SAS Viya: Link Control for Custom Steps
As of the Viya stable 2024.01 release, there is a Link control for Custom Steps. Use the Link control to add hyperlinks to the user interface of your custom step design. For security reasons, this feature must be enabled by a SAS administrator in SAS Environment Manager on the Configuration page before it can be added to a custom step.
Enable Link Control for Custom Step
A SAS administrator must log on to SAS Environment Manager to configure the use of the Link control in a Custom Step. On the Configuration Page, search for flow. Select the Data Flow service.
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For sas.data.flows section, select 
Add supported domains (e.g. https://, file://, vscode://, etc.) in the format of a regular expression (regex) and use the OR character (|) in a regular expression to separate multiple domains. Note: JavaScript is not supported. I enter the following regular expression and select Save.
^https?:\/\/(?:.+\.)?sas\.com(?::\d+)?(?:\/.*)?|^vscode:\/\/file\/C:\\.+
This allows links to be added in Custom Steps for https:// for various sas.com sites OR files to open in VSCode that are only located on the C:\ drive.
For help with regular expressions, you can visit the site https://regexlearn.com/.
Use Link Control in a Custom Step
In the Custom Step Designer, there is now a Link control.
I add the Link control to my custom step canvas and enter the link: https://learn.sas.com.
I select Preview and the link is displayed since it matches one of the regex patterns entered in the configuration.
I select the link and website for the entered link is opened in the browser.
I now change the link to: https://google.com.
I select Preview and a message is displayed that link does not match one of the regex patterns entered in the configuration.
I now change the link to: vscode://file/C:\PSGEL315-sas-viya-sas-studio-flow-and-custom-steps\README.md
I select Preview and the link is displayed since it matches one of the regex patterns entered in the configuration.
I select the link and specified file is opened in VSCode.
Note: You may have issues with using the link control especially the file:// protocol. Exposing local system files is a major security concern that browsers handle in their own ways. You may need to adjust some settings and/or add browser extensions. Some variables that are out of SAS Studio’s control are:
- The browser being used.
- The version of the browser being used; policies change with every release.
- The company IT policies (whether company guidelines or via managed software).
Summary
There is now a Link control in Custom Steps that you can use to add hyperlinks to your custom step user interface. This allows you to link to sites and files that provide more information to aid the user in completing the user interface of your custom step or provide some documentation/background about the custom step. For more information, refer to the documentation.
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