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Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Angela HallJune 15, 2012 0

And the difference between Business Intelligence and Business Analytics is ...

After some discussion with SAS Product Marketing yesterday, we devised this response to everyone's question about the Business Analytic differentiator that SAS provides. ********************************************************************************************************* Business Intelligence is one of the key components from SAS that ties into a suite of analytic techniques, information handling and performance infrastructures needed to deliver

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Shelly GoodinJune 14, 2012 0

Will JR text?

Although many of you may not own up to it, I bet you watched at least one episode of Dallas in the early ‘80s. I haven’t yet seen the reboot of the series, but plan to. Dallas’ “Who Shot JR?” plotline, as well as the contrived writing-off of an entire

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJune 14, 2012 0

Read a Microsoft datetime value into a SAS datetime value

A colleague was recently working with a web service that supplies some datetime values using the Microsoft Windows internal representation. He called the web service to retrieve those values (along with other data) from SAS, and he needed convert these values to SAS date-time values. The Microsoft definition for a

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Analytics

Melissa SavageJune 14, 2012 0

Analytics keep Bay Area Rapid Transit on time

When I was growing up, summertime always meant a road trip to see my grandparents and great-grandparents in Concord, California, just outside San Francisco. Most of our time in Concord was spent shuffling between relatives but my parents always made time for a day trip into San Francisco. On these

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Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Angela HallJune 14, 2012 0

Any SAS program can become a SAS Stored Process

Questions (or search strings) lead people to my blog or my email box on a daily basis and many of these are related to what SAS Stored Processes can or cannot do. Can a SAS Stored Process query an RDBMS? Can a SAS Stored Process create a data table? Could

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Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Angela HallJune 13, 2012 0

Leverage metadata user synchronization macros for other uses

Six user import and synchronization macros are available in the SAS Foundation directory, these are documented as available in creating programs to retrieve information and compare authentication provider (such as LDAP) account information with what is stored in SAS Metadata to then synchronize the two. Try this code in BASE

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Rick WicklinJune 13, 2012 0

Convergence or divergence? A simple iteration with a random component

A collegue who works with time series sent me the following code snippet. He said that the calculation was overflowing and wanted to know if this was a bug in SAS: data A(drop=m); call streaminit(12345); m = 2; x = 0; do i = 1 to 5000; x = m*x

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Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJune 12, 2012 0

High-performance analytics: it may be a show, but it's not an act

Last Friday morning I took a meeting with SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. Despite the hassle, I was happy to rearrange my busy schedule to squeeze him in. Ha! Just a little joke there about my inflated sense of importance! Actually, the meeting was part of a regular series called "Conversations

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Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Angela HallJune 12, 2012 0

How did you find that metadata?

A common question really and one that I get after posting code like yesterday's All SAS Stored Process Locations Report. The neat trick is just to type METABROWSE in a BASE SAS command window. (There are two other commands: METACON and METAFIND. Has anyone got any tips on when those

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June 11, 2012 0

Encodings decoded: what you need to know about SAS encoding

Have you ever seen question marks in ODS output, diamonds with question marks in them where a copyright symbol should be, or unexpected symbols in your Web browser? In other words, do you sometimes see garbage instead of text? Manfred Kiefer’s new book, SAS Encoding: Understanding the Details can help.

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Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Angela HallJune 11, 2012 0

Where is the SAS code for that stored process?

Stored process code can exist within the metadata itself for version 9.3 (the benefits of which I discussed earlier). But for all other versions (and as a option in version 9.3) the SAS code is stored as a .sas file within the server's file system (or mapped folder/drive structure). When editing

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Sean GarganJune 8, 2012 0

SAS employees stay informed to keep you informed

As SAS users, you rely on books from SAS to stay informed about the latest software updates and industry best practices from SAS authors. As the organization that brings you those books, Publications Division employees attend trade shows, conferences and workshops for professional development and meet with publishing partners to

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Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Angela HallJune 8, 2012 0

Selecting multiple individual dates in prompted reports

The date prompt from SAS Prompt Framework provides the options of single selection or a range, however what if you need to select multiple individual dates such as Monday (May 28), Wednesday (May 30), and Friday (June 1) of last week? There are a few alternatives to accomplishing this. Option

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJune 7, 2012 0

How to search your SAS Enterprise Guide project files using automation

If you are like many SAS Enterprise Guide users, you've amassed a large collection of project files (EGP files) that contain important content: programs, logs, notes, results, and more. However, to most tools and processes, the EGP file is opaque. That is, you can't see what's inside of it unless

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Learn SAS

Shelly GoodinJune 7, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: %NLINMIX macro tips

This week's %NLINMIX macro tips come from the esteemed authors of SAS for Mixed Models, Second Edition. Ramon C. Littell, George A. Milliken, Walter W. Stroup, Russell D. Wolfinger, and Oliver Schabenberger combined their expertise to write this indispensable guide. This 800 page book has made a big impact in the user community

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Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Angela HallJune 7, 2012 0

