topic Re: SAS EG Project Flow feature in SAS Enterprise Guide

SAS EG Project Flow feature

lc_isp — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 13:48:00 GMT

Good morning _ALL_,

Premise: I'm working with SAS EG v7.15 HF9, which is the only SAS tool I've access to (as far as I can see). I can access to DIS and others but, as far as I know, I'm not allowed to, by my company's authorizations.

I wondered how to reduce the tasks clutter into some of my projects which became really crowded: about that I already posted an idea ( add subprocess to "group elements" ) but, today, an alternative came to my mind: in a project which needs to send some data via mail, I right-clicked to the elements I wanted to send, then choose Send to > e-mail recipient as a step in Project... that created 3 things:

a "send to" e-mail task in the project step I was working on:
link task in main project step
a new project flow step called Distribuzione (italian) :
project step
the "same" e-mail task in that new project step, Distribuzione:
the e-mail working task

Now, that's more or less what I was hoping to achieve in my "sub-processes" thread but

I've no idea about what the "task" in my main project step is. They seem a link to elsewhere present tasks: if I right-click on them, the contextual menu shows an "Go to <real e-mail task>" item which, if choosen, leads to the task into Distribuzione process flow.
As far as I can see, that Distribuzione project step
1. have a different icon than other "normal" project flow steps I know
2. tasks into it are not executed as other project's tasks, like if they where into a "normal" project step
3. I've no idea about how to create such "different step" and to place my tasks into: EG Files > New menu seems not containing such item, to create, while it contains Process Flow:

Is there anyone who can enlighten me about such EG elements, please?

SAS EG documentation tells: "You can send email as a step in the process flow of a project. The email step is added to the process flow, and it is displayed in the Distribute container in the Project pane. The email step is executed when the project is run." but it's not clear how I can create such "containers" by myself, to use them with other tasks than e-mail (if possible, of course). I tried searching about "containers" but I found something system-side, more like Docker.

Thanks in advance,

Re: SAS EG Project Flow feature

AlanC — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 14:04:32 GMT

I will give you my take, indirectly, on Tasks. You can create custom tasks in EG using C#. Once in C#, you can kind of do whatever you need. .NET is a vast eco-system so look at custom tasks in EG. See SAS Enterprise Guide - Custom Tasks. If you wish to experiment with it, get one of Chris' examples operational and learn from that. The trick is to inherit from the interfaces and then implement what they require.

Re: SAS EG Project Flow feature

lc_isp — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 14:16:52 GMT

Hi AlanC,

and TYVM for the enlightment. Unfortunately, as I told in premises, SAS EG is the only tool I can put my hands on (at least officially ;-)) as it's not my company, so I've to abide the limitations.

If I correctly undestand, I could translate your answer into "not with usual/standard SAS EG features" then (as C# is an external tool). What a pity: such "custom Containers" are doing nearly what I was hoping to achieve.

P.S.

with time I'll try to push my boss (an ex COBOL programmer) to allow me to use .Net development system. Things are he is thinking I'm already going at warp speed... while I'm just using standard SAS EG procedures (and my colleagues are still at point-n-click stage).

Best,

Re: SAS EG Project Flow feature

AlanC — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 16:25:47 GMT

C# is built into Windows as is .NET. Nothing new there. You can use Visual Studio Community Edition or VSCode to build it. VSCode can even run in portable mode so no need to do an install of any product. EG runs on C# so it has to be installed. At a minimum, you are probably running .NET 4.8 which is more than you need.