As I write this, SAS 9.3 has not yet been "shipped", but its release is imminent. I've already heard many questions about how SAS Enterprise Guide works with the new version, so I decided to write this "Frequently-soon-to-be-asked questions" document to help sort it out.
What version of SAS Enterprise Guide comes with SAS 9.3?
Initially, you'll get SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 (known sometimes by its "deployed version" as 4.305). We call this a "remastered" version, because it already contains all of the hotfixes that have been made available since the initial release in August 2010.
Does this "remastered" version include any new features?
No, there are no new features beyond what's already in the 4.3 release. The development team is working on a new release, tentatively called "SAS Enterprise Guide 5.1", which contains many new features including a few that take advantage of new SAS 9.3 capabilities. We previewed some of these new features at SAS Global Forum 2011.
Ooh, cool! When will that 5.1 thing be released?
Do you really think that I'm going to comment on software ship schedules on this blog? Come on, you should know better than that.
Well, I had to ask. So what versions of SAS Enterprise Guide will work with SAS 9.3?
You'll need SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 to connect to a SAS 9.3 environment. From a purely technical standpoint, you can continue to use SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1 and 4.2 with a locally installed version of SAS on your PC, even SAS 9.3. (That's local SAS only, with no SAS metadata environment.) Of course, we recommend SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 for the best experience. And if you call SAS Technical Support with questions about using an earlier version of SAS Enterprise Guide with SAS 9.3, the first response will probably be "use the 4.3 version."
Can I use the same SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 to connect to SAS 9.2 and SAS 9.3?
Yes. And when SAS Enterprise Guide 5.1 is released, it will also work with both SAS 9.2 and SAS 9.3.
I have SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 installed on my desktop already, working with SAS 9.2. Do I need to install a newer version to connect to SAS 9.3?
No, there is no need to reinstall the desktop client application. However, we recommend that you apply any available hotfixes for SAS Enterprise Guide before you connect to SAS 9.3. There are a few compatibility issues that have been fixed along the way. Again, if you install the version of SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 that ships with SAS 9.3, those fixes are already applied.
What happens to my current SAS Enterprise Guide if I install the SAS 9.3 package on the same desktop machine?
Okay, stay with me here... When you install SAS 9.3 with its remastered version of SAS Enterprise Guide, and if you already have SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 installed, there is a bit of magic involved. Magical deployment fairies will sprinkle the new SAS Enterprise Guide version into the SAS 9.3 "home" directory, take a peek at your "old" SAS Enterprise Guide for any recent content (custom tasks, more recent hotfixes) and move that content into the new location, and then remove (uninstall) the old version of SAS Enterprise Guide.
When it's over, you shouldn't notice any difference in how things work.
What about the other client applications? How do they work with SAS 9.3?
Here's a quick summary:
- SAS Add-In For Microsoft Office 4.3 is included with SAS 9.3 BI as a remastered version, just like SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3. It works with SAS 9.2 and SAS 9.3 as I've described here.
- SAS Management Console 9.3 ships with SAS 9.3. It works only with SAS 9.3. You can continue to use the 9.2 version for SAS 9.2.
- SAS Information Map Studio 4.31 ships with SAS 9.3. It works only with SAS 9.3. You can continue to use the 4.2 version for SAS 9.2.
- The BI web clients such as SAS Web Report Studio and SAS BI Dashboard also have a 4.31 version. They work only with SAS 9.3. You can continue to use the 4.3 versions of these with SAS 9.2.
Can SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 and SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office 4.3 work with the SAS 9.3 BI web applications?
Yes. The integration features that allow these desktop applications to create, publish, and open SAS Web Report Studio reports will continue to work with the 4.3 web clients (SAS 9.2) and 4.31 web clients (SAS 9.3).
I hope that these answers are helpful; I expect that they might raise more questions that I haven't yet thought of. Add new questions to the comments, and I'll try to revise or amend this list in response.
3 Comments
Hi,
I am using SAS EG 4.3 on a server. I need to import several csv files that are residing on a server.
Each month a new csv file will be added to the existing ones.
I would like to create a macro that will identify the number of csv files, import them to SAS EG 4.3 and finally concatenate them in one master SAS data set.
I believe that PIPE do not work with SAS EG.
I would very much appreciate your help.
Kind regards
Nikos
Chris.
Maybe a "tip" to the Guide's guys...
For me, isn't so easy to upgrade to Guide 4.3. I had a 9.2 TS2M2 release and use "SAS Roles" in SAS Management Console. Because of this release, the roles works well only to Guide 4.2. The 4.3 version ignore the roles...
I did a test in another env, where a 9.2TS2M3 release is installed. In this case, the roles works only for Guide 4.3...
Yes, the role metadata is version-specific. I believe that tech support can help you to get additional EG versions registered in metadata, but it's a manual process and not facilitated by the software deployment tools.
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