"I want everything!" said a student when I paused to ask my SAS Programming 1 class what else they wanted to learn. Seriously! You want me to share everything I know in three days? The student came back with... "Well okay, what about those freebies you mentioned?"
That’s how it all started. A small class of four students kept me on my toes, throwing questions, questioning SAS behavior. I really appreciated the interactive class energy since a SAS instructor can sometimes get tired of hearing her own voice! Here then are the three must have freebies I shared with that class:
1. PROCS PDF
Have you ever wondered/wished/wanted a PROC book just for yourself, not bits and pieces that you need to pick out of here and there? Google is all fine and dandy, but no search has ever yielded every PROC you can lay your hands on. This 1705 page PDF gives you plenty of PROCS.
2. JCL paper
Often times we’ll get the mainframe user strolling into a SAS class wondering what to do amidst the ocean of Windows users. To all of you diehard mainframes, rest assured that SAS code is exactly the same regardless of your operating environment. You might just need to submit a few lines of job control language. Here’s a nifty white paper my colleague Mark Jordan put together.
3. Blogs.sas.com
What one place is the solace of every SAS seeker? Where can you find the latest and greatest SAS news? Look no more. Whether it's technology or business applications, blogs.sas.com has to be that one go-to-place to find SAS news. And did I mention it’s free too!
I hope this post was helpful. Do you have any others you’d like to share? I’d love to hear your comments.
7 Comments
Hi Charu Shankar,
I followed couple of your Blogs, and you have posted interesting articles. I work as a Business analyst and have always worked on SQL and Excel extensively. Now my role requires usage of SAS in analysis and reporting areas. I would like to start my learning base SAS. Can you please provide me any material for Base SAS or SAS for beginners.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Regards,
Vijayendra
Hi Vijayendra - if you like using SQL, you will be happy to know that SAS has "Proc SQL" which will allow you to leverage what you already know, in massaging & manipulating data in SAS. You can use Proc SQL and/or the SAS Data Step, but since you already know SQL, I think using Proc SQL will help get you up-to-speed quickly. Proc SQL is part of Base SAS.
Also, if you work a lot with Excel (and therefore might have a lot of data in Excel spreadsheet format), I highly recommend SAS/Access to PC Files. This will allow you to easily import your Excel data into SAS (using the File->Import menu in DMS SAS, or there are a few other techniques too).
Hi Vijayendra, glad you find our posts interesting. In addition to what my colleague Robert Allison advised, a foundation course to get a solid footing in the language of SAS is: SAS Programming 1 Essentials-this link will take you to the course overview page.https://support.sas.com/edu/schedules.html?id=277&ctry=US#s1=3
on the extreme right of this page you'll find a drop down list to help you select country location for next available dates. Hope that helps.
Thanks Charu for sharing the link for PROCS PDF!
Sunil
you're very welcome Sunil. thanks!
Those are all great resources LeRoy! thanks for taking the time to share your other sites lexjansen.come & sascommunity.org..You're right about support.sas.com. There's a ton of wealth there just waiting to be used.
Though the SAS Procedures Guide is one of the online manuals that I frequently go to, my selections as The Top Three SAS Freebies are:
support.sas.com (which I will not even bother to try to summarize--it is so rich)
http://www.lexjansen.com (which permits you search 21,094 SAS papers from SAS Global Forum, SUGI, PharmaSUG, PhUSE (the overseas PharmaSUG), and all of the North American Regional SAS Users Groups (NESUG, SESUG, PhUSE, WUSS, MWSUG, PNWSUG, SCSUG)
sascommunity.org