Is Microsoft Office required to be installed to the SAS Servers in order to generate or import ?

[homer_J_simpson]

Hi,

We have several SAS programs which either import Excel files for templates or generate Excel and Word files for reports.  Is it required to have Microsoft Office installed to the SAS machines in order to import files or generate documents or is it naitively supported in SAS 9.4 (using Microsofts newer XML format)?

Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

[ccaulkins912]

Short answer is no. i.e. I would think it is natively supported through the client - and Microsoft Add-in for Office which is usually installed on the "desktop" side.

[SASKiwi]

What SAS version and maintenance level do you have exactly? For example 9.4M4 is the latest maintenance level. Also what operating system does your SAS servers run on? I'm guessing it is Windows as MS Office can only be installed on servers running Windows.

If you want the ability to read or write Excel files in all the various forms using SAS/ACCESS to PC File Formats then I'd recommend installing the MS Office Access engine software on your SAS app server. This needs to be the 64-bit version as it has to align with 64-bit SAS. There are various versions available - this is one of them (free download):

https://www.microsoft.com/en-nz/download/details.aspx?id=13255

[homer_J_simpson]

Currently we are using Windows (SAS 9.3 M2 and SAS 9.4 M4) and have Office installed to the servers, but we are moving towards using SAS Grid (SAS 9.4 M4) and our consultant is reccomending using Unix which I am concerned about the move due to requirements we have to produce Office documents for our clients.

So installing the Access Engine allows for reading of the files but not writing, correct?

[ccaulkins912]

@homer_J_simpson or just SimpsonsHomer for grins:
Access Engine is going to give you access to the data read-only most likely.
ist that correct @Kurt_Bremser , @SASKiwi ?

[SASKiwi]

@ccaulkins912 - Write access too. We use this set up ourselves.

[Patrick]

@homer_J_simpson 

You will need the SAS/Access Interface to PC Files licensed and installed.This SAS interface will allow you to read and write MS Office documents. What's supported under which OS in SAS 9.4 is documented here:

https://go.documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=acpcref&docsetTarget=n08xs35g2w8mt1n1dhiyyd898s6z.htm&doc...

As for SAS Grid and which OS/Architecture is right for your company:

I'd strongly advise to have such a modernization discussion directly with SAS to get this right.

As for MS Office and Unix/Linux:

What won't work under such OS are of course Windows/MS Office specific things like DDE (which is anyway technical debt) and calling external routines like VB(S) to do stuff.

[AlanC]

Just as an aside, it is possible to generate Office documents on servers w/o Office installed there. I have done it several times for various clients. However, it requires stepping out into other technology worlds if you don't have Access for PC File Formats. For my uses, i employ .NET engines. 

Your best bet is to probably use the SAS/Access for PC File Formats to make it happen. See if you have it available:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/acpcref/69731/PDF/default/acpcref.pdf