The Optsee® Plus Optimization Form

The Optsee® Plus Optimization Form

Form Overview

Use this form to set the parameters for optimizing the selected Portfolio under constraints using Optsee® Plus. The optimizer is designed to find an optimized portfolios for portfolios of 32 projects or less. It will also work for larger portfolios, but these optimizations can take several hours or more since the number of possible subsets of projects grows exponentially as the number of projects increases.

The results are displayed in the Optsee® Plus Optimization Results form.

Optimization Parameters:

These controls set the parameters that the Optimizer will use to optimize the portfolio.

Optimization Attribute to Maximize popup menu: This popup menu is used to select the attribute that you want to maximize. The default is the SMART Score. When you optimize to maximize SMART Score, the Optimizer ranks the portfolios based on highest total SMART Score. It finds sets of projects that have the highest SMART Score and come closest to meeting your constraint settings. You can also optimize to an attribute other than SMART Score as well as optimizing using efficient frontier ratios as described in the [Use Efficient Frontier] Check Box section below.

When the [Use Efficient Frontier] Check Box is checked, this popup is labeled "Efficient Frontier Numerator (Y-Axis) and the "Efficient Frontier Denominator (X-Axis)" popup menu becomes enabled.

See also Comparing Portfolios Against Efficient Frontiers for more information on using Efficient Frontier charts for comparing portfolios.

Efficient Frontier Denominator (X-Axis) popup menu: This popup menu is enabled after the [Use Efficient Frontier] Check Box is checked.

[Use Efficient Frontier] Check box: You can optimize to an attribute other than SMART Score in two different ways: using a ratio of SMART Score to the optimized attribute or using the attribute value itself.

Optimizing along the Efficient Frontier curve using the attribute ratio will find optimized portfolios that yield the most value per unit of the optimized attribute. For example, consider the two projects in the table below:

	Profit	Cost	Profit/Cost
Project A	750	250	3
Project B	600	150	4

If the [Use Efficient Frontier] check box is not checked, the Optimizer will optimize to maximize the total value of the selected attribute and will not consider the SMART Score value of the optimized portfolio at all. For example, if you were to optimize to an attribute called "Profit," the Optimizer would find sets of projects that have the highest overall profit and come closest to meeting your constraint settings regardless of the SMART Score of the final portfolio.

Checkbox:

[Save Results as Portfolio View] checkbox: Checking this checkbox automatically saves the project set selected by the optimization in a Portfolio View.

Constraint Controls:

These controls set the constraints that the optimizer algorithm will apply when optimizing the portfolio. You can constrain either the sum total attribute values or the average of the sum total (sum total/number of projects). The constraints are displayed in the Constraints table on the form. The description of the controls for each constraint parameter are as follows:

Select Optimization Constraint drop-down menu: This drop-down menus is used to select individual attributes that you want to constrain. The attribute name will be added to the "Attribute Constraint" column of the row selected (highlighted) in the Constraints table of the form. This object is disabled if no row is selected. The attribute order in the table does not affect the optimization results.

Constraint Type check box: This drop-down menus is used to select individual attributes that you want to constrain. There are 4 types of constraints:

Maximum, Minimum and Mean Value fields: These display-only fields show the maximum, minimum, and mean values. The minimum value is the minimum value for that attribute in the portfolio, and the Maximum value is the sum total of all the values for that attribute minus the minimum value (the maximum value that can be considered constrained).

Value field: You enter the actual value that you want to use to constrain the attribute selected in the Select Optimization Constraint drop-down menu. The default is the Minimum Value. This actual value must be equal to or within the values displayed in the Maximum and Minimum Value fields.

[Clear All] Button: Click this button to clear all rows in the Constraints table, and create an empty row at the top.

[Delete Line] Button: Click this button to delete the selected (highlighted) row in the Constraints table. This button is disabled if no rows have been selected.

[Insert Line] Button: Click this button to insert a row below the selected (highlighted) row in the Constraints table. This button is disabled if no rows have been selected. This button is disabled after six rows have been added to the Optimizer.

[Add Line] Button: Click this button to add a row below the selected (highlighted) row in the Constraints table. This button adds a row to the bottom if no rows have been selected. This button is disabled after six rows have been added to the Optimizer. No. of Constraints Field: Displays the number of constraints created (up to 30 maximum).

[Optimize]: Click on this button to run the optimization. You will see an Optimizer Progress form (below) that displays the progress of the optimization. Optimizations can be very computationally intense and can take several seconds to hours to complete depending on the size of the portfolio and the severity of the constraints. After the optimization, the results are displayed in the Optimization Results form and the selected projects are marked with a check mark in the first column in the Portfolio form. Clicking the header at the top of the form lets you sort the portfolio by that column.

[Cancel]: Click on this button to cancel and close the form.