Key Happenings at support.sas.com - Sharing Updates and advances in SAS Online Support

Contributed by Kirsten Hamstra, SAS Publishing

Changes are happening at SAS Publishing with several new features being rolled out this month. The first and largest new feature focuses on our authors.

Currently, most SAS Publishing titles have a corresponding companion page that features additional information about the book, including author background, recent updates and sample code. Our authors are subject matter experts, and many have published several titles with us. The author pages bring the attention back to them and their expertise. The pages feature several different areas for customers to interact and learn about SAS Publishing authors including links to their titles, news, events, podcasts and social media links to their pages on Twitter, Facebook or other channels.

To learn more about your favorite author, visit: Author Pages on support.sas.com.

Another new feature that works together with author pages allows customers to be notified when a new book is available. The Coming Soon page lists all upcoming SAS Publishing titles, anticipated publication date and gives visitors the option to receive an email when the book is available for purchase.

Finally, the SAS Publishing Bookstore has added a new section called Conversations. As SAS Publishing continues to participate in several social media channels, we want to inform our customers how and where they can find us online. There are currently links to our pages on Facebook and Twitter with more to be added soon!

We had five warm sunny days in a row last week. It felt like spring. Even a few daffodils were fooled into thinking that spring had arrived. The weather has returned to a winter-like chill but these early bloomers stand tall anticipating more warm days. The promise of spring has me looking forward to March and warmer days. The next few weeks promise to bring exciting events, news and content to support.sas.com. Because SAS Global Forum 2009 is right around the corner, I have started to receive new content for support.sas.com that will be made available just before the conference. We are also planning updates to search, and new content for large sections of the site to accommodate the next release from SAS.

What can you expect?

• New technical papers and presentations
  
• Documentation updates
  
• New samples and notes
  
• Software release announcements
  
• Search enhancements, starting with discussion forum content

How will you know when this information becomes available?

• Read this blog, of course
  
• Visit the support.sas.com home page frequently
  
• Subscribe to the Recent Highlights RSS feed
  
• Subscribe to the SAS Samples RSS feed
  
• Watch for the SAS Global Forum 2009 link on the support.sas.com/saspresents page
  
• Watch for notices on the Technical Papers page
  
• Follow me on Twitter
  

Did you miss this?
If you aren't subscribed to the RSS feeds or reading the SAS blogs, you may have missed the discussion around SAS and R. Bob Rodriguez and Radhika Kulkarni talk about the interaction between SAS and R in an article posted to the Statistics & Operations Research focus area on support.sas.com. This short article talks about the "R Interface Coming to SAS/IML Studio". If you are interested in this topic, the following links will enable you to catch up and participate in the conversation:

• R Interface Coming to SAS/IML Studio


• SAS Warms to Open-Source One Letter at a Time from the Bits blog of The New York Times.


• Commentary from Anne Milley in the sascom voices blog.

I've lost track of what day it is. There have been so many Saturdays in a row that I'm not quite sure what day today is. I do know that 2009 has begun. With your help, we'll do some great things this year on support.sas.com and with SAS software and services. Keep watching this space for information and for opportunities to share your thoughts. (Don't forget that the SASware Ballot closes Jan. 9.)

Fun question: What do you do for good luck on New Year's day. I'm southern, so technically I should eat blackeyed peas and collards. I have never managed to eat collards and haven't eaten blackeyed peas since my grandmother stopped forcing them on us for health and good fortune. I choose to follow my Irish roots and start the new year with corned beef and cabbage.

I hope that your first day of 2009 includes fun with family, friends, football and parades. Welcome 2009!

As August draws to a close and school systems all over the country are calling students back to their desks, I can't help but daydream about lavish vacation spots with warm breezes and cool blue water. But, this post isn't about vacationing. It is about finding information in out-of-the-way places. These sites aren't hidden or hard to find, they just exist on a different path than you usually take to your content. I'd like to introduce you to just a few things I found in places that I recently discovered.

Discovery 1
This is a tip from Kirk Paul Lafler that was published in the SESUG spring 2008 e-Newsletter.
Title:    PROC SQL Join Algorithms and the _METHOD Option

   PROC SQL _METHOD;

     SELECT MOVIES.TITLE, RATING, ACTOR_LEADING

      FROM MOVIES,

        ACTORS

       WHERE MOVIES.TITLE = ACTORS.TITLE;

   QUIT; 

Read the tip to find out what this code can be used for.

Discovery 2
Here's a quick tip from the SAS UK office that appeared in their April In The Know e-Newsletter.
Question:    Is there a way to check the syntax of a step prior to executing the step?
Answer:    Yes, use the option 'Cancel' on the 'Run' statement. The CANCEL option terminates the step without executing it and prints a warning message that the step was not executed at the user's request.
Read the tip for example code.

Discovery 3
One last tip for you from the SAS Programmers group on Facebook. This tip was posted by Elinor Jane Leland Zenta, who wrote:

In the SAS window click tools => options => keys
In the F12 spot (which should be empty) type in
output;clear;log;clear;wpgm;submit
When you run your programs press F12 which will clear your log and output windows and submit your program.

