SAS Users
Providing technical tips and support information, written for and by SAS users.![Friday's Innovation Inspiration - Extracting data from Oracle](https://blogs.sas.com/content/sgf/files/2011/08/25.jpg)
It's so important for companies to build what customers want rather than build a product and then convince the market to buy it. So I love it when I hear or read remarks like the one below - SAS has grown with me. That means that we have listened to
![Building a treasure trove: Donate your old SAS proceedings Rich La Valley, SUGI 14 chair](https://blogs.sas.com/content/sgf/files/2012/06/lavalley.jpg)
For all of you whipper snappers (a loving term applied to generations younger than yourself) who haven't been around SAS since the beginning of time - like Phil Miller, Art Carpenter and Kathy Council have - you may not remember when SAS Users Groups conference proceedings weren't offered online. That's right
![How to mimic the N function for character variables using Data Step, PROC SQL](https://blogs.sas.com/content/sgf/files/2012/06/Mike-Zdeb.jpg)
Many of you know Mike Zdeb. He's a long-time SAS user and frequent presenter at SAS conferences. Zdeb is also a reviewer of many SAS Press books and author of his own SAS book, Maps Made Easy Using SAS. Zdeb contacted me after he read the May SAS Tech Report
![Friday's Innovation Inspiration - Use CDISC data for patient profiles](https://blogs.sas.com/content/sgf/files/2017/01/SASevents-2.png)
According to Janet Stuelpner and Joseph Hantsch, the authors of the 2012 SAS Global Forum paper, One at a Time; Producing Patient Profiles and Narratives, patient profiles are used several ways depending upon the 'customer' need.
![Something for nothing? Adding group descriptive statistics](https://blogs.sas.com/content/sgf/files/2017/01/ProgrammingTips-2.png)
Can you actually get something for nothing? With PROC SQL’s subquery and remerging features, yes, you can. Often there is a need to add group descriptive statistics such as group counts, minimum and maximum values for further by-group processing. Instead of first creating the group count, minimum or maximum values
![Friday's Innovation Inspiration - A billion rows on the fly](https://blogs.sas.com/content/sgf/files/2017/01/AdvancedAnalytics-1.png)
The first time that I saw a demonstration of SAS Visual Analytics Explorer was awesome, but it didn't give me goosebumps. I got goosebumps the size of golfballs during SAS Global Forum Opening Session when Dr. Goodnight sat down at a computer screen and began to demonstrate how effortlessly users can