AHP OS – Page 2

AHP-OS – Editing saved projects

In the project menu of the latest AHP-OS version (2017-05-25), I added a button to edit saved projects. As long as there are no participants’ inputs (completed pairwise comparisons), any saved project’s hierarchy, alternatives or description can be modified.

Open a project from your project list, and click on Edit Project. The project hierarchy page will open with a message on top , indicating that you are modifying an existong project. You can now change the hierarchy, for example add criteria or alternatives. A click on Save/Update in the Hierarchy Input Menu

will overwrite the data of the original project under the same session code. You will see it in a message . Before you click on Go to save, you can also update the project short description:

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AHP-OS New Release with simplified project administration

Based on feedback from users, I just released a major update of BPMSG’s AHP online software AHP-OS with simplified menu structure and additional functionality. Starting the program as registered and logged-in user, the project session table is displayed, showing your projects.

You can open one of your projects, either using a click on the session code in the project table, or selecting the session code from the session administration menu:

This will bring you to the project summary page, showing

Continue reading AHP-OS New Release with simplified project administration

AHP-OS News March 2017

I received some feedback about session timeout and expired session errors. I have now extended the session timeout to 45 min. After 45 minutes of inactivity (no refresh of html pages, click on menu botton, etc.) the session expires and session data are lost. Kindly feedback, if you still face a problem.

AHP-OS can handle multibyte characters (Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc.) Unfortunately, the bar chart of priorities on the group result page cannot handle these characters; the annotation of the axis will not be readable. I am working on a solution.

When doing a pairwise comparison – leaving all comparisons at the default value of 1 (equal importance) – criteria will get equal priorities. I implemented a confirmation message box: Are you sure to leave all comparisons at equal importance? This was done in order to avoid unintential submission of the default values.

AHP-OS and Farsi

Thanks to the feedback of a user from Iran, I found out that AHP-OS is working with RTL fonts like Farsi. It is important to add the semicolon to the right end of a node definition, and use latin punctuation marks, for example:

کاربری: مسکونی , تجاری , اداری ;

A simple decision hierarchy example looks like here:

farsi

Unfortunately, I am not able to check for a hierarchy with more than one level. If anyone could provide a 2 level hierarchy, I would appreciate. Arabic fonts should work too; kindly contact me, if you have an example.

AHP Online Software CSV Data Export

AHP-OS allows for downloading your project data as a comma separated value text file. The following menus include a csv download key:

Hierarchy Input Menu – download the AHP hierarchy
Group Result Menu – download resulting priorities and consolidated (aggregated) decision matrix
Project Data Menu – download decision matrices for all individual participants

Depending on your regional settings of your PC, for each download you can select the decimal point or decimal comma as decimal separator.

Text encoding of the CVS file is UTF-8. If you are using country specific characters and Windows Excel, you can convert from UTF-8 to ANSI. Open the CSV file with notepad, and save as a new file with Encoding set to ANSI.

AHP Online Software – Decision Matrices – Update 2016-11-02

With the latest update of my AHP-OS online software you can now view and download the decision matrices of all participant. The group result menu was extended by a selection View Input Data:

From there you reach the Project Detailed Input page, which shows the decision matrix for each individual participant and all nodes of the hierarchy:

projectinputdata

The project data menu has the button to download the data in csv format:

The csv file contains the basic project data – Session Code, Project Name, Project description, Author, Date, Type of evaluation, Number of Participants – as well as all input decision matrices sorted by participant and nodes (categories of the hierarchy) or criteria for alternative evaluation.

With the Back link you can go back to the Group Result Page.

AHP Online Software – Latest Update 2016-10-29

Based on the request from some users I have modified the result display of my AHP-OS online software. Beside the resulting priorities it is now possible to see the underlying consolidated decision matrix, which results from the aggregation of individual judgments (AIJ) using the geometric mean.

Decision Hierarchies

For decision hierarchies the result page shows the resulting local and global priorities (overall result) in hierarchical form, and the global priorities in descending order in a bar graph.

