topic running the summary statistics task on imported data in SAS Studio

running the summary statistics task on imported data

vteitler — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 17:17:03 GMT

Hi SAS Community,

I have a class where I have an assignment to complete and I'm not able to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, I don't have anyone who I can go and ask since this is not a traditional professor/student setting. Please note that this assignment is due by Sunday 05/01/2022 and so the request for assistance is fairly urgent. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

We have been asked to import a data file and then produce summary statistics with that data file. I have successfully imported the data file, but there I'm stuck. I know that I'm supposed to go to Tasks Utilities > Tasks > Statistics, and if I understand correctly I have to use the WORK.IMPORT file, but I'm getting an error. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. At this point, I'm stuck and I'm not sure how to proceed so that I can get the summary statistics that are being asked in my assignment.

If anyone can help with step by step instructions, or direct me to somewhere that can help, I would be so grateful!

Thanks!

Vanessa

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

PaigeMiller — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 17:23:22 GMT

@vteitler wrote:

Hi SAS Community,

I have a class where I have an assignment to complete and I'm not able to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, I don't have anyone who I can go and ask since this is not a traditional professor/student setting. Please note that this assignment is due by Sunday 05/01/2022 and so the request for assistance is fairly urgent. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

We have been asked to import a data file and then produce summary statistics with that data file. I have successfully imported the data file, but there I'm stuck. I know that I'm supposed to go to Tasks Utilities > Tasks > Statistics, and if I understand correctly I have to use the WORK.IMPORT file, but I'm getting an error. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

What error? Be specific, give us the exact words, or show us. Many of us (including me) will not download Microsoft Office documents as they are security risks. Please include any screen captures in your reply by clicking on the "Insert Photos" icon.

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

BrianGaines — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 17:24:26 GMT

Hi @vteitler,

Could you please include the code you are using to import the data, and the error message you receive when you run the task?

Thanks,

-Brian

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

vteitler — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 17:48:10 GMT

Hi,

I was able to successfully import the data file. I'm trying to product summary statistics, but I'm not sure how to do that. Through some research I see that I was supposed to select WORK.IMPORT, but when I try and select it, it says "The dataset WORK.IMPORT does not exist. Please select an existing dataset."

I realize that this is user error as this is my first time ever working with SAS.

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

vteitler — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 18:05:45 GMT

Hi Brian,
Thank you for your response. I followed up with a reply and screenshots.

-Vanessa

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

vteitler — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 18:06:03 GMT

Hi Paige,
Thank you for your response. I followed up with a reply and screenshots.

-Vanessa

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

Reeza — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 18:58:16 GMT

Here's a video explaining the Summary Task:

https://video.sas.com/detail/video/5537540644001/the-summary-statistics-task-in-sas%C2%AE-studio

It looks like you didn't add any variables for it to analyze but watch the video tutorial to understand it better.

Or the documentation which doesn't seem overly helpful.

https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/webeditorcdc/5.2/webeditorref/p1bw6kcwu848eun10iikeygzwrab.htm

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

BrianGaines — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 19:00:59 GMT

Hi @vteitler,

In the navigation pane on the left hand side within SAS Studio, if you go to Libraries --> My Libraries --> Work, do you see the IMPORT data set there? Such as in the following screenshot:

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

Tom — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 19:05:54 GMT

Why do you think that the import step created a dataset named WORK.IMPORT?

Is that what is says in the SAS log from when you ran the step?

If it did create WORK.IMPORT then you should be able to use it for the summary task.

BUT if you imported the XLSX data to a WORK dataset and then started a NEW SAS session you will have a new empty WORK directory. In that case you need to re-run the IMPORT step before you can work on the summary step.

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

Reeza — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 19:07:03 GMT

And you should have run the IMPORT task first to import the Excel workbook. In that step you can assign a name, that name is what you would use in the Summary Task.

https://video.sas.com/detail/video/4664358166001/using-the-import-data-utility-in-sas-studio

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

vteitler — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 19:48:41 GMT

Hi,
After seeing one of the other replies, I realized that I had to re-run the IMPORT. I did that and now the IMPORT file is there under WORK. This is great because now I don't have the error I had before, but for some reason there are no columns in the Analysis Variables. Could there have been an issue with the data file?

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

BrianGaines — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:03:09 GMT

The Analysis Variables role in the task is only for numeric columns, but from your screenshot, it looks like WORK.IMPORT contains only 2 columns ("B" & "FRED Graph Observations"), and those are both character columns.

What does the underlying data file, MIS445FRED-realGDP.xlsx, look like?

In the Libraries section, if you double click on IMPORT under WORK to view the data set, does the data set look like what you would expect?

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

vteitler — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:12:48 GMT

Thank you so much Brian, for trying to help me 🙂

When I double click on IMPORT, I think it is what it's supposed to be, here's a screenshot:

The XLSX file looks like this:

Do I need to go into the original XLSX file and change to numeric values?

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

Tom — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:27:38 GMT

See if the Import Wizard has a way for you to tell it where the data area in that sheet starts. The default is to assume that the first row has the variable names and the rest of the rows has the data. But your sheet has a bunch of stuff at the top that will want to skip over.

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

vteitler — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:37:26 GMT

Hi Tom,
I don't see an Import Wizard where I can check that. Are you saying that the data for import should start on row 11? Can I just delete the rows and re-import?

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

BrianGaines — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:40:20 GMT

Yes, one option is that you could delete rows 1-10 in the underlying MIS445FRED-realGDP.xlsx data set and re-import it.

Another option is to modify the PROC IMPORT code to disable the GETNAMES option. If I do that, then the data set does import successfully, because you want the SAS data set to look like the following, in which there are two columns and the data values are in row 1:

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

BrianGaines — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 20:51:52 GMT

@vteitler,

To modify the PROC IMPORT code, first open the Import Wizard to import the file again but do not run the code. Instead, click the Edit button to open the generated code in a new editor where you can edit it:

After the code opens in a new editor, use the * symbol to comment-out the GETNAMES=YES option:

Now, run the code and it should import the data set successfully:

So then you can use the data set with the Summary Statistics task:

Did that fix the issue?

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

Reeza — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 21:45:19 GMT

Go into that Excel file and clean it up first. Delete the header rows (everything before Row 11) and such so that you have a clean table to be imported into SAS.

Re: running the summary statistics task on imported data

vteitler — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 23:23:19 GMT

@Tom @Reeza @BrianGaines

Thank you all sooooo much for you help today! I went back and deleted the first 10 rows and re-imported and that seems to have worked. Hopefully I can get through the rest of this assignment without any further complications! You have all been lifesavers for me!

-Vanessa