Are you a self starter? Do you prefer to work alone or with a group? Are you strangled by structure or supported by it? I promise this isn’t a viral Friday afternoon quiz. I ask these questions as I’m indulging in some minor procrastination. I’ve been busy all day preparing
Creating shared prompts to use across the various BI clients requires the use of SAS Management Console's stored process wizard. Editing these prompts after they have been shared requires some forethought. The important thing to consider when making any changes to a prompt's properties is the impact these changes could
Some people search the Internet for a set of topics and then use the number of search results ("hits") for each topic to rank the relative popularity of the topics. At the 2011 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), I had the opportunity to attend several talks by statisticians from Google and
The new, third edition of Frederick Pratter’s Web Development with SAS by Example recently came out to great fanfare. Updated for SAS 9.2 and SAS Enterprise BI Server 4.3, Web Development with SAS by Example, Third Edition, introduces readers to Web programming using real-world examples and SAS Web programming tools. So
New in 9.2, SAS Folders are used to organize the metadata around various content and BI objects. I wrote about this many moons ago but the subject still comes up as more customers get started with the Business Intelligence architecture. As you can see in the initial SAS Folder structure,
I've previously described ways to solve systems of linear equations, A*b = c. While discussing the relative merits of the solving a system for a particular right hand side versus solving for the inverse matrix, I made the assertion that it is faster to solve a particular system than it
I'm currently enjoying the Australian "winter" as I travel around the region talking to SAS customers for the SAS Insight Series. It just so happens that I was in Perth, Western Australia for Australia's Census Night. Because I was in the country on this special day, I was compelled
This week’s featured SAS author’s tip comes from SAS user extraordinaire Ron Cody. Honestly, because Ron has written so many SAS books, I could probably feature a year’s worth of tips from his work alone. To find something useful in any of Ron’s books, one merely needs to let the
In order to support a SAS Server Architecture, administrators must know where all the log files from the various SAS Business Intelligence services are located. By default, each service that generates a log will create it within the services' own configuration folder structure. For example, the metadata server log is
This article describes the SAS/IML CHOOSE function: how it works, how it doesn't work, and how to use it to make your SAS/IML programs more compact. In particular, the CHOOSE function has a potential "gotcha!" that you need to understand if you want your program to perform as expected. What
When I was at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) last week, a SAS customer asked me whether it was possible to use the SGPLOT procedure to produce side-by-side bar charts. The answer is "yes" in SAS 9.3, thanks to the new GROUPDISPLAY= option on the VBAR and HBAR statements. For
Summer is moving along too fast this year. I haven’t read nearly as many books as I had planned but last week I finished Triptych by Karin Slaughter (a good read). After finishing the book I looked up the meaning of the word ‘triptych’ and the first definition was a
The SAS/IML language provides two functions for solving a nonsingular nxn linear system A*x = c: The INV function numerically computes the inverse matrix, A-1. You can use this to solve for x: Ainv = inv(A); x = Ainv*c;. The SOLVE function numerically computes the particular solution, x, for a
This morning I’m having flashbacks about tutus and ballet recitals, high school musicals, local pre-dawn television interviews, and live SAS Press webinars. However, this time the butterflies have mostly migrated, there are no fun costumes, and I’m going to be seated behind my desk. And, most importantly, I’m feeling confident
In the SAS/IML language, the index creation operator (:) is used to construct a sequence of integer values. For example, the expression 1:7 creates a row vector with seven elements: 1, 2, ..., 7. It is important to know the precedence of matrix operators. When I was in grade school,
I bet that many of you reading our blog are familiar with accomplished SAS users and authors Lauren Haworth, Cynthia Zender, and Michele Burlew. Together, they form a powerful triumvirate of SAS experience. If you get a chance to pick up their book Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond
Each indicator added to the dashboard begins with the saved name of the indicator. Take the example below, I dragged the spark table indicator '02_Top_CustomerSAT' into the new dashboard. Of course the 02_Top_CustomerSAT name is not necessarily what my executives would like to see on their dashboard view. But I
I've previously discussed how to find the root of a univariate function. This article describes how to find the root (zero) of a function of several variables by using Newton's method. There have been many papers, books, and dissertations written on the topic of root-finding, so why am I blogging
At the SAS/IML Support Community, a SAS/IML programmer recently asked how to find "the root of a complicated equation." That's a huge question, and many papers and books have been written on the topic of root-finding, also known as finding the zeros of a function. Everyone has favorite techniques for
One of the great innovations with SAS 9.3 is the focus on ODS statistical graphics. "Wait a minute," you're thinking, "weren't ODS graphics added in SAS 9.2?" Yes, that's true. But with SAS 9.3 there is even more capability: more analytical SAS procedures support the graphs, and there are more
Within BI Dashboard 4.3, you can change the font styles on different elements within the Dashboard. This is a global change to all the indicators displayed on the dashboard as you are unable to modify at an indicator level fonts for titles, cells, etc. Ranges are placed on indicators and
A matrix is an array of numbers or character strings. When I print a matrix, I usually want to see only the data. However, sometimes it is helpful to add row or column headings that indicate the names of variables or labels for rows. A simple example is count data
In a previous blog post, I showed how to use the LOGISTIC procedure to construct a receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve in SAS. That same day, Charlie H. blogged about how to use the DATA step to construct an ROC curve from basic principles. It has been a long time
I've written about how to add a diagonal line to a scatter plot by using the SGPLOT procedure in SAS 9.2. The main idea (use the VECTOR statement) is easy enough, but writing a program that handles a line with any slope requires some additional effort. But now SAS 9.3
contributed by SAS Publishing's Shelly Goodin For me, SAS Global Forum wouldn't be the same without getting a chance to catch up with SAS Press author Phil Holland. Besides being extremely knowledgeable about SAS (he's been using it since 1981), he is as enterprising and approachable as his popular book
The other day I needed to compute the signum function for each element of a matrix. If x is a real number, then the sgn(x) is -1 when x<0, 1 when x>0, and 0 when x=0. I wrote a SAS/IML module that contains a compact little expression: proc iml; start
contributed by Sandy Varner, SAS Publishing Operations Manager We’ve been talking a lot lately about eBooks. I hope you’ve downloaded the FREE Kindle eBook What’s New in SAS 9.3. Now, we have two more eBook deals for you from SAS Publishing – one for JMP users and one for SAS
I recently blogged about how many times, on average, you must roll a die until you see all six faces. This question is a special case of the coupon collector's problem. My son noted that the expected value (the mean number of rolls) is not necessarily the best statistic to
contributed by SAS Publishing's Shelly Goodin There's been a lot of excitement, inside and outside of SAS, about the recent release of SAS 9.3. And there is a wealth of useful information to keep you informed about the latest offerings. For instance, you can learn more about SAS 9.3 by
I was presented with a design approach yesterday that included one web report duplicated multiple times for each group in the organization. Each web report then used essentially an identical information map with the difference of only a filter. Instead of using a single web report with a prompted filter (or copying the web
