You can quickly link chance and decision events in the decision tree to named, driver cells in Excel spreadsheets via the Link Events command. This is a particularly useful command for models built locally (i.e., initially un-linked) within a Decision Tree-focused modeling mode. Once your tree is built, you can access the Link Model Events dialog by:
- Select Decision Tree | Links | Link Events.
- You'll be prompted to open the spreadsheet you'd like to establish links to. Select it and click Open.
- This will open the spreadsheet and launch the Link Model Events dialog.
The dialog will display a list of all events in the model. More specifically, the first column (Name) lists events in the model by node type, with decisions coming first, and then by timing. Each edit box within the Cell column can be used to link an event to a particular driver cell in the spreadsheet. The Cell drop-down lists all the named, driver cells suitable for linking alphabetically by SheetName!Cell_Name. The last two columns indicate the Link Type (Unlinked, Driver, or Output) and Node Type (Decision, Discrete Chance, or Continuous Chance).
To link events to the spreadsheet within the dialog:
- For the first event you'd like to link, click in it's Cell edit box. It will become active (i.e., magenta border) and a drop-down arrow will appear.
- Click the drop-down arrow to view the list of driver cells and select the desired cell from the list.
- Continue linking the rest of the events in this manner.
- When links have been specified for all events, click OK to close the dialog.
For your convenience a couple of button commands are included in the dialog:
Go to Node: click this to go to the Links tab of the Node Definition dialog for the selected event.
Go to Cell: For spreadsheet linked nodes, click this to go to the cell in the spreadsheet to which the node is linked.
Versions: DPL Professional, DPL Enterprise, DPL Portfolio
See Also