This FlexSim Community Forum is read-only. Please post any new questions, ideas, or discussions to our new community (we call it Answers) at https://answers.flexsim.com/. Our new Question & Answer site brings a modern, mobile-friendly interface and more focus on getting answers quickly. There are a few differences between how our new Q&A community works vs. a classic, threaded-conversation-style forum like the one below, so be sure to read our Answers Best Practices.
Hey Everyone,
Here's a COM object that I've created to allow remote control of Flexsim, i.e. through Excel, HTML, or anything that supports COM.
First, unzip the FlexsimRPC folder to your libraries directory. Then double click on registerdll.bat to register the COM object.
I've put together two examples, found in the examples folder. One is an Excel spreadsheet. There are two files, one for Excel 2007 and one for previous Excel versions. Through the spreadsheet I have set up my own little experimenter on a model that varies the number of operators. It doesn't use Flexsim's experimenter, but just sets the scenarios on its own. You'll need to enable macros first, then click the "Run Experiment" button. This will open two instances of Flexsim and have those instances run different parts of the experiment simultaneously. The first instance performs the first 6 scenarios, and the second instance performs the last 6 scenarios. The reason I decided on running two instances was to utilize both cores on my computer, and it's cool to see two scenarios going at the same time.
To get to the code behind the scenes (at least in Excel 2007; I don't remember how to do it in earlier versions of Excel), go to the developer tab and click the "Visual Basic" button. You may need to show the Developer tab in the ribbon through the Excel Options menu in the main Excel menu.
The other example is just a web page. You must open it using Internet Explorer because most other browsers don't support ActiveX plugins. It lets you open Flexsim, build and run a post office model, and execute script like you're in the script window in Flexsim.
DISCLAIMER - This COM object comes as-is, with no guarantees that it works properly, no documentation other than the examples given, and no guaranteed support. I'll support your questions here on the forum as I have the time, but don't send your questions to Flexsim's support because they'll have no idea. Right now the COM object is still "half-baked". I haven't implemented the Compile method yet, and I've only tested the OnNotificationTime and OnUpdateInterval event sinks, and even then I still can't figure out how to get the event sinks to work in Internet Explorer. The experimenter notifications might work, but I haven't tested them. I need to move on to other things, so it's given to you as-is. If someone really wants support and is willing to pay for a finished product, we'd be glad to work with you. For now, though, you can have it as-is.
FOOTNOTE - Essentially this COM object is being made available as a "teaser" for the following two-fold purpose: 1) let you know what is possible, and 2) judge the level of interest out there in having us fully develop this functionality for a future "Developer's Version" release. - Cliff King
hi anthnoy,it doesn't work in flexsim3.0.do you have a FlexsimAXDLL.dll file which can support flexsim3.0.
thanks a lot!
Sucharith Vanguri 02-21-2011 at 08:15 PM
Hi Anthony,
Thank you for the COM object. I have been using it with V 4 and it works perfectly. I have recently upgraded to V 5 and am having trouble making it work. I have both versions installed. Can you please provide me details on how to configure it for V 5 or is there a better way to control Flexsim from .Net code?
