5.20 RELEASE
IMPLAN is please to announce that among a few other product release notes, the Evolving Economy - COVID 2020-Q2 Data is now available in the application.
NEW FEATURES
- Added Evolving Economy - COVID 2020-Q2 Data to application
- Incorporated Industry Aggregation into Occupation Data
- Reorganized columns for the Occupation Data and added Employment Splits
- Industry Filter improvement for Occupation Data
REGIONS
- Improvement to the display of large combined zip code regions
- Addition of Industry Averages in the Region Details
RESULTS
- New Tabs for Occupational Impact and Industry Occupation Averages
5.18 RELEASE
IMPLAN is always working to improve our software to not only make it easier to use, but to also add new features. Below are the IMPLAN production release notes for version 5.18.
REGIONS
- The Industry Detail table now splits out Employment into Wage & Salary Employment and Proprietor Employment. It also splits out Labor Income into Employee Compensation and Proprietor Income
Region Details
> Study Area Data
> Industry Detail
- The Industry Summary table now includes Total Employment, Total Output, Total Intermediate Inputs, Total Value Added, and Labor Income. It no longer includes Output per worker or Labor Income per worker. These values can now be found on the new table entitled Industry Averages.
Region Details
> Study Area Data
> Industry Summary
- A new table for Industry Averages has been added that displays per Worker averages for Output, Labor Income, Employee Compensation, Proprietor Income, TOPI, and OPI.
Region Details
> Study Area Data
> Industry Averages
- Large combined zip code regions selection display improvement
RESULTS
- The Tax Results on the Summary Tab of the Results now display a breakdown of taxes by Direct, Indirect, and Induced for Sub County General (city), Sub County Special District, County, State, Federal, and Total. The table can be downloaded into Excel using the ellipses in the upper right corner.
Version 5.16: Performance Improvements and a Real-World Case Study
INTRODUCTION
In the most recent release (5.16) to the application, IMPLAN introduced new efficiencies in impact analysis processing, including Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) projects. This article will discuss the new changes, run-time improvements, and features discussion with Dr. Patrick Scott of Louisiana Tech University about the projects he has been working on and his experience with the newest release.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS
In order to assess the improvement in project run-times, we ran a series of Projects through the new version of the application and compared them to those same Projects that were run through the previous version. This first comparison uses scenarios that include one or two Groups (Regions) with varying amounts of Events. These Projects were run without checking the MRIO checkbox.
As you can see, the new release provides run-time improvements over all of the scenarios, and the chart shows the increased performance improvements as projects get larger. The ‘New’ version averages about half the run-time of the ‘Previous’ version, and there are increasing returns to scale as projects increase in size. Obviously larger projects will have longer run-times as a general rule, but these statistics show measurable decreases in run-times.
Now, let’s take a look at some MRIO projects! These projects all contain multiple Groups (Regions) and all of these Projects were run as MRIO Projects.
Again, the New version shows decreased project run-times in every scenario. As with the non-MRIO projects, we see an average run-time for the New version that is about half that of the Previous version, or roughly a 2X improvement for the projects which successfully completed in both versions. However, in the third and fifth scenarios the Previous version was not able to successfully run all of the events in the scenario on the first try. The New version ran these Projects with no issue. This shows that not only is the system processing existing projects in roughly half the time, it is simultaneously increasing the system’s maximum project size and the consistency with which projects are run successfully.
In the real-world example discussed below, Dr. Patrick Scott commented that “the efficiency gains from the update are quite impressive. I am curious to re-run some other projects to see how long they take now.”
PROCESSING CHANGES
Ok, now that we’ve covered some performance statistics, let’s talk about the actual changes and what’s different. Let’s start by doing a quick, high-level review of how a Project is processed. IMPLAN takes each Event that the user puts into a Group and creates a Final Demand (FD) vector that represents that Event. By multiplying the FD vector by a matrix of multipliers for the corresponding Region, IMPLAN arrives at estimates of economic impacts. Like so:
While the details can get a bit more complicated, the important part here is to understand that prior to this deployment release for each Event in each Group in a Project, IMPLAN needed to do the multiplication of the FD vector with the multipliers, which is a cumbersome calculation. So, if you had 2 Regions in your project and each Region had the same 2 events, then you would have needed to run 4 analyses (2 Regions X 2 events each = 4 analyses). That would look something like this:
In order to increase calculation efficiency, the new release places each of the Events in a Group as a column in a FD matrix. This means that multiple events can be done using a single multiplication step rather than each event needing its own, thereby reducing the number of total analyses needed for the project. So, the new version of the example above, with 2 Regions each, with Events 1 and 2, only requires 2 analyses, rather than 4. It looks like this:
This new method allows for many events to be processed inside of each individual analysis, making the system more efficient with each analysis and requiring fewer analyses per Project on average. This will save you time in running larger numbers of events and Regions, especially within your MRIO Projects.
