Data quality initiatives challenge organizations because the discipline encompasses so many issues, approaches and tools. Across the board, there are four main activity areas – or pillars – that underlie any successful data quality initiative. Let’s look at what each pillar means, then consider the benefits SAS Data Management brings
A recent issue of Astronomy magazine mentioned Kepler's third law of planetary motion, which states "the square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to the cube of its average distance from the Sun" (Astronomy, Dec 2016, p. 17). The article included a graph (shown at the right) that shows
Editor's note: This series of blogs addresses the questions we are most frequently asked at SAS Press! Ever thought about writing your own SAS or JMP book? Here are a few reasons why writing a SAS Press book can be a fantastic career move! 1. Your book establishes you as
JSON is the new XML. The number of SAS users who need to access JSON data has skyrocketed, thanks mainly to the proliferation of REST-based APIs and web services. Because JSON is structured data in text format, we've been able to offer simple parsing techniques that use DATA step and
Data integration helps a successful business make things simple and quick for customers, and keeps them coming back. While a company will have data silos, data held within one area is made available to others in order to help the customer. In most local, county and state governments that is
Traditional data management includes all the disciplines required to manage data resources. More specifically, data management usually includes: Architectures that encompass data, process and infrastructure. Policies and governance surrounding data privacy, data quality and data usage. Procedures that manage a data life cycle from creation of the data to sunset
When I was a kid, I always looked forward to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 song countdown at the end of the year. Did I listen to check whether my favorite songs had made the list, or to critique how well the people making the list had done in picking the 'right'
In my earlier post about WHERE and IF statements, I announced that the DATA step debugger has finally arrived in SAS Enterprise Guide. (I admit that I might have buried the lead in that post.) Let's use this post to talk about the new debugger and how it works. First,
A lo largo de más de 40 años apoyando el crecimiento de su negocio, con nuestras soluciones de Analítica Empresarial, hemos forjado un fuerte compromiso con nuestros socios de negocio: ser un socio confiable y no sólo un proveedor. Siendo líderes en el mercado en soluciones Analíticas, tenemos claro que
Balance. This is the challenge facing any organisation wishing to exploit their customer data in the digital age. On one side we have the potential for a massive explosion of customer data. We can collect real-time social media data, machine data, behavioural data and of course our traditional master and
Do you want to create customized SAS graphs by using PROC SGPLOT and the other ODS graphics procedures? An essential skill that you need to learn is how to merge, join, append, and concatenate SAS data sets that come from different sources. The SAS statistical graphics procedures (SG procedures) enable
In honor of today’s #GivingTuesday, which "harnesses the potential of social media and the generosity of people around the world to bring about real change in their communities,” I’ve been thinking about what constitutes “real change” and the role analytics can play on the many social issues our planet faces.
Has anyone ever broken up with you, and left you thinking "Wow, I didn't see that coming!" In hindsight, maybe you could have seen it coming. At least from a statistical perspective. Let's dive into this topic with some lighthearted discussion, and plot some Facebook data... When it comes to
One aspect of high-quality information is consistency. We often think about consistency in terms of consistent values. A large portion of the effort expended on “data quality dimensions” essentially focuses on data value consistency. For example, when we describe accuracy, what we often mean is consistency with a defined source
In the classic textbook by Johnson and Wichern (Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis, Third Edition, 1992, p. 164), it says: All measures of goodness-of-fit suffer the same serious drawback. When the sample size is small, only the most aberrant behaviors will be identified as lack of fit. On the other hand,
In the DATA step, the WHERE statement and the IF statement (a.k.a. the "subsetting IF") have similar functions. In many scenarios, they produce identical results. But new SAS programmers are taught early on that these two statements work very differently, and in important ways. To understand the differences, it helps
Suppose you are using SAS Studio and the statistical task you need to perform is not a supported option or feature in SAS. I know that sounds almost impossible because the statistical tasks in SAS Studio are so awesome. But, just in case you need to tweak a program or
Der Top-Manager sitzt uns gegenüber und prognostiziert, dass die „kleinen Schnellboote“ unter den IT-Projekten der kommenden Monate ein hohes Gut sein werden. Er ist CIO einer der fünf größten Versicherer in Deutschland und spricht von agilen Projekten mit agilen Teams. Voraussetzung: entsprechende Software, die eine solche Agilität ermöglicht. Und an
Somewhere in my past I encountered a panel of histograms for small random samples of normal data. I can't remember the source, but it might have been from John Tukey or William Cleveland. The point of the panel was to emphasize that (because of sampling variation) a small random sample
Teacher preparation programs have received some pretty harsh criticism in recent years. For example… “If there was any piece of legislation that I could pass it would be to blow up colleges of education.” –Reid Lyon, National Institute of Health “By almost any standard, many if not most of the
Ab 2018 verschärft die EU massiv den Datenschutz. Betroffen ist weltweit jedes Unternehmen, das EU-Bürgern etwas anbietet, ihr Kauf&Klick-Verhalten analysiert oder im Auftrag verarbeitet. Erste Projekte sind bereits gestartet, um die geforderten „angemessenen Maßnahmen“ real auch nachweisen zu können. Denn hohe Strafen und schlechte Presse lauern. Es lockt das Vertrauen
Maybe programming isn’t quite as dangerous as a lightsaber battle, but if you think using SAS to turn data into action feels a little bit like magic, you should know that nobody is better at harnessing “the Force” of DS2 than SAS Jedi Mark Jordan. Mark has a resume that
If you consider yourself as a visualization expert, you strive to create graphs that set you apart from the data analysts and statisticians. Graphs that merely plot the data in a clear/concise manner aren't enough for you. You want your graphs to also be intuitive, easy to read, and provide
Our world is now so awash in data that many organizations have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to available data to support operational, tactical and strategic activities of the enterprise. Such a data-rich environment is highly susceptible to poor-quality data. This is especially true when swimming in data lakes –
A SAS customer asked how to use background colors and a dashed line to emphasize the forecast region for a graph that shows a time series model. The task requires the following steps: Use the ATTRPRIORITY=NONE option on the ODS GRAPHICS statement to make sure that the current ODS style
People say that the world has changed, but I think it'd be more accurate to say that people that have changed the world. Social media, big data, big analytics, internet of things … whether you're an executive, a data scientist, or a student, when you hear these buzzwords, you have
Anyone know what's the number two form of economic crime, in terms of losses? Believe it or not, it's procurement fraud. I grew up in a small town south of “Big D” and in my neck of the woods having two first names is, well, normal. So, when Will Farrell’s character,
Cooperation and information sharing between tax authorities around the world can help ensure that taxpayers pay the right amount of tax to the right jurisdictions. The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is an agreement between countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to collect and share data from their financial institutions annually. This remarkable achievement
There are several ways to buy data, and even more companies who are willing to sell it. By annual subscription or by the drink, third-party data vendors promise they can solve your identity theft and non-compliance problems. It’s as simple as signing a contract, and letting the data tap begin
Recently, my fellow SAS blogger Rick Wicklin wrote a post showing how to graph the ages of all the US presidents. And Chris Hemedinger showed how to create a bar chart showing the number of presidents having each of the 12 zodiac signs. Both are interesting graphs, but I wanted to
