I use SAS Enterprise Guide every day, and for a wide variety of tasks. As a result, I have a huge collection of project files (EGP files) and SAS program files. I have always relied on the "recently used" list in the File menu to provide me with quick access
In a previous blog, I describe how there are a few new features related to report and page prompts in SAS Visual Analytics 8.1; namely the ability to configure cascading prompts in VA 8.1: Cascading Prompts as Report and Page Prompts. In this blog, I will cover how to configure prompts, either
“I do not like this modern technology,” said my father-in-law. “It is making people too lazy. Things are too easy now.” He was referring to my grocery order. I was sitting in his kitchen in Reykjavik, Iceland, the day before my return to the United States. I had just explained
Close your eyes and envision opening a bag of popcorn just out the microwave, watching the steam escape and inhaling the unforgettable aroma of delicious, buttery popcorn. Does your mouth immediately start to water? Does your mind wander to childhood memories? Now, where’s the popcorn?!
A classical problem in elementary probability asks for the expected lengths of line segments that result from randomly selecting k points along a segment of unit length. It is both fun and instructive to simulate such problems. This article uses simulation in the SAS/IML language to estimate solutions to the
This is the third post in my series of machine learning techniques and best practices. If you missed the earlier posts, read the first one now, or review the whole machine learning best practices series. Data scientists commonly use machine learning algorithms, such as gradient boosting and decision forests, that automatically build
Trivial Pursuit, Justin Bieber and Timbits. Some pretty great things have come from Canada, eh? Well, you can go ahead and add expert SAS programmers to that impressive list. In this video, six Canadian SAS programmers, with more than 115 years of SAS programming experience between them, share some of their favorite, little-known SAS programming tips. You're sure to discover a new trick or
Too much to do and not enough time to do it. That's a common refrain in government, but an important one because of the critical role government plays in the lives of so many. In a new book from SAS, A Practical Guide to Analytics for Governments: Using Big Data
When it comes to economic activity, a handful of the largest metropolitan areas in the US account for lion's share. In 2013, the top 23 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) accounted for 50% of the total US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). I recently came across a map created by Alexandr Trubetskoy
Jim Harris considers whether we can save private data in the age of big data.
Beginning a new school year can be hard for little ones. Whether it is being dropped off the first day of preschool, starting kindergarten, going to a new school or getting a new teacher, young children can experience stress. A lot of times this stress presents itself as separation anxiety – not
Recently, while reading up on Wilkinson and Cleveland Dot plots, I saw this excellent article by Xan Gregg on the topic. I also saw some interesting examples of Lollipop Charts, kind of a dot plot with statistics along with a drop line, maybe more suitable for sparse data. I thought
In the first half of 2017 and in my only domain – which is marketing – an announcement set the tone for a major change. How not to be stunned when “Coca-Cola ditches global CMO role in leadership shake-up”? If there is only one product you can find anywhere on
For a time series { y1, y2, ..., yN }, the difference operator computes the difference between two observations. The kth-order difference is the series { yk+1 - y1, ..., yN - yN-k }. In SAS, the DIF function in the DATA step computes differences between observations. The DIF function
SAS® offers several ways that you can find the top n% and bottom n% of data values based on a numeric variable. The RANK procedure with the GROUPS= option is one method. Another method is The UNIVARIATE procedure with the PCTLPTS= option. Because there are several ways to perform this
I've been a SAS programmer for 26 years and counting. I started with the Display Management System (DMS) interface into SAS, which today is referred to as the window environment (and yes, I have used the command line interface as well, which is still available today). DMS consisted of three initial
SAS is hosting the premier analytics conference in the world September 18-20 in Washington DC, and supplementing the event with discounted training and certification exams at SAS Analytics Experience 2017. These offerings will be held before and after the event. As at other SAS events, we will be offering certification exams at
Employment - that's been a hot topic here in the US lately. Many of the manufacturing jobs we had in past decades are gone now, and it would be great if there was a crystal ball to predict which jobs might be at risk of disappearing in the future. The
This is the second post in my series of machine learning best practices. If you missed it, read the first post, Machine learning best practices: the basics. As we go along, all ten tips will be archived at this machine learning best practices page. Machine learning commonly requires the use of
There’s nothing like a funny race sign to keep you entertained during a race. Post chuckle, this one got me thinking. It’s true, making a lifestyle change - like adding 15-20 hours a week to train for long distance triathlon – definitely rocks the relationship boat. In our 8 years
Procurement fraud, often a form of internal fraud, is common fraud’s black sheep of the family...whispered about at gatherings or ignored in hopes that it will simply go away. No one wants to shine a questioning light onto trusted employees or imply wrongdoing within our purchasing departments, but the fact
If you’re familiar with the SAS story, you know that we have deep roots in academia. But our CEO Jim Goodnight has always known that roots aren’t enough to achieve incremental growth. You also have to plant seeds. Analytics alone can’t drive change, help businesses succeed and make the world
A lot of my friends seem to be getting married these days. Which got me thinking about wedding parties. Which then got me wondering what songs DJs do/don't play at weddings these days. And what was the outcome of my meandering thoughts ... a fun & interesting graph, of course! It
Skewness is a measure of the asymmetry of a univariate distribution. I have previously shown how to compute the skewness for data distributions in SAS. The previous article computes Pearson's definition of skewness, which is based on the standardized third central moment of the data. Moment-based statistics are sensitive to
Nowadays, whether you write SAS programs or use point-and-click methods to get results, you have choices for how you access SAS. Currently, when you open Base SAS most people get the traditional SAS windowing environment (aka Display Manager) as their interface. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If
TwIn part one of this series, Clark Twiddy, Chief Administrative Officer of Twiddy & Company, shared some best practices from the first of three phases of Twiddy’s journey to becoming a data-driven SMB. This post focuses on phases two and three of their journey. (Read the whole series here.) Phase
Todd Wright says Hadoop can be difficult – but data management can help.
Datasets are rarely ready for analysis, and one of the most prevalent problems is missing data. This post is the first in a short series focusing on how to think about missingness, how JMP13 can help us determine the scope of missing data in a given table, and how to
St. Louis Union Station welcomed its first passenger train on Sept. 2, 1894 at 1:45 pm and became one of the largest and busiest passenger rail terminals in the world. Back in those days, the North American railroads widely used a system called Timetable and Train Order Operation to establish
In the digital world where billions of customers are making trillions of visits on a multi-channel marketing environment, big data has drawn researchers’ attention all over the world. Customers leave behind a huge trail of data volumes in digital channels. It is becoming an extremely difficult task finding the right
