To define the function, choose Add Function from the menu. The dialog below is presented. The Function Location holds a cell designation from the worksheet. The function form is placed below and to the right of this cell. The initial value is the location of the active cell when the dialog is presented. The location may be manually changed. The $ signs need not be included in the cell address. The Function and Variable names are automatically generated by the program. The names can be changed, but the revised names must have no blanks or punctuation. A function or variable name can be used only once in a workbook. The number of variables is entered in the Variable Dimension box. For the example the function has only one variable.

Clicking OK places the form on the worksheet. This is the simplest form with a single variable. The green area in cell B3 holds the Value of the variable. The program will vary this cell, but the user may experiment with the value. Cells C3 and D3, outlined in maroon hold the Lower and Upper limits of the variable and are to be set by the user. The add-in requires finite limits for each variable. The pink cell, B4, holds the function to be analyzed. The pink color indicates that the user is to provide an Excel function that depends on the value entered in cell B3. The relation between B3 and B4 may be either direct, with references to the variables explicitly appearing in the function, or indirect, with the function containing references to cells outside form. At least some of these cells must in turn depend on values of the variables.

The figure below shows the form after the function has been entered. Cell B4 now holds the function to be analyzed. All Excel functions must begin with an "=" sign. Excel has computed the value for x = 0.5. Note that the function uses the term X_Value. This is an Excel name that identifies cell B3. The name is automatically created by the program.

In general, the computation of the function may use many cells outside the form and be very complex. Only the result of the final computation must be placed in the function cell of the form.

The function may depend on cells outside the form. The second example presents a function that is the sum of two Normal distributions. The distributions are called curv1 and curv2. The means and standard deviations of the functions are given in the range (B8:C9).

The function in cell B4 is a complex function referring to the contents of cells outside the form. A chart of the function constructed with the Moments command is shown below.

Although the example illustrates function parameters outside the form, the function call also depend on complicated calculations performed outside the form. In fact, the value in the function cell can depend on any number of other cells on the worksheet that contains the function or on different worksheets in the workbook. The only requirement is that the variables that affect the function, their bounds, and the value of the function appear on the form. The formula in the function cell might be a simple link to a value in another cell.

Functions that depend on more than one decision variable are entered by specifying the number of variables on the function dialog. The example below has four variables.

The function's representation on the worksheet refers to the calculations just below the function form.

There are no program restrictions on the dimensionality of functions except for the limitations of Excel. Some of the operations that can be performed on the function are limited to a small number of dimensions, and problems with large dimensionality and/or complex functions may take a very long time to solve.

The program provides special capabilities for describing functions that include quadratic terms. The function dialog with the quadratic boxes checked is below. The Make Random Problem button fills in the form with random integer numbers. The random problem generator always creates convex quadratic functions.

The function to be entered is:

The form has ranges for entering the parameters of the function. Cell D6 holds the constant term, F3:F5 holds the linear coefficient vector, and H3:J5 holds the quadratic matrix. The example also includes cubic terms. The dialog allows Other columns to be specified. We use 1 to indicate one extra data column (L) and one extra function column (M). The pink color of the cells in column M indicate that the user may place any functions in these cells. In the example we place the cubes of the z variables. The coefficients in column L multiply the functions in column M.

The function value in B6 is the sum of the constant, linear, quadratic and other terms. Also shown in the range A9:B14 is the stationary point computed with only the linear and quadratic data. This is handy when illustrating the optimization procedures.

Further analysis would show that this solution is the global minimum when only quadratic terms are considered and the bounds on the variables are neglected. There is no guarantee that the quadratic optimum will be within the variable bounds.

All the operations of the function add-in require that a function be entered in the manner described on this page. This is really no limitation on the models that can be considered since the function definition can depend on any number of cells and relations outside the form.