Copying Strategies and Changing

Scenarios in Capital Planning for

“What-if” Analysis
December 2006
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 Contents

About Copying Strategies and Changing Scenarios..................................................... 1

Copying strategies and changing scenarios ...................................................................................2
Modifying strategy components ......................................................................................................4
Selecting a Solution Generator .......................................................................................................5
Analyzing and comparing your strategies.......................................................................................5

How to reach us ................................................................................................................ 6

 Copying Strategies and Changing Scenarios in Capital Planning for “What-if” Analysis

About Copying Strategies and Changing

Scenarios
The Copy (Change Scenario) dialog box (available in Capital Planning v4.4) allows you to copy
a strategy (including all of its existing components), while changing the scenario of the new
strategy. This allows you to reuse summary projects, groups, filters, rules and goals against a
different data set so you can perform “what-if” analysis to help you compare your current portfolio
with potential future portfolios. This workflow will help you increase the efficiency of your
portfolio analysis efforts.
The flowchart below shows the process you must follow to help you use this feature:

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 Copying Strategies and Changing Scenarios in Capital Planning for “What-if” Analysis

Copying strategies and changing scenarios

To copy a strategy and change the scenario:
1. Open an existing Plan (see Opening capital plans for more information) in Capital Planning.
2. In the Strategy Explorer, select a strategy to copy from the Plan tree and then select the
Copy (Change Scenario) option from the shortcut (right-click) menu.

New Copy (Change

Scenario) option from
the shortcut (right-
click) menu.

3. The Copy Strategy dialog box is displayed.

Copy Strategy
dialog box allows
you to: type a new
strategy name,
select a scenario for
the new strategy,
and select whether
to validate the
scenario before
copying.

4. In the New Strategy Name box, type a name for your new strategy.
Note: By default, the name for the new strategy will be “Copy of:[name of source scenario]”.

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 Copying Strategies and Changing Scenarios in Capital Planning for “What-if” Analysis

5. Select a scenario from the Select Scenario for New Strategy drop-down list.

Note: The drop-down list only displays Results Broker requests which are of the same ownership
type and ownership basis as the scenario data from the original strategy.
6. Do one of the following:
• Click Copy to start the validation and copy process. Leave default checkbox to validate
selected scenario before copying. This will compare valid projects, time-series variables,
and if necessary, each of the components of the source strategy.
• Click Cancel to stop the copy or validation process.
Notes:
• The Copy button will be enabled as long as there is a name entered in the New Strategy
Name box.
• If the new strategy name is duplicated, an error message is displayed.
• A progress bar (bottom left) will display the status of time-series variables and projects
and/or source components that are being copied.
7. During the validation process, the Copy Strategy Validation Results dialog box appears and
lists the source strategy’s projects or variables that are missing in the new scenario; and
therefore, cannot be copied to the new strategy

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 Copying Strategies and Changing Scenarios in Capital Planning for “What-if” Analysis

Copy Strategy
Validation Results
dialog box reports any
missing components (e.g.
time-series variables
and/or projects) that
prevent you from
completely copying
individual components of
the strategy.

Note: If the new scenario contains the same set of projects and time-series variables as the source
scenario, then the validation process is bypassed and the dialog box is not displayed.
8. Once you have reviewed the list in the Copy Strategy Validation Results dialog box, you
can:
• Click Proceed to continue copying the strategy;
• Click Cancel to stop the copy process; or
• Click Save Report… to save the report on your hard drive. You can use the information
in this report if you need to address missing variables or projects in your result request in
Results Broker.
9. If you click Proceed, the new strategy is created and activated in the Plan tree in Strategy
Explorer.
Note: Some of the strategy components will still be copied to your new strategy even if you have
some missing projects and/or time-series variables. However, you may have to go back to your result
request in Results Broker to reselect these missing components in order to attain a true comparison
of your strategies.
10. Click on the new Strategy node to view groups, summary projects, correlations, rules, goals,
objectives, and filters.

Modifying strategy components

Once a copy of your source strategy is created, you can now revise your corporate rules, goals, and
other components of the Strategy pane as required.
To edit strategy components:

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 Copying Strategies and Changing Scenarios in Capital Planning for “What-if” Analysis

See Capital Planning Help for more information about editing:

Summary projects and groups:
• Projects and outcomes > Project groups > Editing groups
• Projects and outcomes > Summary projects > Editing summary projects
Business constraints:
• Business Constraints > Candidate filters > Editing Filters
• Business Constraints > Business rules > Editing rules

Selecting a Solution Generator

After altering the components of your new strategy, you will need to select and generate a new
solution so you may compare and analyze the different results between the original strategy and
the copied strategy. If the original strategy contains an optimizer and objective, this is copied to
the new strategy. You can modify the optimizer and objective in the new strategy before
generating another solution. For more information, see Generating Solutions > Selecting a
Solution Generator in Capital Planning Help.

Analyzing and comparing your strategies

You can use the chart and grid tools in the Analysis pane to compare portfolios or projects
selected from one or more strategies.
To analyze and compare strategies:
See Multiple Portfolio Analysis > Analyzing portfolio results in Capital Planning Help.

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 Copying Strategies and Changing Scenarios in Capital Planning for “What-if” Analysis

How to reach us
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Self-Help E-mail: SIS-Canada-Support@slb.com

Internet: http://www.sis.slb.com/content/software/valuerisk/index.asp?seg=geo
quest&

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