General Simulation Settings

In order to simulate your models, you need some additional settings. This page introduces the general properties like the duration of a simulation run and the stochastic seed.

Once you have selected Simulation from the property set in the Properties window, you can see these General Simulation Properties by clicking any area in the document (in the IYOPRO-modeling window) but not an element itself.

General Simulation Properties - Overview

Must-Have Simulation Properties

Experiment Description: Your experiment’s description. This text will be shown in the simulation report. (Can be any meaningful text on the model and the experiment.)
Stochastic Seed: The global stochastic seed for all random distributions in the model. See stochastic distributions and stochastic seeds for more information about that.
Simulation start date: Pick the simulation start time.
Simulation stop time (in hours): This value determines the stop time of the simulation, the default value is represented in hours.
Simulation stop time unit: Pick the time reference unit (Hours, Days, Years) for the simulation stop time. The default value is "Hours".

Report Properties

Trace record: This option allows you to turn on the trace report, which contains all state changes at discrete points in time throughout the simulation. So if you want to reconstruct some specific area in the result, you can use this detailed report to comprehend why something happened the way it impacted in the result.
Debug record: This option allows you to turn on the debug report, which mostly is used by software developers. The typical simulator should stick to the trace record.
Debug / Trace start time (hours): Specify the start time of the debug or trace report. The debugging or tracing function will hook in to the simulation at this particular point of simulation time.
Debug / Trace stop time (hours): Specify the start time of the debug or trace report. The debugging or tracing function will be terminated at this particular point of simulation time.

Optional Simulation Properties

Expression: This property allows you to define globally (throughout the simulation) known variables. See Sequence Flows or Activities for more information on the expression property.
Terminate Expression: This property allows you to define an expression that is executed when the last token has reached the end event of an instance (all parallel paths have been processed). This does not only refer to a main process, but also to a subprocess.

You also have to set simulation properties at each single BPMN 2.0 element. See inter-arrival times / durations and element settings for more information.