Tips and resources for making the most of your SAS experience

Let’s be honest, there is a lot of SAS content available on the web. Sometimes it gets difficult to navigate through everything to find what you need, especially if you are looking for complimentary resources.

Training budgets can be limited or already used for the year, but you’re still interested in learning a new SAS product or diving deeper into a specific subject to facilitate any current projects you are working on. Or you’re a real over-achiever (go, you!) and you’re looking to expand your personal SAS skills outside of your day-to-day work.

You start asking, “How do I find what I need?”

Don’t worry, SAS has you covered!

SAS learn & support

Let’s start with a favorite resource (in a Customer Success Manager’s opinion) – SAS’ learn and support pages. SAS recently released updated learn and support pages for SAS products. These pages provide a great overview of SAS’ product offerings, and they provide resources for those who are new to SAS or those looking to expand their knowledge. The learn and support pages cover the most current product release, information on getting started, tutorials, training courses, books, and documentation for current and past releases.

Not sure how to locate the learn and support page for the SAS product you are using? Search the SAS Product Support A to Z page and select the product of your choice.

SAS documentation

Browsing the web for resources is a great way to find answers to your SAS questions. But as mentioned previously, it can sometimes get tricky to find what you are looking for.

A great place to start your search is on the SAS documentation site. You can use the search bar to enter what you are looking for, or browse by products, titles or system requirements.

What’s new in SAS

You may have heard the saying, “There are three ways to do anything in SAS.” (Or four, or five or six!) Which raises the question, “How do I know what I’m doing is the most efficient?”

One way to stay on top of the most efficient way to do things is to stay current with your SAS knowledge. Knowing what’s new in SAS helps users know and understand what new features and enhancements are available. When a SAS product release occurs, SAS provides documentation on what’s new.

To know what’s new in the SAS release you’re using, check out the What’s New documentation. The documentation is broken into two parts: SAS 9.4 and SAS Viya 3.5. You can use the ‘Version’ tab on the left-hand side of the page to select the version currently installed at your organization.

If you are not sure what version you are running, you can run PROC PRODUCT_STATUS. This PROC will return what version numbers are running for the SAS products installed.

proc product_status;
run;

Another great resource to stay on top of what’s new from SAS is to check out SAS webinars. SAS offers live and on-demand webinars hosted by SAS experts. There are topics for every level of SAS user and every level of an organization, from SAS programmers to executives.

To attend a live webinar, select the webinar of your choice, register to attend, and you will be sent an email with the calendar invite.

If you’re interested in checking out an on-demand webinar, you can search by topic or industry to find a topic that fits what you’re looking for.

Looking for a webinar that focuses on a SAS tool? Check out the SAS Ask the Expert webinars. These are one-hour live and on-demand webinars for SAS users and administrators. The sessions cover a wide range of topics from what’s new in new releases of SAS products, to overviews on getting started, to tips and tricks that help take your SAS knowledge to the next level.

With SAS’ extensive catalog of webinars to choose from you will be a SAS pro in no time!

SAS training and education

Did you know that SAS offers free e-learning for some of our training courses? These courses are self-paced and cover a wide range of topics. With 180 days of access to these courses, it allows you to work through them at your own speed. It’s also very easy to get started!

Step 1: Select a course from the course library

Step 2: Sign into your SAS profile or create one

Step 3: Activate your product(s) and review the License Agreement

Step 4: Work through the course lessons

Step 5: Complete the course and receive your SAS digital Learn Badge and Course Completion Certificate

Leverage expertise worldwide

SAS recently released SAS Analytics Explorer. This is an interactive way to connect with other SAS professionals, expand your SAS knowledge, and access private SAS events and resource all while earning points that can be exchanged for rewards.

Are you up for the challenge? No really, are you? The SAS Analytics Explorer has fun and educational challenges that allow you to showcase your SAS skills to climb the ranks in the network. Show off your SAS talent and get some cool rewards while you’re at it!

Interested in joining? Fill out the form on the bottom of the SAS Analytics Explorer page to request an invitation.

Don’t forget about the SAS Communities! Connect with other SAS professionals and experts to ask questions, assist other SAS professionals with their questions, connect with users, and see what’s going on at SAS.

You can also connect with SAS on our website using the chat feature. We love SAS users, and we are here to help you!

Tips and resources for making the most of your SAS experience was published on SAS Users.