Then, in a breakdown by nodes, consolidated priorities, consolidated decision matrix and the priorities of individual participants are shown:

ahp-result
As in this example, the consolidated matrix for one participant is the same as the AHP decision matrix.

Alternative Evaluation

For alternative evaluation the breakdown is done by criteria. It shows the consolidated preferences for all alternatives with respect to each of the criteria:

ahp-result1

In this example the House A from the alternative houses A, B, C has the best match with respect to the criterion “Size”.

Outlook

I am now working on the extension to let you download the complete set of input values, i.e. all underlying decision matrices, to excel. In the current version only the resulting AHP priorities are available.

AHP Frequently Asked Questions

Over the year I receive many questions about AHP, my AHP excel template and my AHP online Software. Here a selection of frequently asked questions:

General Questions

Q: I have 15 criteria and 20 alternatives, can you extend your template/software?
A: The excel template can handle up to 10 criteria, my online software is limited to 12 criteria (in one hierarchy level) and 10 alternatives. In principle it could be extended, but the limitation is inherit to the AHP method. Please read my explanations here.

Q: I have more than 10 alternatives, can I use AHP for priority evaluation of criteria and a different method for the evaluation of alternatives?
A: Yes, you can combine AHP for criteria evaluation with another method for alternative evaluation. Alternative evaluation could be done for example using a simple table with a yes/no or applicable/not applicable scale, or any other scale, e.g. Likert scale, how good the individual alternative matches the specific criterion.

Q: I have 150 participants, can I use your excel template/software?
A: My AHP excel template is limited to 20 inputs, my AHP online software can handle a (practically) unlimited number of participants. Use the AHP online software.

Q: How can I resolve the inconsistency (CR>0.1), when participants are done with their pairwise comparisons.
A: Once the pairwise comparison is done and submitted, data can not be changed and consistency ratio is what it is. Ask your decision makers to adjust their judgments in direction of the most consistent input during the pair-wise comparisons for the highlighted three most inconsistent comparisons. Please see also my posting here.

Q: Can I use the Likert scale instead of the AHP scale?
A: No, AHP is based on the rational scale 1/9 … 1 … 9. It cannot be replaced by the Likert scale.

Q: Do you support Fuzzy AHP?
A: No, I have made no provisions to support Fuzzy AHP, neither in Excel, nor in my online software.

Q: How is the computation done, where do I find the description and formulas?
A: Please download the manual for the excel template, or the description about the Software Implementation of AHP-OS.

Q: How can I cite your work, can you give me a reference?
A: Please cite my paper: Implementing the analytic hierarchy process as a standard method for multi-criteria decision making in corporate enterprises–a new AHP excel template with multiple inputs (Excel template) or my paper Software Implementation of AHP-OS.

AHP Excel template

Q: Can I extend the number of participants to more than 20?
A: Though it is possible in principle, the better way is to use my AHP online software with (practically) unlimited number of participants. I will not do a further extension of the template.

Q: Do you have a version of the Excel template w/o multiple inputs?
A: Yes, a simplified version is available on request from the author.

Q: How can I do alternative evaluation using your Excel template.
A: It is not possible. The template can only handle one category of a hierarchy and calculate the priority of one set of criteria.

AHP Online software

Q: If I have a group of decision makers, do they need to register for the online software?
A: No, they don’t need to register. As the owner of a project you get a link for group decision inputs. Simply send them the link, and they can start the pairwise comparisons.

Q: Can I erase/delete inputs from individual participants from the group results?
A: Yes, you can select and delete individual participants from a project .

Q: The alternative evaluation is not working?
A: Criteria evaluation (priorities) and alternative evaluation have to be handled as two different projects. Only when you have a decision hierarchy with completed comparisons and evaluated priorities, you can define the alternatives from the group result page clicking on Use consol. priorities. Define number and name of alternatives from there and save as new project. Hierarchy evaluation and alternative evaluation projects appear as type “H” for the first and type “A” for the latter in your project list.

Q: Can I get the source code of your online software?
A: Sorry, it is not an open source project.

How to use AHP-OS for Group Decision Making?