Time ago, when I was working with RapidMiner, I took profit a lot by having sub-processes grouping the single graphic process' elements into kind of "black box" (programmers may call that "subroutines").
Now I'm working with SAS Enterprise Guide 7.15, under SAS 9.4, and I feel the lack of such custom elements.
It's nothing which changes that much the way SAS EG is working already: mostly a "visual help" to unclutter the current project's steps. Moreover, those (custom made) subprocesses could be re-used, along the project's steps, if given the ability to be parametrized (by means of configurable fields and/or in/out variables, like prompts), like every SAS element.
As far as I know, is nowadays possible to do the same by using a SAS program which groups features carried out by graphical elements (like query builder, sort data, etc.) into a single program "icon" (element). What I can see, is many SAS persons hardly work with programs, as they know much more the data than the algorythms (I'm more a programmer than a data scientist, that's why I think more to algorythms than data).
With complex projects, it happens to have many elements to manage and, sometimes, we may want them to be "just grouped" so to see their results, more than the single item's activity.
Let me show why I was thinking to subprocesses. Me and colleagues are developing a project which is already complex enough, having many elements per step. At some point, we felt the need to add "test points" to the process, to know, from outside the system, "at which point the whole project was executed, and with which timing" and to let other colleagues, which uses that project but not having SAS access, the same informations: the project is scheduled to start everyday at 01:00am so, when they start working, having such "test points" added, they know if all gone well, and me and developers to know the performances/timing, by looking at exported small PDF files' date/time.
(I'm pretty sure there are better ways to carry out the same functions but they're just an excuse, here, to allow me to show you why I was thinking to subprocesses).
In blue you can see the "test points" we added, not that good view: they're made by 4 elements which I expanded above in yellow.
It was probably better to have a single, custom made, "Test Point" element, including the above ones and to be configured with the table's name to read, and the PDF path/filename to export.
That's my need of the moment, but I'm sure the very same can be told for many projects having recurring "sparse elements" cluttering the project's steps.
As far as I've seen, up to now, SAS EG components' hierarchy is made by:
project (the whole "container")
!
steps
!
elements (even grouped into programs)
The idea is to insert subprocesses in the hierarchy:
project
!
steps
!
subprocess (custom made elements grouping elements)
!
elements
