Six Sigma Data Analysis

April 25, 2008 - PRLog -- Crystal Ball 7 Standard is an easy-to-use simulation program that helps you analyze the risks and uncertainties associated with your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet models.
As a fully integrated Excel add-in program with its own toolbar and menus, Crystal Ball picks up where spreadsheets end by letting you perform Monte Carlo analysis (a standard technique for simulating real-world situations involving elements of uncertainty).
The Crystal Ball 7 upgrade incorporates a number of enhancing features, boosting Crystal Ball's capabilities, but at the same time, making it easier to use (see below for details). Furthermore, a new licensing system has been developed, making activating, upgrading, updating and registering your Crystal Ball product a much more pleasant experience.
Streamline risk and uncertainty analysis in your spreadsheets with this integrated toolset.
Crystal Ball 7 Standard Edition is the easiest way to perform Monte Carlo simulations in your own spreadsheets. Crystal Ball automatically calculates thousands of different "what if" cases, saving the inputs and results of each calculation as individual scenarios. Analysis of these scenarios reveals to you the range of possible outcomes, their probability of occurring, which input has the most effect on your model and where you should focus your efforts.
For Six Sigma applications, capabilities metrics calculated with the simulation results let you better integrate simulation into your methodology.

With Crystal Ball 7.3 you can:

Add scalable methods for collaborating: Get your work done faster. Work as a team sharing standardized uncertainty distributions with publish and subscribe features.
Communicate and persuade: Share your findings. Graphs, charts and reports let you vividly present and communicate the results of your analysis.
Get a credible picture of risk: The future holds uncertainty and risk and so should your models. Get the information you need from detailed statistics to summarized reports, to understand where to focus your efforts next.

Crystal Ball 7.3 Features

Charting: A new charting engine delivers amazing presentation-quality charts and reports. Charts also support 3D views and right-click menus.
Assumptions: The new assumption chart interface allows you to add marker lines to track specific values or statistics, and graphically view the generated random numbers. The randomly generated assumption values are now saved automatically as a run preference.
Forecasts: Add the ability to fit distributions to forecasts during simulation, Include many different custom marker lines on forecasts (mean, median, standard deviations, base case, percentiles, etc.)
Preferences: Chart preferences are now in their own, independent dialog. Expanded forecast preferences include preferences for the forecast window, precision, filter and auto-extract. New assumption preferences.
Distribution Gallery: Distribution Gallery dialog, which now sports an Outlook-like interface, groups the distributions into folders called Categories. Categories are libraries of distributions.
Publish and Subscribe: Expanding on the concept of one person defining a distribution once and using it many times, Crystal Ball 7 introduces the ability to publish many categories and subscribe to categories. Define a distribution once, publish it, and allow multiple people to subscribe and use it many times.
Auto Extract: Crystal Ball 7 now includes an auto-extract feature that writes selected forecast information and statistics to an Excel worksheet after simulation.
Extract Data: You can extract data from both forecasts and assumptions and extract multiple types of data.
Correlated Assumptions: Correlations have an enhanced data picker for adding assumptions. In addition, correlated assumptions can now span worksheets.
Sensitivity Analysis (sensitivity chart) : New charting capabilities and an enhanced data view.
Reports: Select a pre-defined report or create your own custom report. Reports now include new statistics and more control over data and charts.
Distribution Fitting: It is now possible to show distribution fitting while running a simulation. There is also an enhanced data view for quick access to fit statistics.
Overlay Chart: Fit distributions to all forecasts. View stats and percentiles for all forecasts. New charting including transparent and 3D viewing plus rotation.
Custom Distribution: It is now possible to link directly to data in the spreadsheet. There is also a new data grid to manipulate data from within the assumption editor.
Choosing Objects: A new chooser allows you to easily pick which charts to show (assumptions, forecasts, overlay, trend and sensitivity), as well as select some or all of your assumption, forecast and decision variable cells from your spreadsheet. You can change the display from a Tree view to a List view.
User Macros : The macro scheme is different in Crystal Ball 7. There is no longer a Macro “Preference tab”. Rather, Crystal Ball 7 searches for macros of a certain name and executes them accordingly. This new scheme gives users more flexibility in testing and maintaining run-time macros. You can also run Crystal Ball macros in protected spreadsheets by unlocking them via an encrypted Dev Kit call.
Save/Restore Results: Save/Restore enables users to save parts of the simulation data for later retrieval. Results are no longer “attached” to the spreadsheet so it is possible to restore multiple results at the same time. This also makes it possible to share the results without having to share the underlying model.
Control Panel: The Control Panel is a new feature in Crystal Ball 7. It gives the user a direct interface to control simulations, instead of using the menu or toolbar.
Online Help documentation: Online help is enabled via the F1 key, Help buttons, and Help menus in charts. You can also access online help by choosing Help > Crystal Ball > Crystal Ball Help in the main menu bar in Excel.
Crystal Ball 7 introduces new probability distributions: Student's, Discrete Uniform, Maximum and Minimum Extreme (created by splitting the Extreme distribution), Yes-No. The Beta and Hyper geometric distributions have parameter changes. Some custom distribution formats, such as five-column single values, are no longer supported.
Distribution Parameters: Enter cell references for parameters by directly clicking on the spreadsheet cell, Enter complete formulas for parameters in place of simple values, Change the shapes of probability distribution easily by using spinner controls to tweak the parameters.

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Crystal Ball 7 Standard is an easy-to-use simulation program that helps you analyze the risks and uncertainties associated with your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet models.
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