Senior Analyst, Andrew Cogswell, shares some technical tips and a glimpse of what’s coming in the next release of Remsoft’s Woodstock Modeling Platform.
The new release of Remsoft’s Woodstock Modeling Platform, version 2019.8, is coming soon. With over 25 new features and updates, this major release will provide improved organization, navigation, performance and usability, and helps users better understand their model and results. Here are some technical tips and a glimpse of what’s coming in the newest release.
Map Features
Have you ever received a messaged that your field contains too many items to use as a legend? That’s because map legends are limited to 1,200 items, and Woodstock scans all records to generate a list for the legend. Text field legends default to unique values, which means it is easy to exceed the legend limit.
*Hot Tip* To adjust the number of records used to generate a legend…
First, click “Scan visible polygons” on the maps legend to generate legend entries based on the records displayed in the map.
Next, zoom your map to limit the records scanned and the legend entries. The legend will show entries once the list is within the 1,200 items limit.
*Maps Toolbar* For those of you who do not use “Assign Schedule to Polygons” utility with any regularity… There is now a button to access it on the Maps toolbar, so you will never forget where it is.
*Map Scripts* Map scripts can be complex, containing many lines and subsets of commands. If you wish to run a subset of the commands, you can comment out the parts of the script you don’t want to run, or copy the commands you wish to execute to a new script window to run them independently, both of which are cumbersome and unappealing.
Alternatively, you can select the script commands or lines that you wish to run and when you click the RUN button, you can select to process all lines, or selected lines only.
Flying Under the Radar
Warnings provide a window into your model, informing of dubious constructs, as well as the goings-on behind the scenes. They can be numerous because they are issued by development type, making it challenging to tease out specific cases. Furthermore, the log file is a text file, making it even more challenging to search for or filter specific instances.
To alleviate this and to facilitate troubleshooting, Woodstock writes the data for certain key warnings to structured data files.
There are two warnings issued on matrix gen that are written to data files:
• Warning 659: development types not operable to any user defined action development types written to .\NoLpChoices.csv
• Warning 660: _DEATH is the first action applied to a development type development types written to .\FirstActionIsDeath.csv
Both warnings are issued for existing types in the Areas section of the model.
Editor Features
You can configure the editor to display the section name instead of the filename for model sections open for editing.
To do so, right-click on an editor tab and select “Section name on Tab”
Woodstock will display the section name on tabs.
Tracking Costs
It can be tricky to track and coalesce costs in models when the costs are triggered by actions (e.g. harvest costs) and deliveries (e.g. transport costs).
*Hot Tip* To merge or consolidate costs in a single report…
First, use the detailed delivery report: _DELIVER(_EACH,_EACH,_EACH)
• Allocation Optimizer detailed report of deliveries and associated cash flows (transport costs, revenues, etc.)
Second, in the Allocation section of the model use *DEFINE to add a column to the delivery report calculated from Woodstock outputs as follows:
- The declaration above calculates a volume-weighted average harvest cost coefficient and multiplies it by delivered volume in the deliver report
Coming Soon v.2019.8
Rich in new features and improvements to overall system performance, the enhancements within this major release will allow customers to be able to build, analyze and solve complex planning challenges—and do it even faster than before.
Remsoft releases Woodstock Modeling Platform upgrades periodically. This major release will be available to all customers whose Software Maintenance & Support program with Remsoft is current. It is highly recommended that users upgrade their software to the latest version.
If your Software Maintenance subscription is not up to date, please contact us to find out how you can rejoin the program.
