Create your first use case#

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If you haven’t explored the flagship use cases, go explore them first to make sure you know all the concepts before creating your own use case.

Let’s create an example use case to learn how to do it.

This process is divided into multiple steps, so you don’t need to have all the information at the very first moment.

You can allways modify your use case to complete it with more information as you have it.

These are the steps to add and complete the information of a use case:

Create the use case
Add the business information
Add the scientific approach
Add the technical details
Add the Business impact metrics
Add a sample dataset

1. Create the use case#

Let’s create an example use case to learn how to do it:

Go to the section Use cases > My use cases through the left side menu.
Then, on the top-right corner, click on the Add new use case button.
You will get a form to fill the basic information about your use case:

Fill in all the required information:
- Business sector: select the business sector of your organization.
- Name: Let’s write “My first use case” here.
- Description: Write a short descriptive text about your use case.
- URN: This is a unique URL path to access your use case through the API. Write something like “my-first-use-case”. Don’t use spaces or special characters that shouldn’t be present in URLs, such as these ones: “/”, “&”, “%”, “=”
Finally, click the Add use case button.

After this step, you will be redirected to your use case details page, where you can add additional information.

2. Add the business information#

Once you have created your use case, you can add all the information needed for other users to understand your it, and for the solvers creators to be able to implement solvers for this use case.

The more complete this information, the easier for other users to implement solvers.

In your use case details page, click on the Business information tab and then on the Edit button on the top-right corner of the section.

A dialog window will open:

where you can fill the following six sections:

Business description
Current limitations and expected oportunities
Input data description
Output data description and representation
Best practices / Benchmarks / References to beat
Any other additional information

All these fields allow you to write rich formatted text and also to paste images to better describe the use case.

When you are done, click the Save button to save the content.

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You can modify these texts anytime if needed.

3. Add the scientific approach#

After the business information, you can jump to the Scientific approach tab, where you can describe the use case from a scientific point of view.

Click the Edit buton on the top-right corner on the section.

You will see a Markdown and LaTeX editor, with real-time preview on the right column, where you can write mathematical equations to better describe the scientific part of the problem:

You can also attach a scientific paper if you have one describing your use case.

Click the Save button to save this information.

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You can modify this information later if needed.

4. Add the technical details#

In this section you have to describe your use case from a technical point of view.

This section will be mainly visited by the solvers creators** to check the specific input and ouput data formats that they must follow. These input and ouput data format use JSON standard.

Click on the Edit button and follow the steps to add the input and output data definitions:

First, the input parameters. All the input datasets of this use case MUST follow this format:

In our example add the following, as shown in the screenshot above:
- input_metric, type number, and description “This is a numeric input parameter”
- input_array, type array, and description “This is an input array”
Of those input parameters, select the ones that will be used as input metrics to measure the size of the problem.
The output parameters. All the solvers of this use case MUST return the output following this format:

In our example add the following, as shown in the screenshot above:
- output_metric, type number, and description “This is a numeric output parameter”
- output_paramter, type object, and description “This is a JSON object output parameter”
Of those output parameters, select the ones that will be used as output metrics to benchmark the problem and compare these matrics versus the input metrics. And, for each output metric, select if the solvers shall minimize or maximize its value:
Click the Save button at the end of the process to save this technical details.

You will see something similar to this in the Technical details tab after filling it in:

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You can modify these input and output definitiones later.

5. Add the business impact metrics#

Business impact metrics are a series of numeric metrics, measured from 1 to 10 that help your organization to prioritize your efforts in your quantum experimentation.

These metrics are:

Complexity. How complex is this problem to be solved by quantum computers.
Data availability. How easy or difficult is to obtain the data needed in this use case.
Priority. Whether your company is planning to address this use case in the short term or in the long term.
Impact in business. How high the impact of this use case on your business.
Impact in ESG. How much impact this use case has in sustainability metrics.
Impact in energy consumption. How high is the impact of this use case in the energy consumption of your organization.

Click on the Business impact tab to add them. A dialog window will open:

As this is an example use case, just for learning purposes, select different values for each metric and click the Save button to save them.

After this you will see them represented as progress bars.

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You can modify the values of these metrics later.

6. Create and add a sample dataset#

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Remember the input format we defined above, in step 4 (Add the technical details)

Use your favourite text editor to create an empty file and copy-paste this content in it:

my-first-usecase-dataset-1.json

{
   "input_metric": 25,
   "input_array": [1, 2, 3, 4]
}

Save the the file as my-first-usecase-dataset-1.json

Now, in the Technical details tab of your use case, click the Upload a sample dataset now button.

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Sample datasets are input datasets that will be available for all the users of this use case.

They are specially useful for solver creators to help them understand the input data that they have to manage to solve the use case.

You will get to the Upload dataset section:

Fill in all the required fields:

Use case. Select the use case My first use case to associate this dataset with this use case.
Is sample dataset. Check this box so the dataset is stored as sample dataset and available to other users.
File. Browse the JSON file in your computer. A preview of file will be shown on the right panel.
Name. A name for this dataset, for example “Dataset 1”
Description. A short description to help you identify this dataset.
Bemchmarking dataset. Leave this box unchecked.

Click the Upload files button to upload and save the file.

Now you have added a sample dataset to your use case and it will appear in the Technical details tab. Go check it now.

Now, you have completed all the steps needed to correctly document a use case in the QCentroid Platform.

What you’ve learned#

Now you know how to add a use case to QCentroid Platform.

You also know that creating a use case and completing all the information takes six steps:

Create the use case
Add the business information
Add the scientific approach
Add the technical details
Add the business impact metrics
Add a sample dataset

You have also learned how to upload a dataset to the platform to use it later to run jobs.

What’s next#

Create your first solver