topic Automate Programs to run specific days and the user should be able to change which days to run in SAS Programming

Automate Programs to run specific days and the user should be able to change which days to run

SasStatistics — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 08:19:53 GMT

Assume I have created a program that includes different files to run for different days. I would like this program to run automatically, for instance every day 14.00. Since I have created this program to produce some output (for example creating a customer list) I would like the user (for instance a sales person) to be able to manually change which days he wants to receive this list (since the sales person is not a SAS programmer, it would be nice if he for instance could change the days through an Excel file say (or something else that does not require technical/programming skills) ).

I demonstrate by example:

* My Pseudo Program, not detailed but hopefully conveying the main ideas; 

* First I create a variable for todays date; 
data null_;
	Todays_Date = put(today(),date9.);
        call symput("Todays_Date", Todays_Date);
run; 

%If Todays_Date = 2021-06-21 %then %do; 
  %include "Some Random Program that will produce an export file";
%end; 

%If Todays_Date = 2021-06-15 %then %do; 
  %include "Some Random Program 2 that will produce an export file";
%end;

So the question is:

1. How can I get this program to for instance run automatically evry day (or evry month for instance) at 14.00?

2. Now the program runs evry day, and the sales person will conact me for next month and Ask: "Can you change so that the program "Some Random Program" is ran 2021-07-14 [instead of 2021-06-21] for the uppcoming month"? Ideally, the user should be able to change this himself without going into SAS (in reality, the program is far much more complex than the pseudo program demonstrated here).

All advice appreciated.

Re: Automate Programs to run specific days and the user should be able to change which days to run

yabwon — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 08:50:33 GMT

For everyday scheduling under Linux/UNIX try to use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron

If user can put the file somewhere on the network you can use `filename URL` to get it and then extract the date.

Re: Automate Programs to run specific days and the user should be able to change which days to run

SasStatistics — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 11:33:16 GMT

Linux is used. The user can put the file on the network, can you be more specific about: "you can use `filename URL` to get it and then extract the date."?
Thanks.

Re: Automate Programs to run specific days and the user should be able to change which days to run

yabwon — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 12:45:56 GMT

Assuming that

www.some.address.on.net/file.xlsx

is the location of the excel file (in fact a text file with the date would be even more convenient)

you can do something like this:

filename in URL "www.some.address.on.net/file.xlsx" lrecl=1 recfm=n;
filename out URL "%susfunc(pathname(work))/file.xlsx" lrecl=1 recfm=n;

data _null_;
  rc = fcopy("in","out");
  if rc then put "ERROR!";
run;

filename in clear;
filename out clear;

proc import path = "%susfunc(pathname(work))/file.xlsx";
<...>
run;

<...>

If the file would be a text file with just date:

filename in URL "www.some.address.on.net/file.txt";

data _null_;
  infile in;
  input date anydatea.;
  call sumputx("date", put(date, yymmdd10.), "G");
run;

filename in clear;

Of course you will have to add some "defensive" code, like testing if file exist, testing if date is propper, etc.

All the best

Bart

Re: Automate Programs to run specific days and the user should be able to change which days to run

SASKiwi — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 20:07:15 GMT

@SasStatistics - Scheduling is also available via SAS Management Console. Talk to your SAS administrator to find out more.