Change your passwords without locking out your connection

Did you change your LinkedIn password yesterday? (If you didn’t, you should!) But did it happen to be the same as your corporate password? First, tisk tisk. Second, change your corporate password NOW! Ok, now that this is done ~ don’t let your saved connection profile for SAS applications lock

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Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Open Stored Process GUI with Copy Selection

Angela HallJune 6, 2012 0

Backup or copy all components of your stored process before making changes

What if you would like to make a copy of an existing stored process to test out your changes before making them live? The copy command is available from within SAS Management Console or from the SAS Enterprise Guide Open Stored Process GUI as seen below (note you can only

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJune 6, 2012 0

Eight tips to make your simulation run faster

"Help! My simulation is taking too long to run! How can I make it go faster?" I frequently talk with statistical programmers who claim that their "simulations are too slow" (by which they mean, "they take too long"). They suspect that their program is inefficient, but they aren't sure why.

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Marie DexterJune 5, 2012 0

SAS documentation projects win international awards

We are pleased to announce that a couple of SAS documentation projects recently won Awards of Merit in the Society for Technical Communication’s (STC) 2012 International Summit Awards. Competition at the international level is tough. Before reaching this level, documentation projects must receive either an Award of Excellence or an

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Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJune 4, 2012 0

Top gear for SAS Professionals: Knowledge!

It's been two years since my first trip to SAS UK for the SAS Professionals Convention. That was also my first trip to the UK, ever. I was pretty naive back then and didn't know what to expect from this strange land and its people. I was shown tremendous hospitality

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Mike GillilandJune 4, 2012 0

The perils of forecasting benchmarks

Benchmarks of forecasting performance are available from several sources, including professional organizations and journals, academic research, and private consulting/benchmarking organizations. But there are several reasons why industry forecasting benchmarks should not be used for setting your own forecasting performance objectives. 1) Can you trust the data? Are the numbers based

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Rick WicklinJune 4, 2012 0

Rename many variables that have numerical suffixes and a common prefix

I recently read a blog post in which a SAS user had to rename a bunch of variables named A1, A2,..., A10, such as are contained in the following data set: /* generate data with variables A1-A10 */ data A; array A[10] A1-A10 (1); do i = 1 to 10;

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Julie PlattJune 1, 2012 0

SAS eBooks: Would you like code with that?

Stop at any fast food restaurant in America, and no matter what you order, you’ll likely be asked, “Would you like fries with that?” Fries are the traditional accompaniment to any fast food entrée. More recently, fast food restaurants have begun to broaden their menu and offer healthier choices in

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Learn SAS

Shelly GoodinMay 31, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: scatterplots of ice cream consumption

This week's SAS tip features scatterplots of ice cream data. Geoff Der and Brain Everitt and their book Basic Statistics Using SAS Enterprise Guide offer up many intriguing examples. Besides analyzing ice cream consumption, the authors use heights and resting pulse rates, horse race winners, and brain tumors to illustrate statistical techniques. Emphasizing the practical

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Students & Educators

Nadja YoungMay 31, 2012 0

Communicating value-added results through community engagement and partnership

In the summer of 2010, the LA Times made national waves by publishing Los Angeles Unified School District’s teacher names and value-added estimates. The New York Times followed suit in February, 2012, ranking New York City’s teachers based on their value-added ratings. While these bold actions may satisfy some parents

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Education | Government

Rick WicklinMay 31, 2012 0

An easy way to define a library of user-defined functions

In the SAS/IML language, a user-defined function or subroutine is called a module. Modules are used to extend the capability of the SAS/IML language. In my blog posts, I usually define a module in a PROC IML session and then immediately use it. However, sometimes it is useful to store

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Learn SAS

Shelley Sessoms

Shelley SessomsMay 30, 2012 0

Looking for writers on drug development

It's something that's important to almost every human being: drug development. But it's doubly important for those who work in the pharmaceutical industry: their lives depend on it, but so does their livelihood. SAS Press is looking for books that discuss best practices, guidelines, and examples around SAS Drug Development.

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Mike GillilandMay 30, 2012 0

Forecasting [quadrennial international sporting event that isn't the World Cup] medals

My Brush With Glory The 2012 Summer [quadrennial international sporting event that isn't the World Cup] in London is just around the corner, and it's sure to be an exciting time for all. I had the good fortune to be living in the great state of Utah during the 2002 Winter [quadrennial international sporting event that

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Analytics

Melissa SavageMay 29, 2012 0

Four E's of crash analytics, part 3: Engineering

We're at stop #3 on the crash analytics highway. We've introduced the topic of the Four E's and have discussed the role of analytics in Enforcement. Now let's talk about Engineering. Safety, reliability and accessibility are all key components in road design. Traffic engineers work to make the driving environment

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Advanced Analytics

Rick WicklinMay 29, 2012 0

Did you know that PROC IML automatically loads certain modules?

In the SAS/IML language, a user-defined function or subroutine is called a module. Modules are used to extend the capability of the SAS/IML language. Usually you need to explicitly load modules before you use them, but there are two cases where PROC IML loads a module automatically. Modules in IMLMLIB

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