Continuous Optimization: Microsoft Excel 2007 add-in

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Microsoft Excel 2007 integration

Once the component is installed, you will find automatically a new "Reactive Search" tab in your Microsoft Excel ribbon. The tab groups all Reactive Search installed components. The picture below shows an example spreadsheet and the installed Continuous Optimization component.

Using the component is as simple as selecting a few cells on the spreadsheet and clicking the "Run optimizer" button. The selected cells contain in the third row the values used to compute the function to be optimized, and in the first two rows their variability ranges. For example cell C5 contains the actual value used to compute the function, while C3 has its minimum value and C4 its maximum. The last line of the table contains the function to be optimized. It has not to be selected but has to be placed right under the first variable (i.e. C6). In the picture above the cell C6 is merged with the contiguos cells until H6 for aesthetic reasons.

Once the "Run optimizer" button is pressed, you can specify some settings in the window below:

The available options are:

• Duration of the optimization run
  You can run the optimization for a specified number of seconds or until you press the stop button.
• Type of optimization
  Specify if you intend to minimize or maximize your function.
• Feedback during the optimization
  By setting the first option you will see the values of the function parameter change while the optimizer runs. Of course the update of the cells in the spreadsheet during the run slows down the optimization. By setting the second option all the spreadsheet is updated, e.g. charts and other elements of your spreadsheet will change while the optimizer is running.

During the optimization process you can keep working on your Excel sheets, and when you are satisfied with the optimization results you can decide to stop the optimizer:

and get a report of the optimization process in a new sheet, with the most interesting configurations found which optimize your problem:

Add-in installation

Follow the setup wizard to add the Reactive Search add-in to your Microsoft Excel 2007 installation.

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