Professional version only

Using Empirical Data to Generate a Statistical Distribution

You can use empirical data to define a custom statistical distribution. The data must be saved in a comma separate file and contain numbers only. The minimum number of values should be 20. At least one value should be different from all others. If there is a text field, it will be interpreted as a zero value. Values can be entered on multiple lines. But it could be one row, or one column. Here is the example of a file:

67.78, 88.32, 32.33, 47.54, 57.32, 45.23, 58.23, 67.00, 56.20, 32.87, 32.22, 30.00, 32.33

32.99, 18.32, 56.22, 32.21, 32.98, 23.23, 73.43

58.23, 67.00, 56.20, 32.87, 32.22, 30.00, 32.33, 22.45, 48.34

Fitting a distribution:

1. Open Project View
2. Double click on Task ID; Task Information dialog opens
3. Go to Distributions task
4. Selection Cost, Income, Duration or Start Time
5. Click the Get Empirical Data button.
6. Select the comma separated file that contains the data
7. Existing durations for low, base, and high values will be replaced with the custom distribution generated using the empirical data.