January 2004
If You Have Questions or Problems
Welcome to Crystal Ball Version 2000.5. Crystal Ball 2000.5 is a sophisticated suite of forecasting, risk-analysis, and optimization tools for spreadsheet users. With this suite of tools, you'll be able to answer important decision-making questions such as "What are the risks of this project?" or "How do we increase profitability?" You'll no longer have to make decisions like these in the dark.
By taking full advantage of the Microsoft Windows environment, Crystal Ball offers a unique combination of advanced simulation and optimization techniques in a graphical package that's easy to learn and use. While it's simple to get started with Crystal Ball, we recommend that you read the rest of this document and then consult the Installation and Licensing Guide and Getting Started card for an overview.
The Crystal Ball product suite includes the following
products that can be installed from this CD with appropriate
licenses:
Adobe Acrobat PDF versions of the documentation
for each product are also included when a Typical installation is selected or
when the Documentation component is installed in a Custom
installation.
Note: For information about the Developer Kit for
Crystal Ball and CB Predictor, see Decisioneering
contact information.
To run Crystal Ball, you will need the following:
If you are installing a concurrent version of the Crystal Ball product suite, the host computer should have the ability to connect to the FLEXlm license server computer on your local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN).
If you are installing Crystal Ball on a computer where you have an older version of Crystal Ball or a stand-alone version of CB Predictor, it is important to completely uninstall the older version(s) before installing Crystal Ball. In most cases, the installer will detect and prompt you to uninstall during the new installation.
However, if you are installing to a different drive than the previous version, the installer may not detect the older installation, and you should uninstall manually (using the Windows Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs Utility) before reinstallation.
Also, if your previous Crystal Ball or stand-alone CB Predictor version was set up to start automatically with Excel, you might see the error message that it cannot find CB.XLA or CBPRED.XLA when you start up Excel. This is because the location of the file has changed with the new installation. If you receive this message for the CB.XLA file, simply browse to the new Crystal Ball folder (C:\Program Files\Crystal Ball, by default) and select the CB.XLA file. If you receive this message for the CBPRED.XLA file, simply browse to the new CB Predictor folder (C:\Program Files\ Crystal Ball\CB Predictor, by default) and select the CBPRED.XLA file.
The installer no longer prompts for an automatic startup of Crystal Ball or CB Predictor with Microsoft Excel. You can set this up yourself using the Excel Tools > Add-Ins command. See the Crystal Ball and CB Predictor User Manuals for instructions.
If you are installing Crystal Ball on a computer where other FLEXlm-type licenses exist, those licenses relevant to the licensing of Crystal Ball will appear on the Existing License Detected screen in the Crystal Ball License Manager. The order in which the existing licenses are listed is also the order in which they are searched when checking out licenses to start Decisioneering products. For more information, contact your organization's system administrator or Decisioneering Technical Support. You can also learn more by reading the FLEXlm End Users Guide in the Support area of the Macrovision Web site at http://www.macrovision.com/.
To uninstall Crystal Ball :
If you are unable to start a new installation of OptQuest on Microsoft Windows NT, 2000, or XP, try logging in with administrator rights. If you do not have these rights, find someone who can log in as an administrator and start OptQuest. Once an administrator has started OptQuest one time, a non-administrator should have no trouble starting it after that.
These versions of Excel contain a great many new features for spreadsheet users. Unfortunately, you might find the speed of spreadsheet cell drawing has been sharply reduced from previous versions. This problem is magnified when running simulations on small to medium-sized spreadsheet models where many cells are rapidly changing. To alleviate this problem, you can have Crystal Ball automatically minimize your spreadsheets and/or Excel itself during a simulation using the appropriate settings on the Run Preferences dialog. These settings can significantly improve (up to 500%) the simulation speed for small to medium-sized models.
You cannot call Crystal Ball developer kit functions or macros with an Excel command button.
Virus protection: Excel 97 has a feature that warns you when a workbook containing macro commands opens. This protects you from opening workbooks that maliciously make copies of themselves to other workbooks, which is a variety of computer virus. Unfortunately, this protection scheme does not differentiate between a legitimate program, such as Crystal Ball, and a virus. If this option is on, when Crystal Ball attempts to load its components into Excel, you may get this warning message. The message can be disabled by selecting Tools > Options and, on the General tab, unchecking the option "Macro Virus Protection."
There are two backward compatibility issues:
The buttons on the Crystal Ball toolbar are
position dependent. Please do not insert or delete buttons to the left of the
Crystal Ball Help button (the last one on the toolbar).
To help ensure the most accurate results,
select Run > Run Preferences > Trials and be sure the Stop On Calculation
Errors checkbox is checked before you use the Scenario Analysis tool.
The CD Browser on your CD-ROM includes the following demonstrations:
These "Quick Demos" demonstrate the business value of Crystal Ball (Standard and Professional Editions) and CB Predictor. The demos are created in a self-guided, slideshow format, and are relatively short and easy to follow.
You can use the CD Browser on your CD-ROM to install fully-functional evaluation versions of Decisioneering software for evaluation. These evaluation versions work for seven days from the time of license activation. To get a 7-day evaluation version, install the product then request an evaluation version during the licensing process, either by fax, phone, or email from Decisioneering Technical Support or using the Internet in the Register For License Authorization Code dialog.
The Crystal Ball User Group (CBUG) is a Yahoo! Groups forum for Crystal Ball users who want to discuss issues and methods related to Crystal Ball software. Members can exchange tips, models, and application stories.
For more information on CBUG, including how to become a member, please visit http://support.crystalball.com/.
For more information on Crystal Ball, see our Web site at http://www.crystalball.com/.
If you have questions or problems concerning this product, please contact us at one of the addresses below:
Oracle Crystal Ball Global Business Unit
7700 Technology Way
Denver, Colorado 80237
USA
Main number: +1.303.334.4000 (Switchboard only – no technical support)
US Sales: +1.719.757.2173
Support: +1.303.334.7599 or +1.800.373.5885
Fax: +1.303.334.7598
CBSalesNA_ww@oracle.com
cbsupport_ww@oracle.com
Web Site: http://www.crystalball.com/
For a current list of international dealers and distributors, see
the Web site at:
http://distributors.crystalball.com/
All other countries, please contact Crystal Ball in the United
States.
We hope that you enjoy working with Crystal Ball and wish to thank you for using Decisioneering's products! Please be sure to visit our Web site for up-to-date news and information.