Share your discoveries
Do you visit a location that others may not know about? If so, take a minute to share the location with the Support News blog readers by posting a comment below. Alison Bolen shared several lists of Web addresses that might be of interest to SAS professionals. You can view her list of Online communities for SAS users and SAS professionals in the sascom voices blog.

Does your e-mail signature contain several sets of letters like MCSE or PMP? You see more and more people expressing their educational experience by including qualifiers after their name in e-mail signatures. Some say that this is a result of the tight job market. Honestly, I don't know. I do know that SAS-L, the discussion forums, and the Online Support e-mail box is full of questions about SAS certification.

Maybe I can help by providing a bit of information here. I started by asking my colleagues over in the certification group what I should post in a Did you know post about certification. They provided me with the following:

Did You Know ... With more than 44,000 sites leveraging the power of SAS, the need for highly skilled SAS professionals continues to grow. With a credential from SAS you can accelerate your career to the next level and earn global recognition for your achievement! Join the more than 17,000 SAS Certified Professionals worldwide and list your name on a directory for colleagues, current and future employers, and friends to find you. Visit the directory on support.sas.com.

Then I saw more and more questions about certification. I decided to expand the Did you know post to include links that answer commonly asked certification questions. I hope you find them helpful.

Sample questions on support.sas.com
Exam prep sorted by exam topic
Frequently asked questions about certification
Request more information about the certification program

You may also want to check with your peers to see how certification has helped them or how it is viewed by their companies when they are hiring. One place to start your research is to search previous posts on SAS-L.

I heard a morning deejay ask a listener "what are you about?" Before you read any further, take a minute and mentally complete this sentence "I'm about ______." Are you surprised by what popped into your head first? I was surprised by the answers I got from the people I saw this morning.

The woman on the radio responded with "I'm about 5 feet tall." The responses I heard were varied and surprising. Here are a few:

• "I'm about to get a new job."


• "I'm about to start a relaxing long weekend."


• "I'm about to scream."


• "I'm all about chocolate."


• "I'm about being the best person I can be."   dingdingding

If you didn't subscribe to the SAS YouTube channel, you missed the employee video contest winners. Their charge was to create a video that explains SAS to people who don't use our software and solutions.

It's funny how we, SAS employees and customers, think that everyone knows all about SAS and what we do. I myself am shocked when I experience a conversation like the following. And I do have these conversations.

Fellow party-goer: So, what do you do?
Me: I manage the customer support web site for SAS.
Party-goer: SAS? What does that mean?
Me to myself: It's Saturday; this is a party; do I want to talk about this now; will they understand; maybe I should try the shrimp.
Me to party-goer: (deep breath) SAS is a software company specializing in analytic solutions that help you manage your business by using data to understand current trends and get insight into the future of your business. I support our customers by working with internal teams to deliver good customer support on the web. (bright smile)
Party-goer (relived that I didn't go on and on): Oh. Sounds interesting. Another drink?

Apparently, others have experienced this conversation as well, and they challenged the very talented SAS employees to create videos that explain SAS and what we do. The objective was to create a video that everyone would understand.

I'm not a member of the highly creative group of SAS employees; I don't even own a video camera. But the talented SAS employees created some pretty cool videos. Check out the contest winner SAS Professionals and the other five finalists on YouTube.

The next time someone says "So, where do you work," my answer will be "I work for SAS. Check us out on YouTube." Ah. I do love a short answer.

So, check us out on YouTube. Maybe you can use this line too.

SAS has recently established a YouTube channel on which we publish videos about SAS -- the software, the work environment, and our commitment to our employees and our customers. SAS launched an effort to bring you an inside look at the work that goes on to prepare for SAS Global forum as well as access to customers, executives, and SAS employees who attended the conference.

The SAS YouTube channel (named SASNewMedia) contains 64 videos, 56 of those are part of the Inside SAS Global Forum series. You can find anything from anecdotes about all the work that goes into creating the graphics for SAS Global Forum, to interviews with Jim Goodnight, SAS CEO and Jim Davis, SAS Senior Vice President and CMO, to a video demo of ODS Graphics.

I have heard from several of you that access to YouTube is forbidden at work. Others said that they had no idea that SAS had information on YouTube. So the question lingered loud and large for me: Will you visit YouTube for video information from SAS? Would you watch the videos if they were posted on support.sas.com?

Shameless Site Promotion
I would be remiss if I didn't provide the video here about all of the great information that is available on support.sas.com. Take a look.



I have provided a few other videos from the collection that you might find interesting.

• ODS Graphics with Sanjay Matange    view it
• SAS 9.2 Deployment with Glenn Musial    view it


• Base SAS with Rick Langston    view it


• SAS and Teradata Alliance with David Shamlin    view it


• Self-Paced e-Learning with Nancy Goodyear    view it

Visit the Inside SAS Global Forum playlist and find your favorites, then share them with colleagues and other SAS users. A comment here or on YouTube will help us determine what type of information you want to see in video format.

