Introduction

In response to feedback received from Enron traders worldwide, we have 
upgraded and improved the Stack Manager to include new functionality which we 
hope will improve its effectiveness and usefulness in the management of your 
products.

This new release will be automatically installed within the next few days. 
Please ensure you log out at night in order to receive the upgrade.

Summary of New Features

Multiple Children - A "Child" product can be the "Parent" of another Child 
(multiple links in a chain) and different types of links can be placed 
against a single Parent.

Static Product Bar Prices - When you change a price in the Product Bar and 
hit the "+" or "-" button, the price stays - it does not reset to the amount 
in Product Properties until you logout.

Sorting - You can sort by any field on the Products Tab simply by clicking on 
the title of the field. For multiple sorts, hold down your "shift" key.

Parent Products which are at the top of a stack do not have their basis 
relationship identified. (e.g. The Product bar might before have said: "Basis 
Link - Parent" and now would say "Stand Alone, Parent").


Detailed Feature Descriptions


Multiple Children

The new version of EnronOnline allows you to link several products together 
in a long chain. For example, Child Product A can be linked to Parent Product 
B, which is in turn linked to Parent Product C.

Warning: Although there is no absolute limit to the number of links in a 
chain, system performance is degraded by large chains. This is because when a 
customer attempts a transaction, the database must "lock" each and every 
product in the chain before it can process the transaction request. The 
database must then update the stack for each product before releasing the 
locks. "Vertical" chains (multiple parents and children in one long link) are 
much slower to process than "Flat" chains (One parent with many children). 
Large vertical chains should be avoided. 

Related to this feature is the ability to have several types of links on the 
same parent. For example, Child Product A can have a Basis link to Parent 
Product B. At the same time, Child Product C can have a Syncopated Basis link 
to the same Parent Product B. Parent B is the parent for both a Syncopated 
Basis link and a regular Basis Link.


Static Product Bar Prices

The new version of EnronOnline provides for "sticky" Product Bar price and 
volume changes. When you change a number on the Product Bar, it does not 
reset to the number contained in the Product Properties menu until after you 
have logged out. This makes it easier to update prices, volumes, spreads or 
offsets in a changing market without repeated hits to the "+" or "-" buttons. 

One of the benefits of setting these numbers to appropriate levels is that it 
reduces repeated price movements. With the old version of Stack Manager, if 
the price delta was too small, traders would often repeatedly hit the price 
movement buttons. Each of these price changes must be communicated across the 
website to customers and consumes valuable bandwidth. This makes it harder 
for customers to transact with us - each time they try, a new price update 
moves the price, resulting in an increased transaction failure rate. Entering 
an appropriate price into the Price Delta field and then pressing the price 
movement button means that fewer (but larger) price movements are necessary, 
improving overall system response and reducing customer transaction failure 
rate.

You may also notice a new addition to the Product Bar prices - a new field 
for Offset to Last Trade. This allows you to update the offset for Products 
which have Offset to Last Trade selected from the Product Properties Menu.


Sorting/Selecting

The new version of EnronOnline provide significant additional sorting 
functionality over the old. You can now choose any field heading (Type, 
Location, Reference Period,  etc.) and sort by that item. You can do multiple 
sorts by holding down the shift key. Example: If you select Type and then 
Location while holding the shift key, you will see your products sorted first 
by Product Type and then within each Product Type, by Location (in 
alphabetical order).

If you right click on the Product menu, you can choose from the same sort 
criteria, plus you can select "Sort by Web Order", which allows you to see 
your products in the same order as they would appear to a customer on the 
website (note however, that a customer on the website might be also seeing a 
number of products in addition to the ones you are managing).

When you select products, you can drag your mouse while holding down the left 
mouse button as always, but now you can also hold down the <ctrl> key while 
making your selections. This allows you to highlight products which are not 
necessarily adjacent to one another.


Parent Products and F/X Products

One of the differences in the way that the new version works is in its 
treatment of how parent products are displayed. The old version showed the 
type of link associated with the parent in the Product Bar (to the left of 
the main Product Bar update buttons above the products tabs). The new version 
does not show the type of link. This is because the new version allows for 
more than one type of link on each parent product.

Some traders may notice that  their  products which have f/x links are now 
identified with a stylised "fx" in the Product list. This is to enable easy 
identification of products which are run as a Foreign Exchange link to the 
parent, rather than managed individually.



Assistance

As always, if you have any problems with any EnronOnline functionality, 
please contact the 24 hour Help Desk (Houston: 713 853 4357, London: +44 (0) 
20 7783 7783, Australia: +61 2 9229 2300).


General Feedback

If you have any comments on the new functionality, or suggestions for further 
functionality, please call David Forster on 713 853 1861. If you had 
previously suggested new functionality which didn't make it into this 
release, rest assured that you have not been forgotten - we are working hard 
to improve all elements of EnronOnline and will try to incorporate your 
requests into the next release of the EnronOnline Stack Manager.
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