An alarming percentage of major software implementations fail to be delivered on time, on budget, or even at all. Implementations of new forecasting software, or of new forecasting processes, are not immune from this legacy of failure. Why does this happen, and is there anything we can do about it?
I received this offer in the post the other day: "University apparel just for you, featuring the name HEMEDINGER!" Yes, the offer has it correct. This would be just for me, because I can't think of anyone else who might order it. I regret that I didn't receive the offer
I recently met with five people who have been in state and local government for a combined total of over 100 years. It was a group that covered multiple areas of government including Health and Human Services, Courts and Corrections, Finance and Emergency Management. Everyone came to the table with
There is a long running debate among forecasting professionals, on whether to use Forecast or Actual in the denominator of your percentage error calculations. The Winter 2009 issue of Foresight had an article by Kesten Green and Len Tashman, reporting on a survey (of the International Institute of Forecasters discussion
Art Carpenter offers tremendous advice to SAS programmers who want to maximize their job security: make your programs impossible for others to read and understand. In his published papers, Art (in his tongue-in-cheek manner) presents practical examples for how to accomplish this. I'm afraid that with our new code formatter
The Summer 2010 issue of Foresight is now available. Here is Editor Len Tashman’s preview: For so many years, we forecasters have developed and refined models for demand forecasts – forecasts for product and item sales, orders, shipments – without paying adequate attention to the details of how these forecasts
The %STPBegin and %STPEnd macros are pretty powerful pieces of code for SAS Stored Processes. They embed all sorts of information on devices, where content is located, and just make everything work. However for creating those fancy custom HTML forms or layouts, ods html is needed instead. I've written about
Better forecasting can, of course, help address many business problems. We want to believe that more accurate forecasts are always possible. “If only,” management bemoans, “if only we had bigger computers, more sophisticated software, more skilled forecast analysts – or if the analysts we have just worked harder!” Unfortunately, there
Have you ever inherited a SAS program from a "gifted" SAS programmer? By "gifted", I mean a person who regards line feeds and white space as a waste of precious bytes, who knows that his program is worth the tremendous effort it might take to read and understand it, as
I come across many government agencies that are tackling very important issues (i.e. fraud & improper payments, bio-surveillance, patient outcomes, etc.) using rules, basic analytics and intuition. These are techniques that have been used successfully for years especially when government was smaller, the dollars involved were less significant, and the
You can use SAS Enterprise Guide to automate most aspects of queries, analytics, and reporting -- including sending e-mail notifications with the results. In this blog post, I'll show you how you can send these results and use Gmail as your e-mail provider. First, some background: SAS Enterprise Guide provides
I'm a computer geek -- much more comfortable behind a keyboard than in front of a camera. But I was glad to put on a nice shirt and visit the SAS video studio so that I could record this message for SAS customers: how does SAS R&D work to support
Just as we all eagerly awaited announcement of the $1 million prize winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off(R), every forecasting software vendor has endured the "bake-off" hosted by organizations in the market for new forecasting software. Software selection teams utilize a bake-off to help evaluate competing vendors. Vendors are given a
I must recommend that you check out this example from pg 70 of the SAS Stored Process Developers Guide. http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/stpug/61271/PDF/default/stpug.pdf This is a pretty sweet example of how to upload a file from your machine (via Internet Explorer) into the SAS System. A custom form can be created in html
As I mentioned in a recent post, I've just completed reading Dear Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. I acquired a copy of Tim's book at the SAS Professionals Convention, and I was fortunate enough to meet Tim in person and have him sign the book. He impressed me as very
The F2010 Business Forecasting Conference wrapped up on June 8. Chaired by Tim Rey of Dow Chemical and Jerry Oglesby of SAS, this was another strong event, bringing together 248 forecasters from business, government, and academics, representing 27 states and 11 countries. It was also an opportunity for all to
This week’s assignment? Become masters of SAS Functions! Or at least understand the basics of the most popular ones. Chapter 14 is all about Transforming Data with SAS Functions. We decided to divide this chapter in half due to the length of the chapter and things in our study session
It's that time of year. Caps and gowns, photos and parties. Time to begin a career or go off to college. For those starting a career the learning is over, right? Well, for those of us in the work force we know first-hand, this isn't the reality if you want
I spent last week in the UK for the SAS Professionals Convention. It was my first time visiting the UK. If my experience is any indication, then the area (just outside of London) is constantly warm and very bright. However, I did visit very near the summer solstice and I'm
You can export the .sas code from a specific task or the entire project into a .sas file! It's great when publishing a project into a repeatable batch/schedule process. However, be aware of default names for the .sas resulting file. I recently ran across an error when exporting a task
The default web application for the Stored Process system takes you to a lovely screen with introductions and samples. However, wouldn't it be nice to skip this screen to just jump right into the stored processes you have created? For 9.2, change the following URL to include your server/port name. This
So you are viewing your SAS Web Report and find that all the data elements capitalizations have changed - instead of no caps or all caps, everything is prop cap (or at least PROPCASE). This is actually a default option in Information Map Studio. To turn it off, select Tools
I'm at the SAS Professionals Convention in Marlow, UK, where over 100 SAS users participated in one of the largest SAS certification events ever held. Also present at the event: a mother duck working to achieve a milestone of her own, by hatching a family of ducklings. According to the
If you send me an e-mail message next week, this is what you can expect in return. Thanks for your e-mail. I'm attending the SAS Professionals Convention in Marlow, UK. That's right, I'm in Merry Old England, the birthplace of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and Ginger Spice, and Doctor Who.
What do you do when you and your spouse are both SAS users, but one of you likes to point-and-click and the other really likes to write SAS programs? Is it possible to share a SAS environment, or are these irreconcilable differences that can lead only to a nasty custody
So you have an idea to implement queries or changes in the metadata via a program directly using SAS. Well, one of the first items of business is actually to grab the Repository ID number. Included below is some quick reference code on how to query that. PROC METADATA SERVER="my_sas_srv_name"
I am pleased to announce publication of The Business Forecasting Deal: Exposing Myths, Eliminating Bad Practices, Providing Practical Solutions, available now in a convenient carry-everywhere size (approx 6” x 9” x 1”), or for download to your Kindle. Table of contents, sample sections (including the Prologue, Forewords by Tom Wallace
I'm using this post to share links to several SAS-related blogs created by others. This is me acting generous by sharing -- it's not me acting lazy by shirking an original post. Really. Datum Reparo! AnnMaria waves her SAS Enterprise Guide magic wand, utters a few (magic?) words, and makes
Interested in adding a group of users into Metadata w/o Management Console? Included is an example of how to add one user: PROC METADATA SERVER="my_sas_srv_name" PORT=8561 USERID="sasadm@saspw" PASSWORD="xxxxxxxx" PROTOCOL=BRIDGE in="<AddMetadata> <Metadata> <Person Desc='Manager of clinical studies.' Name='Joe E. Doe' Title='Manager of Clinical Studies'> </Person> </Metadata> <Reposid>A0000001.A5VLFKMC</Reposid> <NS>SAS</NS> <Flags>268435456</Flags> <Options/> </AddMetadata>";
Contributed by Paul Allison, Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania I'm happy to announce that the second edition of my book Survival Analysis Using SAS: A Practical Guide has just been published by the SAS Institute. When the first edition was published in 1995, my goal was to provide an
