In my previous post, Explaining Custom Steps using Studio Assets, we used a template to create a custom step and examined the components to get a high-level overview of what is needed to build a custom step. During this post, we will discuss how you can reduce setup and configuration time when creating custom steps by reusing the controls in the Sample Controls custom step. Watch out for my next post where we will discuss how to recycle custom steps using the SAS Studio Custom Step Repository.
The Sample Controls custom step is a fabulous asset for exploring and reusing controls for your own custom steps. Before we consider how to reduce the setup and configuration time, let’s use the Sample Controls custom step to investigate what some of the controls do.
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The control labelled Input data control is a section control. Section controls can be expanded and collapsed to show and hide controls and are a great way of organizing your controls on a page. The Section control has similar properties available to the Page control. ID and Label are, again, required and we have a check box to indicate the default state of the section. The Dependencies section enables us to show or hide prompts based on the values of another prompt (investigate the Dependencies tab for more information).
Click the text under the Section control to view the properties of the Text control. The Text control is used to provide instructional text for the end user. Again, the ID property is required – which is a common property throughout the different controls.
Click the next control which has a label of Select the course table. This is an Input Table control and enables the end user to select the input table when executing the step. Again, the ID property is required but there are other optional properties so you can customize the control exactly how you would like it.
Before we move on to the Controls page, I want to point out the Data section in the Control Library and how many of the other controls there are highlighted on the Data page. Feel free to review the instructional text to investigate the other controls.
Expand the Check box control section and select the Check box control. This is used to choose between two opposite states, actions or values.
Expand the Date and time control section and select the control with the label Date. This is the Date and Time Picker control and enables the end user to choose- in this case- a Date from a calendar.
Expand the Numeric field controls and select the Numeric stepper control. You can use the numeric stepper to move through numbers at a specified increment by using the up and down arrows. You can state the default as well as minimum and maximum values.
On the Data page click and choose SASHELP as the library and CARS as the table and click OK.
For Select a single column, click and choose Make. Notice, the columns have been listed from SASHELP.CARS. Click OK.
Click the Controls tab and expand the Date and time control section. Click on the Date control and choose any date.
Expand the Numeric field controls section and use the numeric stepper to choose 15 as the number.
So how can I reduce the initial setup and configuration time when using the Designer by reusing the controls within the Sample Controls custom step?
Reduce and reuse!
There are so many valuable assets available when learning, using and creating SAS Custom Steps for SAS Studio.
To summarize:
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