FAQ

An organization license allows you to invite other members to simcision and to use a common model repository. You decide individually how many licenses and team areas you want to purchase. Additional licenses are always floating licenses. This means that an assigned license can be withdrawn at any time and be assigned to another user.

In a team area you can collaborate either with members of your organization or with external guests who have an independent simcision license (e.g. “single user”). All members of a team can access the shared model repository, create new models or edit existing models.

As a single user you cannot purchase team areas, but you can be invited by organizations to join teams as a guest. Furthermore, with a valid simcision license you can always share individual models from your repository with other members, who can view them or save them as a copy.

It is important to us to bring the systems thinking approach into broad application and to anchor it in education as well. Therefore, we do not only provide special conditions for educational institutions, but also gladly support students and PhD students in their work. If you would like to use simcision for your bachelor / master thesis or doctorate, please feel free to contact us.

You can view our example models free of charge without registration. In addition to a comprehensive model, you will also find a basic model here to model your own ideas. Furthermore, we are happy to provide you with a temporary test account. You can contact us here.

When your license expires, you (and your organization members) will no longer have access to your models and teams. However, they remain stored for the time being and you can access them again once you purchase a new license or reactivate your expired license. You have 60 days to do this. After the 60 days your account will be deleted together with your models.

It is also possible to export your models before the license expires and archive them as a file. Exported models can be imported and edited again at any time with a valid simcision license.

Inviting members to an organization means providing them with a simcision license (which is purchased and paid for within the organization). Under the menu item “Settings” the administration interface can be opened and the corresponding organization can be selected. When inviting members, they can be invited either as internal members or as external members. Internal members can see all other internal members including their email address and role in the organization, external members do not see other members (e.g. for collaboration with customers). All members with the Admin role can invite other members.

Teams can be created in the settings area of an organization. Then the team’s settings page can be accessed and members can be invited to the team. Both members of the organization and other people can be invited to a team. Joining a team is only possible if the person has a valid simcision license. Members of a team can always see the other members of the team.

All members of a team can access the team’s model repository at any time, create new models or edit existing models. The model repository can be organized into folders. As the administrator of a team, you can lock individual models and thus protect them against modification by other team members. Simultaneous parallel editing of a model by several team members is not possible. If two members work in different instances of a model at the same time, a dialog is displayed when saving, asking which version should be used or whether a copy should be created.

When purchasing an organization license, you can invite other people to the organization as members or externals (according to the number of your licenses). Internal members can see all other internal members including their email address and role in the organization, external members do not see other members (e.g. for collaboration with customers). All members with the role “Admin” can invite other members.

You can share your own models with other simcision users in the “My models” area at any time. Please note that you can only share a model in the “Shared with me” area if you first copy it to your own models, if you have the necessary permissions to do so.

To share a model, open its individual view via the “Manage” button. In the “Model shared with” section, you can share the model with other users via the “Share” button. To do this, please enter the e-mail address of the desired person. This person will then be notified by e-mail about the shared model. If they have a valid simcision license, they will be able to access the shared model in the “Shared with me” section immediately.

When sharing models, you basically have two options. You can either share the model protected or enable it for further processing. Protected models in the “Shared with me” area can be opened and edited as desired, but changes to the model cannot be saved. If you share models for further processing, a copy of these models can be created in the “Own models” area, which can be reused and modified as desired. However, the shared model itself cannot be changed or overwritten by other people.

If you make changes to a shared model yourself, these are immediately visible to the other people in the model in the “Shared with me” area. If the model has already been copied to the “Own models” area, it is an independent model that is not affected by changes to the original model.

The simcision app, which can be used free of charge by all simcision users, allows models to be created and edited offline. The app offers automatic synchronization with the cloud to always have access to all models. However, synchronization can be disabled so that your models are stored locally only.

Models created online are automatically stored end-to-end encrypted in the simcision cloud and can additionally be protected with an individual password. Furthermore, you can export your models at any time and save them locally.

Your models are stored end-to-end encrypted in the simcision cloud. In addition, you can export your models as an encrypted file format at any time.

Furthermore, you can encrypt your models with an additional, individually defined password. Models can then be opened exclusively with this password. Restoration is not possible if the password is lost.

When sharing models, you have the option to share your models for viewing only, so models cannot be copied and further processed.

In addition, you can publish a model as a simulation game. This means that the areas “Effect network” and “Variables” are locked and only simulations can be performed and – if released – also saved.

If a model is published as a simulation game, a copy of the model is generated in which the interdependency network and the variables can no longer be edited. In simulation game files, only the areas “Analysis”, “Simulation”, and “Evaluation” are available. If modifications are made to the original model, they will not apply to the simulation game. The model will then need to be published again as a simulation game. The process is comparable to saving a PowerPoint file as a PDF.

It is generally possible to create copies of simulation games in order to be able to save executed simulations. However, when creating a simulation game, an author is specified who also remains in copies of the simulation game and cannot be edited. This allows the origin of a simulation game to be traced back at any time.

Furthermore, via a supplementary contract, it is possible to package simulation games created in simcision as independent apps, thereby allowing users without a simcision account to access them as well (e.g. as a teaching instrument in a lecture). If you are interested, feel free to contact us at simcision@icondu.de.

To export a model, select the “Manage” button on the corresponding model. Provided you possess the permissions to perform an export, you can export the model here using the “Download” button. Model files have the extension “.model”, simulation games have the extension “.sim”. If you are currently editing the model, the export function is also located in the menu on the top right.

In the folder “Example Models” in the area “My Models” you can find some examples of models and simulation games created with simcision. Basically there are two types of example models:

Open example models can be copied into your own models and thus used as templates for your own models. This is intended to make it easier to get started with modeling. Models that you have created on the basis of open example models belong exclusively to you.

Protected example models cannot be copied and further processed. They are only used to give an insight into the possibilities of simcision and to get to know the range of functions. If you are interested in creating a model based on a protected example model, you can send us a request via simcision@icondu.de.