Under Arrival Type, select either
Production Data or Custom Arrival Data. Production Data: Select this option to use actual data imported from Case Analyzer.
Note: To get arrival rate from production data, the region from which the production data is
retrieved and the region that the Process Simulator is logging on to must be the same.
The workflow name used in the simulation scenario must be the same as the workflow name in the
production data from the
Case Analyzer.
- Under Acquire Start Date & Time, specify the start date and time of
data to be acquired from Case Analyzer.
To edit the date and time
fields, click the Calendar button to the right of the fields.
- Under Acquire End Date & Time, specify the end date and time of data
to be acquired from Case Analyzer.
For example, if Case Analyzer has analysis data from actual running workflow spanning a period
from July 1, 2000 to June 30, 2001, you might specify Acquire start and end dates of October 1, 2000
through December 31, 2000 as providing representative data of arrivals for the fourth quarter of the
year to be used in the simulation.
- Under Start Date & Time, select one of the following:
- Use Scenario Start Date and Time to start the arrival data at the date
and time specified for the start of the simulation.
- Date/Time to enter a specific simulation date and
time to start the arrivals.
- Under Adjust Factor %, enter 0 to use the same arrival rate as the
production data, no adjustment. To increase or decrease the simulated data, enter an appropriate
factor. For example, if the production data has 150 arrivals for the time interval, an adjust factor
of 100 results in 300 arrivals. An adjust factor of 50 results in 225 arrivals. An adjust factor of
-50, results in 75 arrivals.
Note: The adjust factor applies to the entire time interval. If the
time interval is broken into a number of periods (shifts) the number of arrivals in each time period
is approximate.
Custom Arrival Data: Select this option to define custom start and end times and the
quantity of arrivals over a specified time.
- Under Start Time select one of the following:
- Use Scenario Start Date and Time to start the arrivals at the date and
time specified for the start of the simulation.
- Date & Time to enter specific date and time different from the start
of the simulation. Enter the date and time to start the arrivals. The date and time you specify must
be on or after the start date and time of the simulation.
- Under End Time select one of the following:
- No End Time to allow the arrival to occur until the end time of the
scenario is reached or the simulation run ends, whichever occurs first.
- Date & Time to enter a specific simulation date and time to end the
arrivals. Enter the date and time to end the arrivals. The date and time you specify must be on or
before the end date and time of the simulation.
- Under Occurrence, enter the number of times (Quantity) this workflow will
arrive, then specify one of the following:
- For Each Interval, specify how often the workflow will arrive. For
example, if you specify 12 (quantity) each hour, the simulation will start twelve workflows at the
start of each hour; shifts (defined under Scenario Properties) have no effect on arrivals. Once the
workflows start arriving, they continue at the specified interval until the quantity is reached or
the simulation is ended.
- For Distributed Over, specify an amount of time over which the specified
quantity of arrivals will occur. The arrival interval for the quantity will be distributed over that
time. For example, if you specify 12 (quantity) distributed over 1 hour, the simulation starts one
workflow every 5 minutes.
Attention: (This option does not apply for arrivals of Production Data.)
To use specific values in workflow data fields, you can specify initial values as part of the
arrival schedule for the workflow definition. When the simulation runs, each workflow will arrive
with the specific values for the data fields. In addition, at any step where values are assigned to
a field in a pre- or post-assignment, the Simulation Engine will perform the assignment. Field
values will be saved in the analytical information for subsequent use in Case Analyzer.
Using the Expression Builder, you can set initial values for fields with primitive data type,
such as string, integer, time, float, and Boolean. The expression you enter will be validated when
you click Validate. You cannot set initial values for attachments, workflow
groups, and array field types.
To use the simulated data field values in
Case Analyzer, do the
following actions for the data fields:
- Create the corresponding database fields on the event log.
- Create the corresponding dimensions or measures for the various cubes by using Process Task
Manager. These corresponding dimensions are sometimes called exposed fields. For more information,
see the Process Task Manager online Help.
For information about the effects on initial data values, see Replace workflow.
Note that field values have no effect on routing in the simulation.
To specify initial values for data fields in a workflow definition:
- On the Arrivals tab under User Defined Fields,
enter a value for a field.