If you spend any time working with maps and spatial data, having a fundamental understanding of coordinate systems and map projections becomes necessary. It’s the foundation of how spatial data and maps work. These areas invariably evoke trepidation and some angst, even in the most seasoned map professional. And rightfully
The catch phrase “everything happens somewhere” is increasingly common these days. That “somewhere” translates into a location on the Earth; a latitude and longitude. When one of these “somewhere’s” is combined with many other “somewhere’s”, you quickly have a robust spatial data set that becomes actionable with the right analytic
SAS Visual Analytics supports region maps for Country, US states, and provinces out-of-the-box. These work well for small scale maps covering the world, a continent, or a single country. However, other regions are often needed. Beginning in version 8.3, VA supports custom polygons to display regions such as sales territories,
In this post, we continue our discussion of geography variables, the foundation of Visual Analytics Geo maps. This time we will look at Custom Coordinates. As with any statistical graph, understanding your data is key. But when using Custom Coordinates for geographic maps, this understanding becomes even more important. Use
Creating a map with SAS Visual Analytics begins with the geographic variable. This blog post explains the first type of geography variable that VA supports: predefined. Future posts will cover the other two types of geography variables in VA: custom coordinates and custom polygons.
You’re probably already familiar with Leonid Batkhan from his popular blog right here on The Learning Post. In fact, he’s one of our most engaging authors, with thousands of views and hundreds of comments. Leonid is a true SAS Sensei. He has been at SAS for nearly 25 years and
SAS has partnered with Pearson VUE to offer Online Proctored for all public SAS exams.
While support.sas.com remains the holy grail of SAS support resources, there are so many good choices, it can sometimes be hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve put together a new guide to make things easier for new SAS users: the SAS Starter Kit.
Find out how to kick-start your volunteering and leadership skills at SAS Global Forum.
I often get asked for programming tips. Here, I share three of my favorite tips for beginners. Tip #1: COUNTC and CATS Functions Together The CATS function concatenates all of its arguments after it strips leading and trailing blanks. The COUNTC function counts characters. Together, they can let you operate
You should play a little. Add dots. Add color. Your PROC REPORT output does not have to be boring. As a matter of fact, it can be both functional and appealing. Any Unicode value will do, but this blog shows how to use the Unicode value for a dot (filled
The Base SAS DATA step has been a powerful tool for many years for SAS programmers. But as data sets grow and programmers work with massively parallel processing (MPP) computing environments such as Teradata, Hadoop or the SAS High-Performance Analytics grid, the data step remains stubbornly single-threaded. Welcome DS2 –
SAS variables are variables in the statistics sense, not the computer programming sense. SAS has what many computer languages call “variables,” it just calls them “macro variables.” Knowing the difference between SAS variables and SAS macro variables will help you write more flexible and effective code.
The SAS Jedi Mark Jordan presents his SAS Global Forum 2018 paper "Working with Big Data in SAS"
According to Glassdoor, data scientist tops the list of the 50 Best Jobs in America. The rankings are determined by combining three factors: number of job openings, salary and overall job satisfaction rating. With a median base salary of $110,000, an abundance of unfilled positions and high job satisfaction, there’s no denying that data science is hot.
We all have different learning styles. Some learn best by seeing and doing; others by listening to lectures in a traditional classroom; still others simply by diving in and asking questions along the way. Traditional face-to-face classroom instruction, real-time classes over the Internet, or self-paced instruction with exercises, SAS Education
In an earlier blog, I asked you to participate in CertMag/GoCertify’s Annual IT Salary survey. The response was fantastic and I’m happy to report that we made the list of the Top 75 IT certifications out of more than 900. This marks the first time SAS has been part of
While SAS program development is usually done in an interactive SAS environment (SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Display Manager, SAS Studio, etc.), when it comes to running SAS programs in a production or operations environment, it is routinely done in batch mode. Why run SAS programs in batch mode? First and
Finding a pattern like a phone number or national ID number embedded in text can be difficult and time consuming.
My daughter is a junior in high school, and for almost every semester she’s taken an online course as part of her studies. This semester she’s taking Spanish 3, an advanced level course where every word of instruction is spoken in Spanish. Each morning she joins the class from our
What’s your favorite time of day? For me, it’s the morning with a cup of coffee, just as the sun starts to appear on the horizon, emitting a pleasant warm glow. My least favorite part of the day? Mornings without coffee when that same big ball of light makes a
In the Tuscan hilltop village of Montepulciano, a tourist can visit the shop of Coppersmith Cesare Mazzetti. But Mazzetti is not just running his family’s traditional business, he’s demonstrating all the qualities of a historic craftsman. The visitor may see him work and have him show you photographs of some of
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles to help current SAS programmers add SAS Viya to their analytics skillset. In this post, SAS instructors Stacey Syphus and Marc Huber introduce you to our new Introduction to SAS Viya Programming for SAS 9 Programmers video library, designed to show SAS programmers how they can
Word on the proverbial technology street is that online learning is ideal for modern learners, and, at SAS, we wholeheartedly agree. In 2016, more than 80,000 SAS users trained in an online or blended learning format. In 2017, we kicked off the year with the announcement of our new SAS
A common request we receive about SAS Global Certification practice exams is to make them as close as possible to the actual exams so that future test takers get a more accurate feel for the overall exam experience. Good news. Our new practice exams come as close to the “real thing”
This SAS Jedi is very excited about the SAS 9.4 M4 release, which brought many wonderful gifts just in time for Christmas. So in the interest of extending the Christmas spirit, I'm going to blog about some of my favorites! I've long loved the SAS DO statement variant which allows
Let me make this clear right from the start: I needed to answer 44 of the 62 exam questions correctly to earn my BASE SAS Programmer certification, and I got exactly 44 right. No margin of error. I never thought I’d be proud of a 70%, but I’m more than
As an instructor for SAS, I receive a wide variety of queries before, during and after delivering my courses. Most frequently, I am asked questions such as: Should I learn SAS programming or a point and click tool instead? I know lots of code, should I go straight to the
SAS Programming Professionals, SAS & bugs & rock & roll? But, of course! SAS Because of its amazing versatility, SAS is indisputably the greatest software package currently in use anywhere within the Milky Way Galaxy. Can SAS input every type of flat file imaginable? Yes! Can SAS read and write
Are you ready to expand your programming skills and become a more versatile programmer? Then this new (and free!) course might be for you. SAS Programming for R Users is a free course aimed at helping R programmers who want to learn SAS. The goal is for you to be comfortable accomplishing
