Scenario Services Solution Dashboard (Dashboard Tab):
The Solution Dashboard page is shown below. This page contains three tabs, of which the Dashboard tab is shown by default.
The dashboard displays the Current Project Usage as well as all solutions “pinned” by the user with following details:
Name of the solution.
Type of the solution (e.g. Optioneering, QA, or Optimization) denoted by icon
Percentage completion of an active solution using a Pie chart. The Pie shows Completed scenarios in Green, Pending scenarios in white, Processing scenarios in blue, Failed scenarios in Red and Cancelled scenarios in Orange. User can view the number of scenarios with their state on mouse hover upon the pie chart.
Number of scenarios being processed
Number of scenarios completed
Number of scenarios failed
Total number of scenarios associated with the solution
Number of Users who have access to this solution
Number of Notifications received
By clicking on any solution, user can navigate to the solution details page.
If the user adds a scenario or otherwise alter configuration of a job or task, performs a design or creates an output, the corresponding solution is considered “Recent” for that user.
Other functionalities on the Solution page:
"Create new solution": This button allows user to create a new solution.
Pinned solutions: Users may designate any Solution as “Pinned”. There is no restriction on the number of Pinned Solutions. These solutions also appear on the first page along with the most recent solutions (max 6) accessed by the user. Solutions can also be unpinned from the panel as required.
Active Solution Tab:
Active tab displays Solutions that are Active for the for the user’s organization. The list appears as empty for a new user. For existing users, it contains solutions under the current project. User may select the check box “Show All Solutions for this organization” to view all existing solutions under the selected organization.
When no recent solution exists for a project, a message displays asking the user to create a new solution.
Initially the first 100 solutions are displayed. As the user scrolls down more solutions are dynamically added to the display (100 solutions at a time).
Active Solution table displays the following details:
Name of the active solution. User may click on the name to view Scenario dashboard containing details of this solution.
Description of the solution.
Connect Project Name.
- Name of the user who last modified the solution. If not modified, shows the username who created it.
Date and time of last modification. If not modified, it shows the time it was created. Note that the date and time are displayed according to the time zone specified in users’ CONNECT profile. Internally the date and time are stored in GMT.
Solution Type
Template selected.
Clicking on a Solution name takes the user to Scenarios page, which lists Scenarios created under this Solution.
It is possible to select a Solution that is not under the current project. In that case, the currently selected project changes to the project to which the Solution belongs. For example, assuming that the current project is Sam’s PWSS Test Project, if the user clicks on solution01 created under project P1, then the currently selected solution changes to P1. Now if the user goes back to Recent tab, the Solutions created under P1 will be shown.
Other functionalities on Active tab include:
"Create new solution": This button allows the user to create a new solution. This is discussed later in details.
- "Search by Solution Name": User can search and filter active solutions by partial name. An example of a filtered list is shown below:
Move to Archive: User can select active solution(s) from the table by clicking on the corresponding checkbox and move them to Archive by clicking on this icon. Note that only one solution can be archived at a time.
If no solution is selected, or more than one solution is selected, the following error message appears:
Please select only one solution
- Sort/Filter columns using context menu from header row: Filtering and sorting can be done using the grid column headers. User can also display/hide any column from grid. Click on the down arrow beside the column name to pop up the context menu.
Archived solution tab:
This tab is used to display all archived solutions for the selected CONNECTed Project. User can navigate to this page by clicking on the Archived tab in Home page.
Archived Solutions tab displays the same columns as in Active Solutions tab.
Any Archived solution can be selected from the list and moved to Active list by clicking on “Restore solution” icon. Note that only one archived solution can be activated at a time. If no archived Solution is checked or more than one archived Solution is checked, the following message appears:
Please select only one solution
Creating a Solution:
Solutions are always created under the currently selected CONNECT project.
Users need navigate through a succession of pages for creating a Solution. At any point user may click on previous button to go back to the previous page.
Define Solution:
CONNECT Project: Shows the following information about current CONNECTed Project:
Project ID, Description, Project Number, Last Modification Date, Location, Longitude. Note that these information simply comes from CONNECT profile and the user may not change anything here.
Solution: Users need to specify the following to create a Solution.
Solution Name, unique for a project. (Limit: 128 characters)`
Solution Description: Optional description of the solution. (Limit: 512 characters)
Engineering Convention: Available conventions such as Structural-US, Structural-Metric etc. Default is taken from the Engineering Convention stored in the User settings.
Solution Type: Select Solution type.
If the user enters a Solution name that already exists in the project, or enters a name or description that is too large, the offending edit box is highlighted in red border and the user is not allowed to proceed without fixing the error. Hovering over the erroneous edit box shows the error message.
Select Engineering Discipline:
Engineering Discipline refers to a specific type of Engineering analysis and/or design. The users will typically deal with a single Engineering Discipline – such as Structural, Offshore, Energy, etc. However, it is possible to run and optimize models across multiple Engineering Disciplines – such as a large building that needs to be optimized for Structural, Energy and Acoustics.
User may not proceed without selecting the Engineering Discipline. An error is displayed if no Engineering Discipline is selected.
Select App Version and template:
Users first need to select Application and Version. Then click 
button to search available Templates. Once the Template is selected, list of available Template Versions appears and the user must select one of these to proceed to the next stage.
Note that after selecting an Application Version and perhaps a Solution Template if the user goes back and selects another Application Version, Search Template button must be pressed again to find Templates containing the selected version of the Application.
Select Cluster type:
User must select the default cluster type to run Scenarios. Typically, if a Solution has, say 30 Scenarios, a Medium cluster (with 32 nodes) should be selected and all the Scenarios should be run in parallel.
Note that user may change the cluster to run a specific Scenario later.
Select Indicators and Files:
Optioneering Solutions are mainly used to compare performance of various Scenarios. The comparison is done using pre-defined Performance Indicators. Users need to select the Performance Indicators that will be used to compare Scenarios.
It is also possible that the user is not interested in comparing multiple Scenarios but just wants to use the power of cloud computing to get a large, complex analysis done fast (as may be the case in SACS wind turbine analysis). In this case, the user may select no Performance Indicator but just the set of App Output Files.
User needs to specify which indicators or files need to be stored for the Solution. All other data will be permanently discarded after the Scenario is run.
User needs to select the options from the lists below and click on Finish button to create the Solution.
Performance Indicators: Performance Indicators are used to evaluate the overall performance of an engineering model. For example, in a tall building, the Story deflection will be one Indicator. The engineer will try to minimize the story deflection. Utilization Index may be another Indicator. The engineer will try to maximize the utilization of material used. A group of such Indicators need to be evaluated to arrive at the most optimal design. User may use Select All to select all the indicators in one shot.
Detailed Input/Output Data: Detailed Data harvested from application outputs, typically used in QA solutions to compare results between two application versions. These have no use for Optioneering solution for now.
App Output Files: Users should specify the output files produced by the application that need to be stored and downloaded later on demand.
If the user does not select any Performance Indicator and/or App Output File, relevant warning or error messages are shown. Note that user must select at least one Performance Indicator or one App Output File to create the Solution. (Otherwise there is no point running the Scenario as no result will be available for use.)
If only some items under Performance Indicator or App Output File is selected (but not both), a warning message is given to the user. However, the user can continue and complete the creation of Solution.
After successful creation of a new solution, the Scenarios page is displayed.