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Modeling tips & tricks

Learn from our team of modeling experts and the decision analysis community on best practices for model building. Here you will find information about Analytica, as well as general tips and tricks. Topics include how to go about structuring a complex problem, how to analyze models using sensitivity and scenario analysis, and tips on selecting graphs and maps to provide clearer insights. Overall we want to guide you and your organization to be better decision makers, no matter what industry or field you work in.

For more a more comprehensive list of tutorials, user guides, videos, example models, and libraries, check out our Analytica Docs website.

Heat Pump

How the heat pump calculator was built

Walk through our heat pump calculator model and what decisions were made in its creation.

Is the Fermi Paradox due to the Flaw of Averages?

Why haven't we not encounter aliens? How to resolve this paradox by treating the parameters of the Drake Equation as uncertain -- an example of Sam Savage's Flaw of Averages.

Behind the scenes: 5.3 color themes

Ben here to tell you about my first large project at Lumina — developing new color schemes for the Analytica 5.3 release. One of our primary goals was improving the look and feel...

Book review: decision making under uncertainty

This just-released Spanish-language textbook from Professor Jorge E Muro Arbulú has now taken its spot as my favorite textbook on …

An Analytica advantage over MATLAB

I’m working on a model translation project for the California Energy Commission, going from MATLAB to Analytica. The transportation system model I’m working...

Plotting over a Google Map

Here is how to display your geographic data on a Google map background.

An optimal Valentine’s date

“You know, Valentine’s Day reminds me of the optimal stopping problem.” Not sure if this phrase was uttered elsewhere, but, this is the sort of water cooler conversations...

How to update y = m x + b with new data

Abstract: Bayesian linear regression made super easy and intuitive! You arrive in a new city for the first time, and you’ll …

Some Analytica customers

Download Free Analytica


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    The free edition of Analytica includes these key Analytica features:
    Free Analytica has no time limit. The only constraint is it won’t let you create more than 100 variables or other objects. But your model can be quite substantial since each variable can be a multidimensional array. It also lets you explore, change inputs, and run existing models of any size (excluding features unique to the Enterprise or Optimizer editions).

    Download the free edition of Analytica

    The free edition of Analytica includes these key Analytica features: 

    Free Analytica has no time limit. The only constraint is it won’t let you create more than 100 variables or other objects. But your model can be quite substantial since each variable can be a multidimensional array.  It also lets you explore, change inputs, and run existing models of any size (excluding features unique to the Enterprise or Optimizer editions).

    Analytica runs on any Windows computer, or on a Macintosh using Parallels or VMWare.


      Analytica Cubes Pattern