Known Issues in IMPLAN

INTRODUCTION:

This article is designed to offer IMPLAN users some important descriptions of, temporary solutions for, and status updates regarding known technological issues which have been identified and are actively being addressed within IMPLAN. Should you encounter any issues which are not addressed in this article, please let us know by contacting us at support@implan.com. Issues which were previously identified, but have since been resolved, are documented in IMPLAN's product release notes which are published upon the release of new features and capabilities within the IMPLAN tool.

ISSUES BEING ADDRESSED:

Each of the technological bugs described below have been identified and are being addressed (as you read!) by the IMPLAN Product Team. So don't worry—we're on it! But, should you encounter any of these issues between now and the deployment of their official fixes, there are workarounds which can provide effective (albeit manual) solutions in the meantime.

1. THE US TOTAL AND METROPOLITAN STATISTICAL AREAS (MSA) APPEAR IN THE SEARCH, BUT ARE NOT AVAILABLE IN USER-DEFINED INDUSTRY AGGREGATION SCHEME PROJECTS

 The Issue

When working in a Project with the US Total or a user-defined Industry Aggregation Scheme, the US Total and MSA regions appear when searching for them in the search field. However, they should not be searchable in a user-defined Industry Aggregated Project because these Regions are not actually available. 

The Workaround

Build the US Total or the MSA as a Combined Region by selecting and combining the areas included in the region from within the user-defined Industry Aggregated Project.  This is easily accomplished using the Regions List feature on the Region screen.

2. DOWNLOADED RESULTS DIFFER IN EXCEL VERSUS CSV 

The Issue

If you download the same table on the Results screen in both .xlsx and .csv, you will see different values. This is because there is a difference in the number of decimal places used in rounding between the two formats.

The Workaround

When downloading data, always download as a .csv, which has now become the default setting for all Results tables. We also recommend selecting "Unformatted (no rounding, special characters, etc.)" in the download popup.

3. EDITED ADVANCED SPENDING PATTERN EVENT RESETS TO DEFAULT STATE TO ORIGINAL

The Issue

When Duplicating a Project, any Spending Pattern Event(s) with Advanced Edits are reset to the default Spending Pattern for that Industry or Institution.

The Workaround

We recommend taking notes of the changes you make so that you can copy them over to the duplicated project.

4. TOPI PAYMENTS TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ARE NEGATIVE IN THE 2020 ANNUAL DATA SET

The Issue

An error occurs when regional Taxes on Production and Imports (TOPI) payments to the Federal Government are negative for an Industry. When this occurs, the shares of TOPI distributed to the various levels of government are incorrectly specified. This does NOT affect other economic indicators like Output, Employee Compensation, Employment, or Total Value Added either in the Region Details or in Results of an impact analysis. Nor does the Total TOPI paid regionally change, only the distribution of TOPI to Federal and State & Local Governments. The error does NOT affect regions which have positive TOPI payments to all government institutions, which is the majority of regions. Thus, this is a rare occurrence generally. However, with the PPP loans of 2020 included as negative TOPI payments the error has become more frequent.

The Workaround

We are looking into a solution and working to identify the models in which this error occurs. If this error occurs, we recommend the user estimate their own distribution of Direct Taxes using the Total Direct TOPI results.

5. INDUSTRY OUPTUT EVENTS ARE NOT CALCULATING OPI CORRECTLY WHEN A USER CUSTOMIZES THE EVENT WITH EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION OR PROPRIETOR INCOME

The Issue

There is a bug in the Analysis Build Engine, the Industry Output Events are not currently using OPI as the remainder LPF component to rebalance when users customize. As the LPF equation is Output = II + EC + PI + OPI + TOPI, when a user customizes an Event using the Advanced Fields to input their own Employee Compensation or Proprietor Income values, IMPLAN will force the remaining balance to Other Property Income (OPI). The app is currently *not* forcing the remaining value to OPI, causing the Direct Value Added results to be incorrect. This is an issue that we are aware of and working towards a resolution.

The Workaround

Use the Industry Impact Analysis (IIA) Event type when Event Customizations for EC or PI (Advanced fields) are necessary.

6. CUSTOM AGGREGATION SCHEMES DO NOT WORK PROPERLY WHEN *COMMODITY ONLY INDUSTRIES ARE AGGREGATED WITH OTHER INDUSTRIES

The Issue

If a user creates a Custom Aggregation Scheme that includes a sector with a Commodity Only Industry (IMPLAN 546 Industries 535-538) aggregated with a standard Industry, any subsequent impact on this aggregated Industry will produce incorrect Employment Results. More specifically, the Employment Results in the Summary Economic Indicator Table will be doubled for this Industry. However, they will be accurate in the detailed Employment Results.

The Workaround

As a best practice, do not combine Commodity only Industries with other Industries when creating a Custom Aggregation Scheme. If you must do so, the IMPLAN Team has the ability to eradicate this issue on a case by case basis until a long term resolution has been identified, so reach out to Support@implan.com and we can assist further.

7. CACHING ISSUE CAUSING FAULTY REGION BUILD ERROR 

The Issue

When a user builds a Combined or Customized Region, a build error is appearing in some cases although the region is still building. 

The Workaround

To access the region with the error, navigate to the Combined & Customized Region List (may need to refresh the page and allow some time for the region to finish building). Delete the the Select Region with the error and add it from the Combined & Customized Region List using the plus sign. Once built, the region can be accessed here across Projects in the same aggregation scheme. 

DATA LIBRARY ISSUES BEING ADDRESSED:

1. RESULTS NOT POPULATING WHEN DATA LIBRARY AND IMPLAN ARE OPEN

The Issue

If you have an instance of Data Library open at the same time as the results of an IMPLAN project, it is possible that one, or both of these pages will not load results. This may also result in a user not being able to save Data Library Explores to a Dashboard. 

The Workaround

To fix this, refresh the page, and whenever possible avoid having both IMPLAN results and Data Library open simultaneously. 

Updated December 6, 2022