CASE STUDY EXAMPLE
To find out more about how these performance improvements play out in real world examples with real projects, we contacted Dr. Patrick Scott of Louisiana Tech University. Dr. Scott is a professor and researcher that has been working with his senior-level Regional Economic Analysis (BUS-411) students doing real-world regional economic analysis for publication. Recently, he reached out to IMPLAN to discuss a project one of his students was working on that looked at each of the 9 MSAs in Louisiana and a combined Region for the rest of parishes (counties) in Louisiana, for a total of 10 Regions.
The project requires that the spillover effects are captured from Region to Region, which necessitates an MRIO analysis. An MRIO project with 10 Regions and many events in each Region is a large project that could require thousands of individual analyses in the previous version of IMPLAN. In fact, when Dr. Scott was initially trying to run his project, he was finding that the system couldn’t handle that amount of data processing. This made Dr. Scott’s project a perfect case study to see if the added efficiencies actually made a difference in a real-world scenario.
“IMPLAN is always relatively easy to use to implement an analysis and the newest release of IMPLAN, with the updated MRIO efficiency, is remarkably faster. This project was initially run on the old version and it was timing out [without finishing]. There were too many intermediate calculations that created a bottleneck. The latest version of IMPLAN ran the exact same model in just over three hours, which given the number of estimations, is quite an impressive gain in efficiency.”
This case study demonstrates both of the primary benefits that the new version of IMPLAN offers: (1) projects that used to be at or beyond the system’s capabilities are now processing more reliably and (2) projects are now completing noticeably and measurably faster in the new version compared to the previous version.
If you’d like to use one of your projects as a case study yourself, take the new version of IMPLAN for a spin and let us know how these processing improvements are affecting your research by emailing us at feedback@implan.com.
5.16 RELEASE
IMPLAN is always working to improve our software to not only make it easier to use, but to also add new features. Below are the IMPLAN production release notes for version 5.16. This release fixes a few things that have been on our Known Issues page.
IMPACTS
- Analysis Run Cancel has been updated to account for empty Events.
- Previous issue: If you do not drag and drop your events to a group and then hit "Run," OR if you do not select a specification in your events and hit "Run," IMPLAN appears as if an analysis is running. The progress bar begins, and the cancel button ceases to work. This also happens if you choose to run an MRIO type study with groups that contain regions that overlap.
- Analysis will auto cancel if Event or Group requirements are not met or are changed.
RESULTS
- Update to Labor Income Events Indirect and Induced results when being run as an MRIO.
- Previous issue: When running an MRIO study within IMPLAN, successive iterations of household spending can lead to business to business transactions - definitionally, these are still induced impacts despite their being categorized by the software as indirect impacts. This only occurs with MRIO studies.
- Previous issue: When running an MRIO study within IMPLAN, Household Income is treated as Labor Income in the linked regions of your study. This means that certain taxes are removed from your Household Spending dollar value and leaked out of the model inappropriately. This leads to a more conservative result.
- Corrected a systematic underestimation of economic trade between Regions.
5.15 RELEASE
Guess what? Industry Aggregation is here! Below are the IMPLAN production release notes for version 5.15.
