10 Productivity Features in SAS(R) Studio on SAS Viya 4
SAS® Studio is a web-based application revolutionizing SAS interaction. Accessible anytime, anywhere, on any device, it offers easy data exploration, streamlined data transformation, analysis, and visualization through predefined steps, simplifying complex tasks for all.
We've prioritized user experience when designing the SAS Studio interface, ensuring it enhances productivity and satisfaction. This article highlights some productivity features (in no particular order), with many more integrated into the user interface.
Introducing SAS Studio
If you are new to SAS Studio, watch this video that explores the SAS Viya platform and introduces the SAS Studio application and its features.
Productivity Features
Below are some of the many features that enhance productivity!
6. Easily access Keyboard Shortcuts
7. Optimizing Screen Real Estate
1. The Start Page
The Start Page is available as soon as you sign in to SAS Studio, and enables quick initiation of SAS tasks including starting a new SAS program, building a flow, importing data, or creating a query. You can also access recently opened and saved items and items that you mark as favourites. These items can be:
- opened from the list by either double-clicking the item or by right-clicking the item and selecting Open
- added by right-clicking an item in the Explorer section of the navigation pane and selecting Add to My Favorites
- removed from your My Favorites by right-clicking on an item in the Explorer section of the navigation pane and selecting Remove from My Favorites
- cleared by right-clicking on the list and selecting Clear or Clear all
Select any image to see a larger version.
Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.
2. My Favorites
Speaking of favorites...
When you add or remove files to My Favorites, as above, they are also added to the My Favorites folder in the Explorer section of the navigation pane. This folder accommodates a variety of file types, including SAS data sets, other data files, programs, flows, snippets, tasks, and queries, allowing for streamlined organization and accessibility.
3. Document Recovery Window
By default, SAS Studio automatically saves open files, such as SAS programs, flows, queries and tasks in the event of a timeout or unexpected closure. The Document Recovery window enables you to administer these saved files. To view the Document Recover window, click View > Document recovery or click Recover in the lower right corner of your SAS Studio browser window.
For each file in the Document Recovery window, you can choose from the following actions:
- No action - retails the file in the list of recovered documents. The file continues to be available from the Document Recovery window until you recover it or delete it.
- Recover - opens the file in a new tab in the work area. The file is deleted from the list of recovered documents.
- Delete - deletes the files from the list of recovered documents.
You can also recover or delete all of the documents by clicking Recover All or Delete All.
When you have chosen your action you can select:
- Apply and Close - applies the selected actions to the files and closes the Document Recovery window.
- Apply - applies the selected actions to the files, but does not close the Document Recovery window.
- Close - closes the Document Recovery window without applying any actions to the files. The files are still available the next time you open the Document Recovery window.
The default interval for saving open files is 30 seconds, this can be amended by selecting Options > Preferences. You can also clear the check mark so no document recovery occurs.
4. Background Submit
The background submit feature enables you to run saved flows, tasks, and SAS programs in the background while you continue to use SAS Studio. Simply, right-click a file in the Explorer section of the navigation pane and select Background Submit or click 
Points to note:
- By default, a notification message is displayed when the file is submitted and again when the file has finished running. If you sign out of SAS Studio while the file is running, the file continues to run, but the notification message that indicates when the file is finished is not displayed.
- To view the submission status, on the main SAS Studio toolbar, select View > Submission Status. The submission is listed with the Background submit icon. If you have previously submitted items, they will appear in the Submission Status list. Once the execution is complete, a green check mark appears next to the file name to indicate success.
- Because a background submission uses a separate SAS Compute Server, any libraries or tables that are created by the submission do not appear in the Libraries section of the navigation pane in SAS Studio or as an output data tab. To save tables, ensure that they are output to a permanent location and assign a libref using your current Compute Server to view them.
5. Submission Status
The Submission Status window catalogues each submission of a program, task, query, or flow during this session of SAS Studio. To view the list, simply go to View > Submission Status or click Submission in the bottom right corner. Selecting an entry opens it in a new tab, along with the log- ideal for reviewing and editing earlier versions of programs, tasks, queries, or flows.
