Milliman Mind provides a set of features to transfer data (inputs, settings, results from calculation, …) from one or several project(s) to another, as long as they are in the same company environment.

Some configuration is required to use this feature on source and target projects, but after the initial model setup and link creation, data retrieval is entirely automatized.

The basic concept will be to flag as Output some grids on your sources projects to copy their content to Input flagged grids on the target project. The match will be done automatically following specific rules we will detail later, and data will be concatenated if several output grids target the same Input grid.

Setup your source and target grids

To connect two grids, one from a source project to one in a target project, you must follow these steps:

1. The two grids must have the exact same name because the auto-matching system is name-based.
2. The number of columns in the source and target grids should be the same if you don't use a /Resizecolumn flag on the target grid. Otherwise your target grid will be either truncated (if the source grid has less columns than the target one) or filled with empty columns (if the source grid has more columns).
3. The grid in the source project must have /Outputlink flag (can be added within Excel or with the flag manager).
    

1. The grid in the target project must have /Inputlink flag (can be added within Excel or with the flag manager).

Create a new link

The link will always be created on the target project (with /InputLink flagged grids). When the model detects this flag, a specific button will give you access to the Interlink manager and create your connections.

The source project must have been run and have saved results to provide data to retrieve for the target project.

Click on the Interlink Manager button (1) within the target project to open a new popup:

This new screen is divided between the Links Summary (2) panel, which displays each flagged grid/instance of the target project with the associated matching/linked source grid, and the Links Management (3) panel, which allows you to manage the linked projects that will provide the source data.

To create a new link, go to Links Management, then click on Create a new link:

Select Link type

You will need to choose the type of link you want to create. You will find below a small description of each link type. Please note you won't be able to modify the link type once the link has been created.

Grid to Grid link

Create link(s) from 1 or several projects to your current project, copying the content grid to grid, with an auto-match of grid names between source and target projects.

The data will be concatenated if several source grids target the same grid.

Instance x Grid to Instance x Grid link

Create link(s) from 1 or several projects to your current project, copying the content instance x grid to instance x grid with an auto-match of the instance keys between source and target projects.

Project x Grid to Instance x Grid link

Create link(s) from several projects to your current project, copying the content project x grid to instance x grid with an auto-match of source projects name to target instance keys.

Link settings

Then choose the main settings for this link:

• If you want to retrieve headers as well as grid content when importing the data, turn on the first switch.
• If you want to retrieve the data from the linked source projects when loading your project, turn on the second switch.
• If you want to retrieve the data from the linked source projects when starting a new run, turn on the third switch.

Project selection

You must now choose your source projects with the project selector.

There are two possibilities to select the projects you want to link: choose the projects themselves or use the tag feature.

When choosing by project, you must select a source Project Group, then a folder, and finally, one or more projects to link. Several options are available:

• You can only display validated projects in the list by activating the corresponding checkbox.
• You can turn on the Any switch if you've chosen a folder and want to take all the projects inside this folder.

If you've chosen the Tag selection, choose one or more tags, and Mind will automatically link all the projects with these tags. You can select if you want all projects with at least one of the selected tags or only projects with all of them.

You can add a tag to a project during its creation or edit:

Finally, if you turn on the “Auto-update dynamically” switch, the newly added projects matching the chosen conditions will be automatically linked later.

Handling Loops

Please select, on the next screen, which loops you want to retrieve from the chosen source projects. You can select to retrieve the full scope of loops or only the ones that are currently selected by index or label (if some have been created with MM_LOOPLABELS or MM_SENSITIVITYLABELS functions). If more than one loop element is selected, the content will be flattened.

Override file

The interlink tool allows you to override some automatically set parameters to handle specific cases by uploading an override CSV.

The format of the csv file should be like this example:

The csv file includes the next information:

• The target: This information is contained in columns TargetInstance and TargetGrid. If TargetInstance is empty, this override will be applied to every project instance. If the TargetGrid is empty, this override will be applied to every linked grid of the instance.
• The source: This information is contained in columns SourceInstance and SourceGrid. This information could be empty (if you want to change the project selection or the configuration options for a target). Otherwise, this must be aligned with the target information: if you have completed the TargetInstance, you must have the SourceInstance, the same things with TargetGrid and SourceGrid.
• The source selection: you can describe a selection by tags (SourceTag and EachTach) or by Group/folder/Project with the columns (SourceProjectGroup, SourceFolder, and SourceProject). In the case of group/folder selection, if the folder is not empty and the project column is empty, every project with output links from this folder will be selected. This information is completed with the column auto-update, indicating if the information should be updated automatically. If the information is empty, it keeps the current interlink project selection.
  Please note that your new source selection must be part of the initial project selection scope (done through the project/tags selection interface). This choice can only reduce the scope; For example, if you've chosen a Tag in the Selection step, and you want to match all the projects with this tag to a specific instance within a specific project group, you just need to fill in the “SourceProjectGroup” and “TargetInstance” columns.
• The configuration: you can override the configuration of the loops (via the column Loops) and the RetrieveHeaders (via the column RetrieveHeaders) option. If those columns are empty, it keeps the interlink configuration. In the loop column, you can indicate only the overridden loops; it will keep the other loops' default settings. 

Most of the values should be strings except EachTag, AutoUpdate, and RetrieveHeaders that should be booleans (TRUE or FALSE only whatever the language, or empty if not necessary), and the column loops that should correspond to the pattern to describe a loop option. In the columns SourceTag and Loops, each element should be separated by a semicolon.

Please note that you only need to fill in the information that you want to override.

Overview of source projects

Your first link has been created successfully. Back on the Links management tab, you can see an overview of all the source projects providing data for your links.

On the screen above you will see a summary of each link with:

• Its link type
• The selected projects
• The optional override file
• The settings
• The loops selection

If you want to edit this link, click on the “Edit links” button. You will then get access to three new buttons:

• A button to change the Link status: it allows you to pause the link (data won't be retrieved automatically anymore).
• Edit link: all the link properties can be changed in this panel except the link type;
• Delete the link to remove the link.

Summary of linked grids/instances

If you go back to the first “Links Summary” tab, you will see a visual summary of all the grids waiting to receive data on the current project, the ones that are not linked yet, and those linked to another project.

You can easily navigate between the current project models with the Tabs system, search within the screen for grid or instances names (loop icon button), or filter links by status (Filters button).

The list of possible statuses is as follows:

• Not imported: not linked yet
• Active: the link works fine; the data has been updated at the last update
• Partial: the link works fine, but some source instances are missing.
• Frozen: data cannot be updated automatically anymore
• Missing: the source is missing (could be due to the deletion of the source)
• Error: the error is displayed by passing the mouse over the status

Update the data from the links

To retrieve the data from the linked projects and update the flagged grids content, you have three possibilities:

• Either click on Update all links on the Interlink Manager main screen
• Run your project (for the links where the option is activated)
• (Re)open your project (for the links where the option is activated)

These steps will update the data and retrieve the latest saved figures from the source projects.