NEW FEATURES
- Industry Aggregation: 2 and 3 digit schemes as well as user defined aggregation for the 546 Industry scheme
- Updated IMPLAN created aggregation scheme descriptions to include the data year label
- Login session time out has been extended from two hours to eight hours
REGIONS
- 2018 congressional district Region build fixed
- Incorrect title of NY-15 CD has been corrected - displays correctly in Impacts as well
- Industries have been removed from the Region Details > Social Accounts >Balance Sheets > Commodity > Institutional Demand
- The per million dollar effects to Multipliers has been added to Region Details
- Region search for US Totals will only show in default aggregation schemes, IMPLAN aggregation schemes, and 2 & 3 digit NAICS; US Totals from user created aggregation schemes will be available upon request
- Region search for MSA’s will only show in default aggregation schemes and IMPLAN aggregation schemes; MSA’s will not be available for 2 & 3 Digit NAICS and user created aggregation schemes
IMPACTS
- Region/Group validation now happens before a run can be triggered; Groups must have a proper name and have been assigned a Region before the user can run a project
- Duplicated Events or Projects correctly duplicate with the SAM selection
- On refreshing the Impacts or the Results pages, the title and the navigation links no longer disappear
- Events template is compatible with Industry aggregation schemes in 2 & 3 digit NAICS, 536, 546, and user created schemes; for created schemes; a user must enter the Commodity code from the created aggregation or from the 2 or 3 digit NAICS in the events template; you cannot use the default or pro code for these schemes
PROJECTS
- Navigating through a project (Results to Impacts/Results to Regions) within an existing previously ran Project does not display the ‘project id’ in the URL
5.14 RELEASE
2018 DATA IS NOW AVAILABLE
- The 2018 data is now available in IMPLAN - however it is not set as the default yet. Visit the article BEA Benchmark & The New 546 Sectoring Scheme to find out how to use it now.
NEW FEATURES
- Regions that fail to build will now display an error Icon on the Selected Region as well as a Failure to Build message
REGIONS
- Add to Impacts Button now only registers the initial click preventing multiples of the same Region being added to the Groups section of the Impacts page
IMPACTS
- Remove the LPP functionality from Industry Events; LPP should be for commodity purchases, not industry purchases.
- Duplicated Spending Patterns now hold all edits made to the saved Spending Pattern
- Duplicated Groups now carry over the Events within the original Group
- Event edits are now carrying over to Duplicated Group’s Events
- The Impact Analysis Progress Calculator is now displaying in Safari and Edge browsers
- The Impacts Run/View Results bar now flashes when results are ready
- Improvements to the Event selection when the Advanced tray is open
- Changes to the percentage or dollar value radials no longer selects/de-selects the Industry Contribution Analysis Event
- The error message "An issue has occurred with your Impact. Please click Run again." now persists when a user navigates away and then back to Impacts they will be met with this message again
PROJECTS
- Duplicated Projects are now fully duplicating all of the Events, Groups, and Edits from the Original Project
5.13 RELEASE
NEW FEATURES
- Improved Commodity-Specific Deflators
- Users can now cancel an Impact Analysis with the push of a button
- Remove Deflators from the Contribution Analysis Events using the Percentage Event Value
- Now, an Impact that encounters an error during the analysis will cancel the full analysis from completing and will notify the user that an error has occurred
- Improvements were made to the Commodity Output, Labor Income, and Spending Pattern Events in regards to Contribution Analysis Final Demand
REGIONS
- You can now name Customized Regions using apostrophes
- Improved map display
- Purchased MSA’s are now displaying correctly
IMPACTS
- Single click and drag Event improvements - The dragged event is no longer selected after the drag action has occurred. This fixes a previous problem where the event was still selected but displayed as unselected.
- Group/Region validation on Run - There is now messaging if you try to run a group without specifying a Region.
- Spending Pattern Search improvements so you can search for New Commodities.
- Groups with empty names now notify the User to add a name.
5.12 RELEASE
Below are the IMPLAN production release notes for version 5.12.
NEW FEATURES
- Copy and Pasting of Event Values - a user can now copy and paste formatted numbers with $
- Timeout Notification Page - user is now notified with a timeout page when their session has ended and they have been logged out of the system
- Auto save on timeout - if a users session has expired the system auto saves their work before presenting the user with a Timeout Notification. A user can then look up the saved project from the Projects tile on the Dashboard.
