Five things a SAS user should know this week

Note: This blog post is cross-posted from the Key Happenings blog. Going forward, posts about changes to support.sas.com will appear here, in the SAS User's blog. Enjoy!

Five things a SAS users should know this week...

5 -- SAS 9.4 M3 and 14.1 are available
4 -- Communities will go to read-only status from August 31 - September 7
3 -- SAS 8.2 Samples and SAS Notes have been archived
2 -- SAS Talks series combined with Ask the Experts series
1 -- Survey: What tasks do you do most on a sas.com web site?

5   SAS 9.4 M3 and 14.1

The most recent maintenance and platform updates from SAS became available in July 2015. SAS 9.4 delivers a more highly available and resilient platform for deploying SAS in traditional on-site environments along with additional support for private and public cloud deployments. With the third maintenance release of SAS 9.4 (9.4M3), we're also delivering the 14.1 releases of the SAS analytical products, which means rich new features and enhancements for products such as SAS/STAT, SAS Enterprise Miner (including SAS Factory Miner), SAS/ETS and others.

Need More?
Overview SAS 9.4 and the analytical products
What's new in SAS 9.4
Highlights of the 14.1 products
Request it

4   Communities will go to read-only status

We are upgrading our support communities to modernize the design and add new features that you’ll love. In order to do this, communities.sas.com will be in “read-only” mode from Aug. 31 – Sept. 7, 2015. But don’t worry, and don’t leave us! You can still search our extensive archive for answers. With more than 200,000 posts, you will likely find the help you need. You just can’t post or answer new questions until Sept. 8. But the wait will be worth it…trust us!

Follow the announcements on communities.sas.com to keep up with all of the news.

3   SAS 8.2 samples and SAS Notes have been archived

We have separated the notes and samples pertaining specifically to SAS 8 from the SAS 9 samples and notes content. What does that mean to you? By concentrating the search only on content written for SAS 8, you receive less results and those that you do get will be more relevant to you as a SAS 8 user. If you are still using SAS 8.2, it means that you can visit the Samples & SAS Notes page on support.sas.com and scroll down to the SAS Version 8 search box. Enter your search term or phrase and find your content.

This is also good news for users of SAS 9. How many times have you searched for a note only to find a note specific to an earlier release? Judging for the search comments we receive, I'd say that this happens a lot. By archiving the SAS 8 notes content, we believe that we have improved your experience because all of your results will be specific to SAS 9 releases.

Note: It is possible that you will find broken reference links to a SAS 8 note from time to time. We are working diligently to locate and correct these links. If you do find a broken link, use the Feeback link to drop us a note about the link and we'll take care of it.

2   SAS Talks series to merge with Ask the Experts

SAS Talks is a Webinar series that has provided great content for several years. Many of you register to participate in a live Webinar where you can ask questions of the presenter. Many more of you watch the recorded Webinars at a more convenient time when you are ready to explore the topic. None of that is changing. So what is changing, you ask. Well, the name for one. Soon you will no longer find SAS Talks in the navigation of support.sas.com, but you will start to see more and more of Ask the Expert. Each Ask the Expert event starts as a live event that requires registration. Like the previous SAS Talks events, you will be able to ask questions of the expert presenter. You can also review an index of previously recorded sessions and watch on demand.

1   Survey: What tasks do you do most on a sas.com web site?

You know how much we love to get feedback from those of you who use our web sites, right? Well, we are at it again. We have compiled a list of 90 tasks that span everything from "apply for a job with SAS" to "open a Track with Technical Support". We hope to get lots of people with all levels of experience with SAS the software as well as SAS the company to complete this survey. We also want a worldwide audience, including English speakers and non-English speakers. You only get to select five things (see how 5 is a theme this week) that are your primary tasks. The goal is that you can complete the entire survey in under 10 minutes.

Take the survey!

Copy this link (https://sas.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9LloxkIoflmMB37)  and share it with your friends.

Five things a SAS user should know this week was published on SAS Users.