Industry Change: Importing from Excel vs. Manually
Hello,
I am modeling employment in an Industry Change Activity Type and tried two different methods of entering the same inputs just to see if there would be any difference in the results. First I entered my employment counts manually: New Activity>Industry Change>New Event for each selected Industry Sector. Then I created an Activity Template using the same employment counts and the same Industry Sectors and imported the template from Excel.
Once the other Industry Sales, Employee Compensation and Proprietor Income fields populated, I noticed that the values of those categories did not match across the two methods of entering in my inputs. The New Activity>Industry Change>New Event method actually generated higher values for each Industry Sector.
The Event Year, LPP, Activity Type, Industry Sectors, and deflators are exactly the same. None of the Industry Sectors are Retail Sectors and I made sure that "No" was indicated in the Retail column of the Template. I also made sure that the employee counts were entered as integers so that the differences could not be explained by rounding.
I used to think that these two methods were interchangeable but now I am thinking that the software is making different assumptions about how it interprets the inputs based on how they are entered. Is that correct? In other words, is the Industry Change Activity that is imported from Excel different from the Industry Change Activity that is entered into the software manually? If so, which method is "better" or the most reliable or appropriate to use? Alternatively, am I doing something wrong that could explain why the Industry Change, Employee Compensation and Proprietor Income values change for the same Employment inputs, the same Industry Sectors and for the same Activity Type?
I have attached my original Activity Template and both sets of inputs that I exported to Excel.
Thank you very much for your help!
Andrew
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Official comment
Permanently deleted userHello Ms. Mahalingam,
Thank you for reaching out about this. In the 3.1 version of IMPLAN the issue with the activity template will still occur. However, there is an upgraded version (3.6) available to those that need to use the template in the same way that you are.
I'll send you a separate email regarding the upgrade and this should resolve the template issue.
Thank you!
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IMPLAN SupportHello, We are experiencing a similar issue. Our programmer is informed. Thank you for finding this, and for your patience. Best regards, IMPLAN Group Staff0 -
IMPLAN SupportHi Andrew, Please try removing the default $2,000,000 from the Employee Compensation field, and making sure both your Activity and Event Year are set to the same year. We were able to receive the same values using the template vs manually entering the Event. Thanks!0
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Hello again, When you say remove the default $2,000,000 from the Employee Compensation field, to what are you referring? When I sum the values in the Employee Compensation field, I see $3,531,508.18 when I enter the inputs in manually and $3,376,008.49 when I use the template. Also there is not one sector that shows the $2,000,000 so I am not sure about which sectors I should look at when I am deducting the $2,000,000. Thank you for your help! Andrew0
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IMPLAN SupportHello, Specifically we are referring to the Activity Template file found in your C:\Users\luke\Documents\MIG\Implan\Templates pathway. In the Activity Template, in the Industry Change tab there is a default of 2000000 in the Employee Compensation cell, row 5 column D. If you leave this cell blank when the template is imported, IMPLAN will estimate Employee Compensation for that Event.0
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Hi, Thank you very much for your quick and informative response; however I am still stuck on the same problem. I entered employment values only into the Activity Template found on my C drive, and left the columns for Event Value, Employee Compensation and Proprietor Income blank. When I imported this template into the software, the fields that I left blank were automatically populated with values that were very different from when I manually just entered the same employment values into those industry sectors. I also tried to enter only employment into the template and I filled in zeros for Event Value, Employee Compensation and Proprietor Income. This resulted in the same populated values that I received from importing the template before. I confirmed that, in each iteration of manually entering in my employment inputs and importing the same employment inputs, the Event Year and Local Purchase Percentage were the same. I also uninstalled and reinstalled the software and the data package and that did not help either. Which is the "better" way to enter employment inputs, and am I doing something wrong? Thanks again, Andrew0
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IMPLAN SupportHello, Thank you for providing the perfect amount of detail to reproduce what you are seeing. We experienced the same thing. After digging through the estimations, using employment as a proxy to estimate the event values is not following the correct order of operations as it is when using Industry Sales as a proxy. Unfortunately [u]manually[/u] entering Employment into the Event the only option to produce the correct Event estimations. We are planning an update for this, and other bugs in the program sometime in the 1st quarter of 2015. To reiterate, if you are using Employment or Labor Income to estimate the event, enter it manually through IMPLAN. If you are using Industry Sales, you can use the Activity Template. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. To ease some of the legwork, you can import a template with all your Sectors and leave their values blank to create the Events.0
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Hello, I also noticed something else peculiar with the Templates. Naturally not every industry sector exists in every region; but - unlike when you enter inputs manually into the software - if you select an industry sector that does not exist in your Study Region and import it in a Template, you will not receive an error message and the dollar value will just disappear from the reported Output. Andrew0
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IMPLAN SupportHi! Unfortunately, there is no way for the import template to keep you from entering in a value into a Sector that does not exist in your Model. Thus it will import the values that you tell it, but when it runs the Multiplier analysis the Multiplier for a Sector that does not exist in your Model will be zero, so you will not see any results from that Sector in your Model. We apologize if this causes confusion.0
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This was an older thread, but despite any updates that might have occurred, I am still having the same problem. If I enter only employment into the Excel file, the calculated fields for other fields do not match manually entering them into IMPLAN. From what I can see, when you import from Excel under these circumstances it is not properly picking up the Event Year field. For instance, I am trying to import with an event year of 2017, using 2015 data. It appears that the calculated industry sales are as if the event year were 2015, same as the data. FYI, I have checked for updates, been told there aren't any, and I am on version 3.1.1001.12.0
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IMPLAN SupportHi Raymond! Thank you so much for your forum post. So that we can replicate your results to determine the best solution for your situation, would you mind either posting or emailing your Activity Template. If you prefer to email, you can send it to support@implan.com0
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Here is the file I was trying to import from Excel. The model is for San Francisco County, 2015 data. I realize that this effectively zeroes out some of the sectors with no employment, but the problem with the industry sales calculation is separate from that.0
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IMPLAN SupportHi Raymond! Thank you so much for your post. I apologize for the inconvenience with the Activity Template. We have a fix for this issue which I will send via email. Thanks!0
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Apparently this is still not fixed after 4 years!!! I am still encountering the same problem. If I enter the employment manually versus through an excel template it gives different industry sales, employee compensation and proprietor income. Is the template or problem still not fixed?
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