topic Re: How to copy custom category to new data source in SAS Visual Analytics

How to copy custom category to new data source

JesperK — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 13:50:34 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to copy a number of custom categories created on dataset A, to a new report with dataset B.

The contents of the datasets are identical, but I need create a new data source.

Is it possible? I would much like to avoid having to create the custom categories from scratch in dataset B.

SAS VA 7.3

Best,

Jesper

Re: How to copy custom category to new data source

Shmuel — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 14:05:40 GMT

Please post an example of your data and of current and of new created categories

and what is the logic to create them.

Re: How to copy custom category to new data source

SASKiwi — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 23:02:21 GMT

I don't think this is possible, at least not in VA 7.3 or 7.4. As an alternative approach you could try user-defined SAS formats to categorise your VA data sources. These are created outside of VA and can be easily applied to any VA data source prior to loading using a FORMAT statement.

User-defined SAS formats are great when you need to go beyond the limitations of custom categories.

Re: How to copy custom category to new data source

JesperK — Tue, 01 May 2018 06:28:58 GMT

Thank you for your input.

I don't think the data should matter, as the problem is not data specific (it would apply in principle to any data set).

I have three columns with approx 8000 rows:

Account
Reportline
Amount

There are about 1.500 different Reportlines, and 500 of them have been categorized in one custom category with 60 different Labels .

The logic behind the categories is a offline spreadsheet showing the specific reportlines going into a specific Label.

What I want to do is to avoid having to create those 60 Labels from scratch - as I have the exact same data just from a different source.

Hope this makes sense?

Re: How to copy custom category to new data source

JesperK — Tue, 01 May 2018 06:30:57 GMT

Thank you for your input.

I was afraid it wasn't readily doable. Doing an "out of VA" solution does not solve my immediate need to avoid doing the work from scratch.

I am considering if "fooling" VA to think the new source is the same as the old (by overwriting the datasource on the server) would be a solution.

Re: How to copy custom category to new data source

SASKiwi — Tue, 01 May 2018 08:12:54 GMT

You could use your spreadsheet defining the categories to create a SAS user-defined format automatically, so you wouldn't be starting from scratch. It is a pretty quick solution and well worth trying with VA in my opinion. We use them a lot.

Re: How to copy custom category to new data source

JesperK — Thu, 03 May 2018 09:45:00 GMT

I am unfamiliar with exactly what you are proposing.

However my problem was solved by overwriting the original data with the new datasource, keeping the same headers for the rows.

SAS VA recognized the data and my custom categories (and the rest of the report) was kept and is fully functional.

Thank you for your inputs.

Re: How to copy custom category to new data source

SASKiwi — Thu, 03 May 2018 21:13:57 GMT

Great that you found an easy solution.