Deploying Custom Applications
Risk Solver is unique in that it includes a "runtime package" -- Risk Solver Engine -- that you can use to develop and deploy custom risk analysis applications, in the form of Excel workbooks with Risk Solver's add-in functions and optionally Excel VBA code. You can easily "lock down" your model while allowing end users to enter numbers or even formulas, control the simulation process and access all simulation results in VBA, and present a custom user interface for your application.
Other risk analysis products for Excel often have limited programmability, and require every user to have the full simulation product -- with its menus, toolbars, dialogs, and scores of files -- installed in order to use a risk analysis model. In contrast, Risk Solver application workbooks can be easily deployed to run on any copy of Excel 2007, Excel 2003, Excel XP or Excel 2000, with just one extra file -- RSolve32.xll, the Risk Solver Engine add-in for Excel.
You can use all of Risk Solver's 40+ analytic probability distributions as well as Certified Distributions and Stochastic Libraries, shifting, truncating and locking distributions, statistic and risk measure functions, rank correlation facilities, and error filtering and conditional distribution features in your applications. And your deployed workbook models can make full use of Interactive Simulation, and enjoy the full speed of PSI Technology™.
Using Risk Solver Excel Functions
You can use any of Risk Solver's 80 Excel functions in your deployed application workbook -- including PSI Distribution functions that define probability distributions, PSI Property functions that shift, lock and truncate distributions, and PSI Statistic functions that return statistics, risk measures, and other summary results. Using functions like PsiFrequency() and PsiData(), you can obtain the numbers you need to create Excel charts that instantly update during Interactive Simulation. You can create a complete custom application with minimal or no VBA programming if you wish, and use standard Excel features to protect your model formulas, hide columns and rows, and restrict end user input to designated cells.
Using Risk Solver VBA Object Model
You can include VBA code that uses Risk Solver's VBA Object Model in your deployed application workbook -- including the Problem, Solver, Model, Variable, Function, Statistic, Distribution, and DoubleMatrix objects as well as parameters objects, and collections of these objects. You can control simulation parameters, perform simulations under program control, and obtain control during the simulation process. You can access all simulation results -- from statistics and risk measures to individual Monte Carlo trials. The full power of the Excel Object Model is also available to you in VBA -- so you can easily access external files, databases and data warehouses, update worksheet cells and charts, display forms and dialogs to your end user, or create your own Excel menu choices and toolbars.
Using Low-Cost Runtime Licenses
You can easily obtain runtime licenses from Frontline Systems, enabling Risk Solver Engine to run with your deployed custom application. Runtime licenses bound to your application start at 50% of the price of Risk Solver Engine, or about one-third of the single-user license price of Risk Solver. Quantity discounts are available if you're deploying to many desktop users. If you have a variable number of users, or "occasional" users who don't need a full runtime "seat," Frontline has alternative license pricing available based on the pattern of usage. Licenses can be distributed with the application, in the form of an encrypted license code in a text file, or they can be centrally managed from a license server. Our license server software can be easily installed and run on any Windows PC.
Frontline Systems has many years of experience working with customers who use our Solver Platform SDK software to develop and deploy custom applications using optimization and simulation, written in C/C++, C#, Visual Basic and VB.NET, Java and MATLAB. We've applied all this experience to solve the problems you face in developing and deploying risk analysis applications. Contact us at info@solver.com or (775) 831-0300 to learn more!