- Impacts now have a Run Progress Number Display
- Regions search selection now zooms to the selected Region
REGIONS
- Map Jittering is fixed
- Zip Codes Improvement - zip codes are now searchable and when selected they will display in the Selected Regions Panel
- 2015 & 2016 States and State Totals are now properly displaying as their respective region
- 2015 & 2016 Selected Regions are now displaying on the map when selected
- Region Build Trigger Improvements
- This includes Zip Codes that are built with the “i” in Selected Regions as well as improvements to Customized and Combined Region builds
- This also includes the progress indicator on Regions being built
- New Projects created from the Projects page now display Create Impacts on the Region's page when starting a new Project
- US Totals displaying as an Unpurchased Region in an existing Project when navigating back to the Region’s page has been fixed
- Region Search improvements for users that have access to many Regions
- Properly displaying already built Zip Codes to all users
- Combined Regions now display in Selected regions while the Region is building
IMPACTS
- Spending Patterns - duplicated Spending Patterns now show
- Advanced Events - tax Results are now calculating properly
- Events
- Changing the Event Type now clears out all values of the Event
- This includes any values that were added to the Advanced Event fields
- Removal of an extra unused Group being added to existing Projects
- Event Template lag improvement on uploaded Events drop down selections
- Analysis Error Notification and retry logic has been added to Impacts that encounter an error while processing
- Improvement to Empty fields and the 0's in Advanced Events
- Duplicated projects are now holding onto Combined Regions within Groups
- Duplication of Advanced Events now carries over all advanced fields
RESULTS
- Combined Regions are now properly displaying in the Results Region filters
- Tax results for Advanced Events are now calculating properly
5.11 RELEASE
IMPLAN is always working to improve our software to not only make it easier to use, but to also to add new features. Below are the IMPLAN production release notes for version 5.11.
NEW FEATURES
- Added 2012 Data
- Analysis Queueing - This allows smaller analyses to finish at an adequate time regardless of other longer running analyses
- Added Events Template
- Users can now upload events from Pro using the Events Template. A user can also download a copy of the events template to build out multiple events at a time.
- You can find this feature in the Advanced Menu on the IMPACTS screen above where you enter your events. You have two options: (1) download a blank template and (2) upload a completed template. It will then prompt you to select the relevant tabs within the spreadsheet.
REGIONS
- All user accessible Zip Codes should now be viewable.
- Region Details now has improved table calculations that total the column if the table includes the total option selected.
- Combined or Customized Region names are now hidden from other users.
- Regions Search hint text now displays as “Search”. You can now search for all of the regional areas.
- Counties displaying properly without duplication.
IMPACTS
- Deleted Events showing in Groups is now fixed.
- MRIO and Industry Contribution Analysis is now fixed.
- This solves an issue that was showing some incorrect induced effects in a scenario which involved MRIO between regions in which both regions have Industry Contribution Analysis (ICA) events. This is something we discovered during the Beta stages of the ICA Event Type and it’s now been fixed. Also Groups Region search improvements were added.
- Performance improvements have been implemented to speed up the search and selection of Regions within a Group on the impacts screen.
- Deleted Events showing up in Groups has been fixed.
- Advanced Events Output no longer showing Type Selection in title.
- Fix for the % and $ selection for an Industry Contribution Analysis. When the event is now duplicated, it holds the correct value selection of % or $ from the duplicated event.
- Improved drag and drop order of Events when being placed into groups. The events now order from top to bottom following the order they appear in the events creation panel.
- In the Spending Patterns, the list of Commodities is now ordered by Industry Code in advanced modal list is now ordered by industry code in ascending order.
- View Results button is now displaying correctly in already Run Projects.
- Run button is now disabled on Run with Progress Indicator.
- Better processing/management of small and large projects running simultaneously via Analysis Queuing.
- Improvement for Groups with combined regions running a number of Events smoothly.
- Spending Pattern LPP to SAM Value
- Default LPP value for a Spending Pattern event is 'SAM Value.' This DOES NOT change the processing in any way (for either 100% or SAM Value), it ONLY changes the default setting of the event.
- Commodity Output Events now complete and display the View Results button when finished.
RESULTS
- Projects last viewed date now updates on opening.
- Processing improvements around small and large impact runs.
- Tax Impact Report fixed the removal transfer code 15029 as this is not technically tax.
- Results running for all of the Events in the impact fixed.
Written September 5, 2019
Updated Jul 5, 2022