Announcing What’sBest! 19, the Optimization Add-in for Excel

 

  What’sBest! 19 is now shipping.  It has all the features inherited from LINDO API 15 solver engine.  In addition it has:

+Improved handling of Blackbox Excel models, that have either

       All variables binary,

       All functions are linear in the model.

In these situations there is no restriction on which Excel functions can be used.

 

+New WB functions 

      WBPOLYNOMIAL  to efficiently handle univariate polynomials, and 

      WBCENSOR to efficiently handle piecewise linear S shaped functions as in neural nets.

 

+Improved warning messages for improperly formulated models.

 

+Improved reproducibility when solving a problem repeatedly, particularly with the concurrent option when solving with fastest of Barrier, Primal simplex, and Dual simplex 

Nonlinear and Global Solver Improvements

Improved handling of IF statements and polynomials 

Improved Multi-start

 

+External Solvers Improvements. Increased support for the external solvers, including linear solvers such as COPT, CLP and HIGHS. Improved support for not only CONOPT, but also  external Nonlinear solvers such as IPOpt