A common question on SAS discussion forums is how to compute a moving average in SAS. This article shows how to use PROC EXPAND and contains links to articles that use the DATA step or macros to compute moving averages in SAS. In a previous post, I explained how to
The East Coast of the US got quite a snowstorm this past weekend, but did your area get enough snow to brag about? Let's see what the data says... Before we get started, here are a couple pictures of the snow. The first one is from my driveway - we didn't
In my last blog (What is going on with my Visual Analytics audit data collection) I reviewed how middle-tier auditing works and where to look for logs to debug issues. In this follow up blog I will do the same for the Visual Analytics audit data archiving process. The archive process is
When he filmed the scene in the summer of '69, my Dad did not foresee his moment of fame in 2016. But in the last two days, Dad has seen his 47-year-old work appear in the local Buffalo, NY media, on DailyMail.com, and on FOX News*. In August of 1969,
The other day I was in a meeting with a client and there was an argument about who owns the data. Those arguing were IT people. In this scenario, the assumption was that data from source systems would flow into and integrate with a data warehouse. I found the discussion very interesting. Here are some of the
A moving average (also called a rolling average) is a statistical technique that is used to smooth a time series. Moving averages are used in finance, economics, and quality control. You can overlay a moving average curve on a time series to visualize how each value compares to a rolling
Hi, there! First of all, let me introduce myself, as this is my first blog. I am Simran Bagga, and three weeks ago I became the Product Manager for Text Analytics at SAS. This role might be new to me, but text analytics is not. For the past 12 years,
The East Coast is having lots of snow and ice storms today, and SAS headquarters is officially closed. But I thought it would be a great day to get a few things done! And among those few things is "write a snow-related blog". Hope you enjoy it! After 21 years of
“What keeps you awake at night?” my colleague asked me. At the time, I was a child protective services administrator responsible for thousands of at risk children on any given day. While there were many things that weighed on my mind, worker turnover created many sleepless nights, and days filled
The role of insurance is to bring some predictability, manageability and stability in what is in essence, a chaotic and uncertain world. So as we head into 2016, what are the big issues for insurers in the next 12 months? Below is just a selection of some of these issues:
How do public higher education institutions get funded? In the past, state funding was tied to enrollment, but now more states are tying funding to institutional performance. State Legislatures want more accountability for money spent on higher education and have turned to performance-based funding (also called outcomes-based funding). As such,
Last month I wrote an article on connecting multiple statistics by category in a box plot using SGPLOT. In the first article I described the way you can do this using overlaid SERIES on a VBOX using SAS 9.4, which allows such a combination. However, if you have SAS 9.3,
.@philsimon provides insights on whether a data strategy can result in competitive advantage.
Are you from Yankeedom, The Far West, or somewhere in between? In this blog, I use SAS maps to explore some fun data about regional cultures in the U.S. I recently ran across an interesting article about Colin Woodward's book "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures
The New Year is one of my favorite times at the gym. Fresh, ambitious faces show up in their bright new workout clothes and fancy new shoes. There are gadgets – arm bands, Garmin watches, weight gloves, and the latest water bottles. Classes are full. The pool has a slight
In SAS, the aspect ratio of a graph is the physical height of the graph divided by the physical width. Recently I demonstrated how to set the aspect ratio of graphs in SAS by using the ASPECT= option in PROC SGPLOT or by using the OVERLAYEQUATED statement in the Graph
Do any of your New Year’s resolutions include the goal to become a more productive SAS user? Whether you’re building models or reports using SAS or you’re using SAS to effectively manage your data, you likely have a goal to be as productive as possible with your SAS usage in
In Part 1 of this series, Cheryl Doninger described how SAS Grid Manager can extend your investment in the Hadoop infrastructure. In this post, we’ll take a look at how Cloudera Manager helps Hadoop administrators meet competing service level agreements (SLAs). Cloudera Manager lets Hadoop admins set up queues to
This April, thousands of SAS users will converge on Las Vegas for the premier event for SAS professionals: SAS Global Forum. The event will attract users from across the globe; in every industry imaginable; and from countless government and academic institutions. It’s an excellent place to network with and learn
You probably heard the recent announcement this past Friday that Walmart will be closing 269 stores. Are any closing near where you live? This blog shows some really cool SAS maps to let you drill-down into the data! I've seen a few maps showing which Walmart stores are closing, but they
Are you drowning in data? Do you feel overwhelmed -- or underwhelmed -- with the myriad of options available to deal with your data problems? (especially in the area of pricing?) It's the era of big data, and many retailers are discovering that hope is found through new technologies like event stream processing or Hadoop. However, as
"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." - Wayne Gretzky I love this quote from Wayne Gretzky. It sums up how most organizations approach data strategy. Data strategy typically starts with a strategic plan laid down by the board. The CEO will
A successful energy savings program is a good thing for utilities, right? The truth is, that success can result in unintended consequences. One of our utility customers shared this example with me recently: "Let’s say we offer a free LED light bulb to every customer, and everyone removes an old bulb that used 75
Parameters in SAS procedures are specified a list of values that you manually type into the procedure syntax. For example, if you want to specify a list of percentile values in PROC UNIVARIATE, you need to type the values into the PCTLPTS= option as follows: proc univariate data=sashelp.cars noprint; var
As support analysts in the SAS Technical Support division, we answer many phone calls from SAS customers. As members of the SAS Foundation team, we get questions that vary significantly in content from all of the areas that we support. We offer coding tips and suggestions as well as point
While 2015 was an unpredictable and often difficult year for many UK retailers, their customers have certainly prospered. The Christmas season, in particular, saw increased discounts for the fifth year in a row. This followed a period when changing weather patterns and price deflation had already offset predicted sales, both in-store and
Announcing New Book: Business Forecasting Just in time for the new year, Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and Solutions compiles the field's most important and thought provoking new literature into a single comprehensive reference for the business forecaster. So says the marketing literature. The real story? The book does pretty much
It’s obvious that an enterprise data strategy involves data – but we sometimes disregard the fact that it should also involve metadata. Why? Because it’s key to unlocking the value of data. Metadata shows you what data is available and how people can use it. It also reveals which data
A customer wants to use PROC REG to fit a simple regression model but display in the fit plot markers that differentiate groups of individuals. Click on a graph to enlarge. Before we see how to do that, let's look at some simpler examples. The following step fits a linear
Health care is undergoing exponential change, and this year we’ll continue to see the industry launch bold missions to improve the patient experience. With new types of data and technologies, the vision of making health care more personalized and proactive is becoming closer to reality. In my new book “The
