ACP3
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Analytica Cloud Platform or ACP lets you share and run Analytica models via a web browser, running on a web server. Lumina released ACP 3.0 on November 8, 2021. It is a complete rewrite of earlier versions, ACP1 and 2. It uses modern technologies including html5, React JS, and websockets to replace Adobe Flash and other technologies used in previous versions. This page lists features that are new to ACP 3.0, including new features and fixes added by release number and date, and features of ACP1 not yet implemented in ACP 3.0.
Core ACP features
Like the previous version, ACP1, it contains almost all features of desktop Analytica (DTA) for viewing and running a model in Browse mode, including changing user inputs, viewing influence diagrams, tables, and graphs. But it won't let you edit a model. It also supports some user-interface features that are not (yet) available in Desktop Analytica, including tab-based navigation, and embedding tables and graphs in a diagram. For details, see Differences between ACP and Desktop Analytica.
Desktop Analytica features new in ACP3
ACP3 added these features of Desktop Analytica that were not supported by ACP1:
- MultiChoice() a function used in a user input, scalar or edit table, that lets a user select multiple options from a pulldown menu. This useful feature of Desktop Analytica never made it into ACP1 (or ACP2), but is now available in ACP.
- Tables
- Cell formats: ACP displays cell formats for individual cells -- e.g. background color, font type and size, alignments, and borders.
- Text wrapping: When a cell contains text that is too long to fit within the column width, it wraps the text over two or more lines. (This goes beyond DTA.)
- "Row height and column width: It sizes row height to maximum height of content (including multiline text). It sizes column widths to contain maximum width (up to a maximum).
- Totals Ability to show totals in result tables.
- Ability to sort by column
- More control over the display of pivoters and slicers.
- Graphs
- Data balloons: When you click a data point, bar, or line, it shows a balloon with the associated values.
- Zooming: You can drag a box area (vertical, horizontal or both) to zoom in on part of a graph -- with icons to zoom back out again.
- Pivoters: ACP shows pivot indexes. This is in DTA but was not in ACP1, including Symbol, Color, Symbol size, and Common index.
- Added support for 'All' in Slicers.
- Lists
- You can add/append/insert/delete/reorder elements in a list. See Creating_an_index#Editing_a_list:
- Up, Down arrows with Ctrl and Shift
- Insert or Ctrl+I
- shift+Click to select multiple cells
- Double click a cell then drag to reorder
- Delete or Backspace
- Enter and Escape.
- You can set result tables or graphs to calculate and appear automatically when you open a tab or window in ACP using Autocalc in the ACP_Style_Library or setting Proactive_Evaluation in Desktop Analytica. This replaces the ACPstyles from ACP1: calc_on_open and auto_recalc_results.
- Support for Sliders has been added.
Features not (yet) in ACP3
These are features of ACP1 or Browse-mode features of desktop Analytica not yet supported in ACP3:
File access
For security reasons, ACP3 has these limits on file access functions:
- Functions that read data files (like ReadTextFile) can read files from the user's computer (i.e., the file contents is uploaded into your model's memory)
- Functions that write data files (like WriteTextFile) have an option to download the file to the user's computer, as opposed to saving it on the server's file system.
Tables and graphs
- Tables with a comparison index or comparison variables don't display the columns like they do in Desktop Analytica and ACP1.
- No support for the result style "Table above graph" and "Graph above table" previously in ACP1.
Influence diagrams
- Dynamic arrows are gray with a black arrowhead. The arrow head part is not gray as it is in ACP1 and in Desktop Analytica.
ACP User interface
ACP Front End
- In ACP1 you cannot delete the Home project in a group account. In ACP3 it is possible, but you should not. It may break access to the account at least temporarily.
- No prompt when you are uploading a file with the same name as one that is already present. ACP3 just overwrites the file.
- No prompt asking you if you want to save changes before closing the model.
ACPStyles
AcpStyles are what was called CloudPlatformStyles in ACP1. These ACP1 styles are not supported or have been removed because they are no longer useful or relevant (for the most part):
- The Minimum Resolution setting in the ACP Style library.
Top_diagram_only
AcpStyle flag .Save_on_click:yes
AcpStyle."ACP_save_as_filename"
AcpStyle.download_spreadsheet: abcxyz.xls
Message_box_location: x, y
- In Frame nodes and Tall nodes:
table_only
,graph_only
,table_over_graph
,graph_over_table
- For hover ballons,
show_definition_in_balloon: yes
- Styles for individual nodes:
show_hover_balloon_title: no
,show_hover_balloon: no
add_scroll_bars
Features excluded from ACP3
For security reasons, ACP3 does not support:
- SpreadsheetOpen and therefore all spreadsheet functions on our Lumina ACP server. (You can enable them on other ACP servers, if you are willing to risk Microsoft Excel's unreliable performance on a server.)
- Functions that read or write files (like ReadTextFile) can read from and write to only your own model folder (in a Group plan, from the current Project folder).
- RunConsoleProcess.
Known issues
- You cannot delete a project in a Group plan once the project has been used to play a model.
- ACP throws a blank warning message when viewing a table with empty undefined table cells. (Desktop Analytica does not).
- If a model has only 1 diagram, you cannot go back to the top model diagram from the Acp Style Library when it's been added from the Hamburger menu, except by selecting Outline or Tab Navigation style.
- You cannot close a list dialog after dragging to rearrange items.
- ACP allows edit tables to be edited even if they do not have a user input. The general rule for ACP is that it only allows editing for Variables with user inputs - as in browse mode in DTA.
ACP Sessions and Calculation
For now, there is:
- no limit on RAM per session.
- no time limit on computations. It's possible that a very long computation could cause ACP to become unresponsive. In ACP1 computations were limited to 60 seconds in Individual accounts.
- Some evaluation time warnings are not shown in the browser. For instance if you show a table with an invalid result.
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