The February SAS Tech Report has been put to bed and is ready for distribution. Nothing special there; the Tech Report is distributed the second Tuesday of every month. But this one is special. It will be the last Tech Report with Shelley Sessoms as the editor.

Shelley puts so much effort into reaching out to our customers and making changes based on your responses to her questions. Her efforts to find out what you want to know, what you want to read, and how you want to read it has made the Tech Report a valuable resource for SAS software users worldwide. I know that the quality of the Tech Report will continue to amaze us. And I hope that you will provide feedback to the new editor to ensure that the newsletter remains the resource it has become.

Check out Shelley's last SAS Tech Report newsletter this week. If you don't get the Tech Report delivered to your inbox monthly, you can subscribe today.

Shelley isn't just the Tech Report editor or just a co-worker, she's a friend. I wish Shelley much success in her new job with SAS Publishing. Thanks, Shelley, for a job well done!

Do you hear songs in your head that are appropriate for the moment? I do. This project has taxed my mental library of great song phrases. I’ve had to find a song for every emotion imaginable. Right now, I need a song for excitement, anticipation, nervousness, gratitude, and down right elation. I can’t think of one. With no song to soothe me, I turned to you and the blog.

I feel like an expectant father from one of those 50s sitcoms like Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver or something. Here’s the image: I’m sitting in a waiting room with a pocket full of cigars waiting for the delivery of the newest member to our family. I keep staring at those worn swinging doors waiting for a smiling nurse with a swaddled baby. Only it isn’t the 50s and I’m not an expectant father and this isn’t about a baby. Still, the feeling compares.... I’ll just busy myself waiting for the "all done" e-mail from our Webmasters.

I took a sneak peek and it is starting to look good. I hope you’ll give it a test drive on Monday. We are sure that you’ll like what you see. But don’t leave us guessing. There is an entire team of people at SAS waiting to hear what you think. Use the Contact Us form to let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and what you want to see next. Well, not too much about what you want to see next. Yet. We’ll start asking those questions in a few months.

Remember that the update will continue through the weekend. For best results, wait until Monday to visit.

One last thing before I give you a few URLs to check out on the site. I’ll be at NESUG in a couple of weeks. If you are there, stop by the Demo Room and tell me how your experience with the site has been.

Now, my recommended places to visit on support.sas.com:

• The Home page for news and updates



• Product Documentation listed by product from A- Z (support.sas.com/documentation)



• Knowledge Base (support.sas.com/resources)



• Course Selection tool (support.sas.com/training/us)



• RSS Listing (support.sas.com/community/rss)



• Samples & SAS Notes search and browse (support.sas.com/kb)



• Site Map (support.sas.com/sitemap.html)

Don't stop with these links. They just scratch the surface. Enjoy!

Just wanted to pop in for a sec and point you to a new blog written by Chris Hemedinger. He describes it as "a SAS blog featuring fun — and sometimes even useful — information related to SAS products" and I agree. I laughed; I learned. What a great combination!

Many of you know Chris as the development manager for SAS Enterprise Guide or as the co-author of SAS For Dummies. Some of you have met him in the Enterprise Guide discussion forum on support.sas.com or on the demo floor at a conference. He is great fun to read. I recommend giving his blog a test drive by visiting blogs.sas.com/sasdummy.

Welcome to the Key Happenings blog where we will exchange information and ideas with each other. Let me introduce all of the parties in ‘we’. I’ll start with me. My name is Renee and I’m the Web strategist for the Customer Support Center at support.sas.com. That means that I work with a team of people who balance the needs of each business unit who supports SAS customers with the needs of you, our customers. The team and I are a huge part of the we who will be participating in this blog. The other part of we, is you. The team hopes to hear and learn from you.

This blog is the forum in which we will inform you of changes that are coming to support.sas.com, give you the opportunity to comment on ideas, and engage you on prioritization of our projects. We’ll provide screen captures and demos of features that are coming. We’ll also give you advanced notice before we move or remove large sections of content. Our goal is to help make using support.sas.com more efficient for you.

The Customer Support Center has been online and functioning for several years. During that time, we have made small, incremental changes that improved the functionality and content on the site. The Web, your expectations, and our software have outgrown the structure and functionality available on support.sas.com. After visiting with many of you at users’ group functions and analyzing results of multiple focus groups, we realize that we need to do something – big. And we’re working on it.

Over the next couple of months, I’ll be posting new information about upcoming changes. Just when you are tired of hearing from me, one of my team members will guest-post to give you better insight into an area or feature on the site. All you have to do is add your questions, thoughts, and comments to our posts. We’ll monitor your comments, use them to influence changes when we can, and respond to comments when appropriate with Q&A-type posts.

Look for my next post soon where I’ll give you an overview of the site navigational structure, a peek at the Home page, and some instructions on how to get the most out of using support.sas.com.