A lot of companies publish corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports that describe their actions to contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, in the absence of standardized reporting rules, it is not always clear how much of these reports is genuine action, and how companies compare from
Tag: reporting
We publish a lot of books by SAS experts at SAS Press, but how does someone become an expert in the first place? Becoming certified is one step, but who develops the certifications in the first place? Those are the true experts. They have to have a deep understanding of
This blog demonstrates how to create a report that provides only the column headings for data that is missing. The blog also explains how to create, select, and exclude output objects as well as how to generate reports with the SAS® Output Delivery System (ODS). These concepts are relevant to the task of generating a report with the column headings for a data set that contains no (0) observations.
Leaders in the education industry understand that when people at all levels have timely access to the right data and reports, they can generate trusted knowledge and insights that help transform programs, curriculums, student outcomes and more. That's how the industry's leaders deliver desired results faster to further student success.
How often does a graph change the world? In 1854, Doctor John Snow produced a map to plotter cholera cases by drawing on a London map a bar for each reported death. Until then, it was believed that cholera was spread by miasma in the air, however, transmission method has
Tax fraud doesn’t just steal money from taxpayers, it can strip people of their livelihoods and reputations. When a manager in a tax agency’s property tax division stole nearly $50M in property tax refunds, the media and external auditors asked: “How did no one notice this?” The woman started small,
If you have programmed with SAS in the last 15 years, you have probably had a reason to share your SAS results in PDF format. The ODS PDF destination, much like a well-designed car, has evolved over the years, offering progressively nicer features like security, enhanced image formatting and embedded
An Info Window is a SAS Visual Analytics pop-up window that provides additional information when a user selects a report object. When designing your report, you can think of an Info Window as simply an additional report section that is defined as hidden. Now that you know what an Info
Somebody once said that relationships are not easy. Well now they are—in SAS 9.4, at least! SAS objects have inherent relationships and dependencies, and a change to one element can often have an impact on one or many related objects. For example, for SAS Visual Analytics reports to work as
Report design includes several phases. Granted, these phases aren’t official: they’re more a reflection of my own thought processes and how my report designs typically unfold: the initial “get the data on the screen to see what we have” phase the addition of filters and prompts to assist with guided
We can watch games on TV, rent a movie from Redbox, and Google our favorite SAS procedures when we’ve forgotten how something works. There are a myriad of ways to get entertained or educated in a second-hand way. But, whether it’s being at the ballpark, in a theater, or at
Managers, boards of directors, executives - everyone needs up-to-date information for decision making. And today that often means they need it in real-time. James Beaver and Tobin Scroggins from Farm Bureau Bank give their users the option of emailed reports for this real-time or near real-time information, or the users
In a recent blog post, I discussed how I enjoy working with the education industry because they are so eager and willing to help. While that post dealt with K-12, this one discusses higher education, specifically the University of Texas System and their public dashboard. If you are interested in
We have come very far in our journey (I started this series in March) to the 10 best practices from education customers for information management, reporting and analytics. Lets’ recap our journey of the previous nine blogs: Securing executive sponsorship. Identifying and involving stakeholders early and assessing their unique needs.
We have come very far in our journey to 10 best practices from education customer for information management, reporting and analytics. We are up to Best Practice #9: Empower Users by Providing Training and Self-Help Materials. Most education professionals will need training in order to understand data, reports and analytics.
It is exciting and overwhelming when you first get new software for information management, reporting and analytics. This is especially true once your users first get their hands on the data and new reports. I recall first hand when I was a system engineer and had been with SAS for
In my last post, we discussed the best way to process and deliver reports to stakeholders. So now that that you have launched the portal and users are happily using it, the work doesn’t stop there. Almost immediately, you need to start gathering feedback from users about how they are
As we begin the second half of our series on the 10 best practices for information management, reporting and analytics let’s review what we have learned so far. We now understand the importance of securing executive sponsorship, identifying and involving stakeholders early and assessing their unique needs, identifying and integrating
We are half way through my blog series counting to 10 best practices for information management, reporting and analytics. To recap, we have learned the importance of: Securing executive sponsorship. Identifying and involving stakeholders early and assessing their unique needs. Identifying and integrating data sources. Managing user expectations proactively. This
So far in our journey of the best practices for information management, reporting and analytics, we have learned about the importance of securing executive sponsorship, having a solid understanding of stakeholders needs and integrating all the data needed to make this happen. Now that stakeholders realize that you know their
Data is everywhere,and getting to and managing that information is vital for accurate reporting, analysis and proactive decision making. This brings us to Best Practice # 3: Identify and Integrate Authoritative, Trusted Data Sources. As you might remember, these tips all come from my interviews with SAS education customers. From Best
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I am sharing best practices that I learned from talking to education customers about successful implement ions of information management, reporting and analytics at their K-12 school district or higher education institutions. In that first post, we learned about the importance of securing executive
As the Industry Marketing Manager for Education at SAS, I get to talk to lots of education customers about how they’re using SAS software. I hear the many great things they’re doing with SAS and often wonder: What is the secret of their success? So I started working with our
Over my 32 year career in local government as a city and county manager I was faced with many difficult decisions during budget deliberations. Setting tax and utility rates, adding head count, determining compensation and benefits, calculating the appropriate mix of debt and cash for funding capital projects…these were all
Business Intelligence is a phrase that means many things to different organizations, which is why all BI vendors have their own definition. The term was coined in 1958 by Hans Peter Luhn of IBM*, who described it as “the ability to apprehend the interrelationships of presented facts in such a
Like any good SAS employee, I monitor the social Web for conversations about analytics. Not that I’m an analytics geek – far from it. As a lifelong writer and marcomms veteran, the quants view me as about as comprehensible (and as substantial) as navel lint. It’s for precisely that reason
I’ll admit I am particularly fond of a saying, “Begin at the beginning.” All too often we get ahead of ourselves when trying to tackle a problem. And without a clear understanding of the full scope of a problem, there’s always the risk of making it worse. Something like this