Note:
- When your SAS Studio session ends, all items from the Submission Status window are removed except for background submissions. You must manually clear background submission items to remove them from the Submission Status window.
- The code that is opened from the Submission Status window is a copy of the code that SAS Studio executed and is no longer associated with the original program, task, query, or flow. Editing this code does not affect the original program, task, query, or flow.
Items displayed in the Submission Status window can be customised in several ways:
- Use the Filter pane to subset the displayed items by submission status.
- Use the Filter submissions list box to specify filter criteria for the Name column.
- To remove an individual item from the submission list, right-click the item and select Clear.
- To remove all items from the submission list, click Clear All on the Submission Status window toolbar. Items that are in the process of being submitted are not cleared from the list.
6. Keyboard Shortcuts
Do you prefer to use your keyboard over your mouse? Press F3 to run you flow or program? Ever wondered what other keyboard shortcuts are available? SAS Studio offers a plethora of keyboard shortcuts. To find out what shortcuts are available, click 
You can also change the keyboard shortcuts by selecting Manage keyboard shortcuts from the Keyboard Shortcuts pane or by selecting Options on the SAS Studio toolbar and selecting Manage keyboard shortcuts.
7. Optimizing Screen Real Estate
Screen real estate can sometimes be quite a luxury, depending on the size of your monitor. Utilizing full-screen mode in an application enhances concentration and efficiency by maximizing available screen space, thereby reducing distractions and facilitating clear visibility and seamless interaction with content.
In SAS Studio, there are numerous methods to optimize your screen real estate, including:
- Alt+P or View>Full screen to 'hide' the navigation pan and the SAS Studio toolbar.
- << Hide Pane will hide the navigation pane. You can also click the same icon to hide and unhide the navigation pane, for example, below, click
(Explorer) to hide the navigation pane. Click
(Explorer) again to unhide.
- Click _ (Minimize preview),
(Restore preview) or
( Maximise preview) screens
8. Moving horizontally
Using the horizontal scroll in SAS Studio enables efficient navigation through wide datasets or code lines while maintaining optimal screen space. You can simply scroll using the mouse or use shift + mouse scroll down button when the mouse cursor is on the horizontal bar to move the horizontal bar to the right (see both actions in the gif below).
9. Creating a Program Summary
Hate creating documentation for your code? Take a look at the Program Summary! After submitting code (written or code generated automatically during execution), select More Options> Open in a browser tab> Summary. The Program Summary page is an HTML file that opens in a separate browser tab, providing details on program execution, the full source code, the complete log, and the results.
10. Scheduled Jobs
You can use the SAS Studio scheduling feature to schedule saved items, including programs, tasks, queries, and flows, to run at a specified time and frequency. When scheduling or deploying a SAS Studio flow, a SAS Viya job request is created that includes a SAS Viya job definition. The SAS Viya job request specifies how the job should be run and the SAS Viya job definition provides what should be run (in other words, a snapshot of the generated code and any other information required for the code to execute successfully).
- Right-click the item in the Explorer section of the navigation pane and select Schedule as a job.
- In the New Trigger window, specify how frequently to run the job. You can also specify the time at which the job should run and the start date and the end date for running the job.
- Click Save. You can use the Deployed and Scheduled Jobs window to view and manage your scheduled jobs.
Here are some points to note:
- When a job is running, you cannot cancel it. The job runs to completion.
- After the job is scheduled or deployed, any changes made to the SAS Studio flow can be incorporated into the job by redeploying the job.
- The SAS Studio scheduling feature provides basic scheduling functionality for a single user. Administrators can access more advanced scheduling options by using SAS Environment Manager.
Summary
These are just a few of the powerful productivity features available in SAS Studio on the SAS Viya platform. Is your go-to feature mentioned here? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and stay tuned – your favorite feature could be the star of our next post!
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to the SAS Studio Product Manager, @Alexey_Vodilin for editing, contributions and valuable suggestions for improvements of this article.
Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here.
