrated Business Planning (IBP), as defined by Oliver Wight. So far, we have built features to support the new product introduction process. The ‘Product Management’ process allows the user to create projects for new products and manage each project through different stages, from idea to business case, development, test & value, and launch. The user can create new products and define expected demand and resource requirements, allowing for impact assessments in the supply review stage.   We are also significantly enhancing the scenario management capability in the app. Users will be able define multiple demand scenarios that can then be assessed and ultimately saved for review and comparison. For both demand and supply, this is achieved through the creation of vulnerabilities and opportunities that can then be applied, in any combination, to the base plan. This is illustrated in the process flow below.   What makes you want to use AIMMS?  We have received a number of responses already in our Online Community and would love to hear from you! Share your input here.  Please let me know if this update was useful in the comments below.  Gertjan de Lange Product Owner

You can now try out the Right Mouse Action menu for the Map Widget using the pre-release available in the link below. The folder also contains draft documentation, and an example (screen below). In the example Right Mouse action menus have been defined for both nodes and arcs. Similar to the Page or Widget Actions, you can define & control the procedure, display text, icon, and active state through the model.   The pre-release, the release conditions, and current documentation can be found here until April 21. Of course, you need to have an actively maintained license to try it out.   Please add your feedback - do include screen dumps as we love to see what you can build - as a reply to this post. Happy building!  

Today, March 19, 2020, we released the AIMMS 4.72 Feature Release. For details, see the release notes and/or the New Features page. With kind regards,Mischa