One of the problems that trips up experienced SAS users when they begin to use SAS Enterprise Guide is a result of simple geography. The SAS Enterprise Guide application runs here, on your desktop. The SAS Workspace session (which accesses data and cranks through your analysis) runs over there, on
Tag: SAS custom tasks
If you use SAS macro variables in your programs (who doesn't?), then the SAS Macro Variable viewer is immensely useful to see current macro var values.
Many years ago I shared a custom task that allows you to view and manage SAS catalogs within SAS Enterprise Guide. As a reminder, a SAS catalog is a special type of SAS file that acts as a container, like a folder, for a variety of content items called catalog
I've supplied dozens of custom tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide, but the Copy Files task is easily the most popular. The Copy Files task allows you to capture "file transfer" steps inside your process flow, so that you can automate any file upload and download operations between your PC and
Last week I described how to use PROC IOMOPERATE to list the active SAS sessions that have been spawned in your SAS environment. I promised that I would share a custom task that simplifies the technique. Today I'm sharing that task with you. How to get the SAS Spawned Processes
I recently met SAS user "CSC" at the Analytics 2015 conference. It might be generous to say that he's an avid user of SAS Enterprise Guide; it's probably more accurate to say that he's now accustomed to the tool and he's once again productive. But he still misses some features
If you have not yet discovered the new Ask the Expert series on the SAS Training site, you are missing out on a treasure. Visit the site right now and review all of the available topics, from "Newbie" to Analytics to Visualization to good ol' SAS programming. Go on; I'll
Two popular SAS custom tasks have recently been updated for SAS Enterprise Guide 7.1. Most custom tasks that I've shared will work without modification across releases, but these two required a special rebuild due to some internal product API changes. The Project Reviewer task allows you to see a detail
To develop a custom task for use in SAS Enterprise Guide (or SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office), you need a few things: A working knowledge of SAS and SAS Enterprise Guide Microsoft Visual Studio (the free Express edition will do, though the Professional edition is better) Some experience with C#
This probably won't surprise any of my regular readers: "SAS custom tasks" is one of my favorite topics to talk about. Since 2007, I've written blogs about how you can use custom tasks to extend SAS Enterprise Guide and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. I've shared lots of examples,
It's true: you can use the Microsoft Visual Studio Express tools to build custom tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. And I said as much in my book, Custom Tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide Using Microsoft .NET. I even provided step-by-step instructions for how
Writing a book about SAS (or any computer software) is both gratifying and frustrating. It's gratifying because there are so many SAS users in the world, and it feels good when you can share your expertise with them. It's also gratifying to have a volume that you can point to
The holiday season is here, and you're probably wondering how to shop for that picky SAS Enterprise Guide user on your gift list. I've got a few ideas for you, and the price is right! Here are links to 11 custom tasks that are free to download, easy to install,
The other day I showed how to check your data cardinality by using a simple SAS program. I also promised to provide a custom task that makes the process even easier within SAS Enterprise Guide. Today I'm delivering on that promise. I've just added the custom task to the support.sas.com
Traditionally, SAS users like their processes to behave like Ron Popeil's famous rotisserie: they want to set it and forget it. That's the definition of a batch process. You work like heck to get it ready to run, then you push the button (or schedule it) and walk away. But
It's been almost 5 years since I posted one of the first custom tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide. It was a task that made it easier to convert SPSS data files into SAS data sets. Like many projects that begin as custom tasks, this one later became a feature in
Last week I alluded to some very useful applications of the Copy Files task. This is one of them. If you have SAS Enterprise Guide 7.13 or later, the Copy Files task is in the Tasks->Data menu. In earlier versions, you'll have to download/install the task as a custom task.
Recent versions of SAS Enterprise Guide (version 5.1 and later) use Microsoft .NET 4.0, which enforces additional security requirements before running custom task DLLs that you download from the Web, including those that you download from support.sas.com. Because these task DLLs are downloaded from the (big and scary) Internet, the
A few months ago I released the Copy Files task for use with SAS Enterprise Guide. The task allows you to transfer any files between your PC and a SAS Workspace session, much like an FTP process. It doesn't rely on FTP though; it uses a combination of SAS code,
Last week I delivered a SAS Talks session: Introduction to Custom Tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide (click to watch it). I promised that I would share a collection of resources where you can learn more information. First, here is a round-up of the custom tasks that I mentioned, with links
If you're using SAS Enterprise Guide and you're not using custom tasks, you're missing out! Custom tasks are new features you can plug in – features that weren't originally packaged with the software. (And contrary to the Pulp-O-Mizer poster that I created, they do not come FROM OUTER SPACE. Usually.)
Sometimes I need to "disassemble" a SAS data set into a DATA step program. It's kind of like creating a "freeze-dried" version of the data that you can carry around and use anywhere, re-hydrating it in the SAS session where you next need it. Some example uses for this: Build
I've bragged about how easy it is to install custom tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide. It's simple: you copy the .NET assembly (usually a single DLL file) into one of the designated folders in your SAS Enterprise Guide installation, and your task just shows up in the menu. Since I
Many of my blogging colleagues are taking this week to reflect on their top posts in 2012. Some are using the visitor statistics to rank the posts, but as Andy Ratcliffe points out, that gives short-shrift to the late-season articles. This year, I'm going to use this space to recap
Look at what arrived in the mail room this morning! Of course, I was expecting it sometime in January...but not first thing! Here's to early deliveries...perhaps this will set the tone for all of my projects in the new year.
Most custom tasks need to access SAS data in some way. Since custom tasks are built using Microsoft .NET, and the .NET Framework is object-oriented, it would be convenient if we had an object-oriented method for navigating SAS data sources. That was the thinking behind the "SasData"-namespace classes within the
Milestone achieved: I've completed the final chapter of Creating Custom Tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide using Microsoft .NET and turned it over to SAS Press for editing and production. It's scheduled to be available in early 2013. I committed to writing this book nearly 5 years ago. I'll engage in
The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book: Creating Custom Tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide using Microsoft .NET. If your custom task generates a SAS program, the chances are pretty high that your program will reference one or more variables within a SAS data set. Despite our best efforts,
A SAS Professionals attendee and Twitter follower named Marco asks for help: ..struggling to find a method with custom tasks in EG to be able to list the datasets in a library, can you help please? Sure, no problem. This is easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. First, make sure that you have a reference
SAS users, by definition, do not embrace the mysterious. That's one of the main reasons that they use SAS: to demystify some data or process. And so, when you (as a SAS user) have gone to the trouble of designing a process flow in SAS Enterprise Guide, you like to