Crystal Ball® 7.2.2 User Manual T Corporationand Other U.S
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Crystal Ball® 7.2.2 User Manual This manual, and the software described in it, are furnished under license and may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of the license agreement. Information in this document is provided for informational purposes only, is subject to change without notice, and does not represent a commitment as to merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose by Decisioneering, Inc. No part of this manual may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any purpose without the express written permission of Decisioneering, Inc. Written, designed, and published in the United States of America. To purchase additional copies of this document, contact the Technical Services or Sales Department at the address below: Decisioneering, Inc. 1515 Arapahoe St., Suite 1311 Denver, Colorado, USA 80202 Phone: +1 303-534-1515 Toll-free sales: 1-800-289-2550 Fax: 1-303-534-4818 © 1988-2006, Decisioneering, Inc. Decisioneering® is a registered trademark of Decisioneering, Inc. Crystal Ball® is a registered trademark of Decisioneering, Inc. CB Predictor™ is a trademark of Decisioneering, Inc. OptQuest® is a registered trademark of Optimization Technologies, Inc. Microsoft® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. FLEXlm™ is a trademark of Macrovision Corporation. Chart FX® is a registered trademark of Software FX, Inc. is a registered trademark of Frontline Systems, Inc. Other product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective holders. MAN-CBUM 070202-2 6/15/06 Contents Welcome to Crystal Ball® Who should use this program ...................................................................1 What you will need ....................................................................................1 About the Crystal Ball documentation set ................................................2 Conventions used in this manual .................................................................... 4 Getting help .................................................................................................... 5 Additional resources........................................................................................ 5 Technical support .....................................................................................5 Training ....................................................................................................5 Consulting .................................................................................................6 Chapter 1: Crystal Ball Overview Model building and risk analysis overview...................................................... 8 Risk and risk analysis ................................................................................8 What is a model? .......................................................................................9 Traditional spreadsheet analysis ............................................................10 Monte Carlo simulation and Crystal Ball ...............................................11 Steps for using Crystal Ball ........................................................................... 13 Starting and closing Crystal Ball ................................................................... 14 Starting Crystal Ball manually ................................................................14 Starting Crystal Ball automatically .........................................................15 Closing Crystal Ball ................................................................................15 The Crystal Ball menus and toolbar ............................................................. 15 The Crystal Ball menus ...........................................................................15 The Crystal Ball toolbar ..........................................................................16 Chapter 2: Defining Model Assumptions Overview ........................................................................................................ 18 Defining assumptions.................................................................................... 18 About assumptions and probability distributions ...................................18 Defining an assumption ..........................................................................19 Entering an assumption .........................................................................19 Additional assumption features..................................................................... 23 Entering cell references and formulas ...................................................24 Alternate parameter sets .........................................................................25 Fitting distributions to data ....................................................................27 Specifying correlations between assumptions ........................................33 Setting assumption preferences ..............................................................38 Additional Distribution Gallery features....................................................... 41 Displaying the Distribution Gallery ........................................................42 The Distribution Gallery window ............................................................42 Managing distributions ...........................................................................45 Crystal Ball User Manual i Contents4 Managing categories .............................................................................. 49 Chapter 3: Defining Other Model Elements Defining decision variable cells and forecast cells........................................ 58 Defining decision variable cells .............................................................. 58 Defining forecasts ................................................................................... 59 Working with Crystal Ball data ..................................................................... 69 Editing Crystal Ball data ........................................................................ 69 Selecting and reviewing your data ......................................................... 72 Setting cell preferences ................................................................................ 74 Saving and restoring your models ................................................................ 76 Chapter 4: Running Simulations About Crystal Ball simulations...................................................................... 78 How Crystal Ball uses Monte Carlo simulation ...................................... 78 Steps for running simulations ................................................................ 79 Setting run preferences ................................................................................ 80 Trials preferences ................................................................................... 81 Sampling preferences ............................................................................. 83 Speed preferences .................................................................................. 84 Options preferences ............................................................................... 86 Statistics preferences .............................................................................. 87 Freezing Crystal Ball data cells..................................................................... 88 Running simulations..................................................................................... 90 About running simulations ..................................................................... 90 Running a simulation ............................................................................. 92 Stopping a simulation ............................................................................ 92 Continuing a simulation ......................................................................... 92 Resetting and rerunning a simulation ................................................... 92 Single-stepping ....................................................................................... 93 The Crystal Ball Control Panel .............................................................. 93 Managing chart windows .............................................................................. 95 Single windows ....................................................................................... 95 Multiple windows ................................................................................... 96 Saving and restoring simulation results........................................................ 97 Saving Crystal Ball simulation results .................................................... 97 Restoring Crystal Ball simulation results ............................................... 98 Using restored results ............................................................................ 99 Running user-defined macros ...................................................................... 99 Interfaces .............................................................................................. 101 Priority rules ......................................................................................... 101 Global macros ....................................................................................... 102 Toolbar macros .................................................................................... 102