topic Re: Reports in EG in SAS Enterprise Guide

Reports in EG

jcb267 — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 15:00:00 GMT

Hi -

I have created several queries using a data application made in EG 6.1. Now I would like to create reports using the results of the queries in EG. I am new to EG though, can this be done?

Thanks,

John

Re: Reports in EG

TomKari — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 23:24:41 GMT

Hi, John

Yes, reporting is one of the strengths of Enterprise Guide.

I suggest you work through the Enterprise Guide tutorial. In terms of reporting, take a look at the tasks under "Describe". Also, the tasks under "Graph" will let you create a number of different chart types.

Tom

Re: Reports in EG

jcb267 — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 13:54:28 GMT

Thanks for the suggestions, Tom.

I will go through the tutorial today.......I have looked at the options in "Describe" and "Graph" but felt they were somewhat limited......Is it possible to create reports that are not limited in anyway, so that you can choose the parameters to base your report on?

Thanks again!

John

Re: Reports in EG

TomKari — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:03:07 GMT

In my opinion (and I'm sure several of my compatriots will chime in with their own!) there are two ways to produce reports using SAS and Enterprise Guide. The first is using the "procedures", which underlie the tasks in EG. Their names are PRINT, REPORT, TABULATE, MEANS, and FREQ, which sort-of gives an indication of what they're good at. They are canned programs, which offer a lot of options for customization. In my opinion, they are very similar to what you get in a lot of software packages.

The other option is to produce your report using DATA step programming. Doing this is completely flexible, but requires (possibly advanced) programming skills.

If humanly possible, stick with the procedures.

1. Do you have a rough idea of what your report should look like (perhaps mocked up in Excel or Word)? If so, post it, and the contributors can comment.

2. Are there any particular constraints, i.e. are there any reason that elements of your report MUST be in a particular font, colour, location, etc? That could make it difficult to use the procedures. But not necessarily impossible. Believe me, there are people who monitor these posts who are ABSOLUTE GENIUSes at using these procedures.

Tom

Re: Reports in EG

Patrick — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 01:05:36 GMT

To add to what wrote:

The EG Wizards under describe are creating SAS code which then gets executed (eg. SAS code for Proc Report). Procedures like Proc Report are very powerful and flexible and the wizards can't take advantage of all the possibilities.

So if the wizards aren't good enough then you need to code. First try and use procedures like Proc Report and only if this is still not sufficient use data step coding. You have quite a bit of learning ahead of you if you want to go for coding and will need some sort of training.

If coding then I'd probably would start with Proc Report: Base SAS(R) 9.4 Procedures Guide, Second Edition

You can use the EG Wizards to generate the initial report and then use the generated code for your amendments.

Re: Reports in EG

jcb267 — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:40:15 GMT

Thank you, Tom. This is really outstanding advice. I do have the reports mocked up in excel (well, my boss does!) and I will post them as soon as I can.....

Thanks again,

John

Re: Reports in EG

jcb267 — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:48:48 GMT

Thanks Patrick. I really appreciate the advice. I am in the process of developing the reports now......I have mock ups of the reports I am working on and will post them soon.

Thanks again,

John

Re: Reports in EG

jcb267 — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:33:12 GMT

Hi Tom -

I am trying to upload the mock up but the system will not accept it, it is in .xlsx format which I believe is supported. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks!

John

Re: Reports in EG

TomKari — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 23:28:38 GMT

Maybe take a screen scrape and post them as JPEG?