Translator++™ for Excel
US Patent No. 7,530,013 B2
Extend and Customise Risk Explorer™ Using Compiled Spreadsheet
Translator++™ for Excel is a vitally important part of the “URS Application Studio” Dynamic Financial Analysis software suite, which also includes the UltiFit™ statistical distribution fitting tool and the Risk Explorer™ financial modeling system.
Translator++™ for Excel can also be used as a stand-alone product. Click here for more information.
Risk Explorer™ is not a DFA toolkit; it is a complete modelling environment with many built-in model elements that cover most DFA needs. For situations that require greater flexibility and control you can use Translator++™ for Excel to extend and customise the functionality of every part of Risk Explorer™ to meet your most exacting model requirements.
With the Translator++™, you can create new custom risk models, custom reinsurance arrangements and other custom components using calculations contained in Excel spreadsheets. Just specify the new functionality in an Excel or Excel/VBA model and use Translator++™ for Excel to convert your spreadsheet calculations to a fast, stand-alone machine-code Dynamic Linked Library (DLL) which becomes an extension of Risk Explorer that is independent of Excelhttp://asp.ultirisk.com/p>
To customize existing model elements, special Wizards create Excel templates that contain the cells for standard Input and Output parameters, along with any number of special-purpose parameters. The template supplies the basic framework, making it easy to add the new logic in Excel and return the results to Risk Explorer™.
How it works:
The software also comes with DLL Tester that ensures that the original Excel model and its compiled version (DLL) from Translator++™ perform the same calculations every time. You can test your calculations on individual scenarios simulated in Risk Explorer™ or run automated tests over many simulated or predefined test scenarios. If differences are found between the calculations from your Excel model and the DLL compiled from it, DLL Tester will point you to the Excel cells that are producing the errors. DLL Tester helps you locate differences between the Excel and DLL calculations, so you can have 100% assurance that those calculations have been reliably translated.
Risk Explorer™ with Translator++™ for Excel are a powerful combination that allows you to build models quickly and reliably, with both the speed, auditability and controls of a modelling framework and the flexibility and freedom of Excel. Translator++™ lets you build calculations for custom risk models, special asset classes, or exotic finite reinsurance contracts in the familiar Excel environment and use them in fast-running simulations powered by Risk Explorer™.
The advantages of Risk Explorer™ with Translator++™ for Excel include:
- Speed: Complex calculations from Excel are translated to fast machine-code that runs up to hundreds of times faster.
- Flexibility: Entirely new features can be implemented in your Risk Explorer model without difficult custom programming or scripting by adding new modules designed in Excel but independent of Excel.
- Leverage Existing Models: Integrate your own financial models, algorithms and even third-party software into Risk Explorer™ models.
- Audit Trail and Peer Review: Models can be peer-reviewed and tested in Excel and run with confidence in Risk Explorer™. The DLL Tester helps ensure proper testing of models.
- Responsiveness and Scalability: Create large portfolios of Finite contracts in just days, not months. Compile existing Excel models and easily assemble them into a portfolio in Risk Explorer™.
- Error Risk Reduction: Setting up models with multiple strategies is less error-prone in Risk Explorer™ than building from scratch in Excel with a simulation add-in.
- Total Cost of Operation: Extensive multi-year DFA models to evaluate multiple strategies can be expensive to build and maintain in Excel. Risk Explorer™ with Translator++™ provides the flexibility of spreadsheet models with the speed, controls, and operational efficiencies of a dedicated model.
- Add Entirely New Functionality without Programming: Policy or exposure models, underwriting cycles and models with links to the economic variables can be implemented in Excel with minimum effort and without specialised skills to become part of your DFA model.
