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amckirby
Fluorite | Level 6

Hi...I am a business user (campaign manager), and we recently upgraded SAS CI from 5.4 to 6.4, so it's been a fairly dramatic change for us.  I do like the new environment, but I'm still getting accustomed to some of the changes.

 

Since this new community was just launched, i thought that I would post my question here to solicit advice from the experts.

 

My question relates to updating counts in the nodes within the diagram.   In the previous version of SAS, we were instructed to update counts node by node starting from the top to bottom prior to executing the campaign.  While tedious, this process works well for us as our diagrams are relatively simple, and I find it useful to see how the counts change throughout the diagram.

 

I used this same approach in CI 6.4, and I noticed that when I update counts as i progress through the diagram, the upstream nodes recalculate in addition to the individual node that I selected to update.  Given this, I am wondering whether i should simply 'start at the bottom' and simply update counts from the last node? 

Is there a 'best practice' related to updating counts in nodes?

 

i appreciate any input community members can provide...thanks,

 

Alan

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
shill
SAS Employee

 

If your diagram opens up without counts (or if you make changes to nodes and they reset or if you manually clear counts), then any node you choose to update counts on will run only as much of the upstream nodes as it needs in order to render you an answer. What you're probably seeing on those upstream nodes is a green spinning circle to indicate which ones are part of the lineage for the one you're counting - it means you can't edit those until the query is finished, since the currently executing count wouldn't be relevant if one of the upstream nodes changed. Once the count is returned for the node in question, the circles should disappear and you should then be able to see they have the same counts as they did before but are once again editable.

 

As far as starting from the top or the bottom, the only scenario I can think of where a top-down approach would be beneficial is if you use a lot of Cell nodes to break up large pieces of logic into multiple steps. In those cases, getting the Cells "ready" first by counting them allows the downstream nodes to start with the answer as of the most recent preceding Cell node that has a count, rather than running the whole query from the beginning. In either case you'll get the same answer, but it's possible you may have a slightly better user experience doing it top-down. For example, if you have [Select] - [Split] - [Cell] - [Select], if you count the split first, the second Select node won't have to do all that work all at once, so you'll see the results in shorter chunks. The overall time will be the same, but it will give you more granular control.

 

Hope that helps!


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5 REPLIES 5
shill
SAS Employee

 

If your diagram opens up without counts (or if you make changes to nodes and they reset or if you manually clear counts), then any node you choose to update counts on will run only as much of the upstream nodes as it needs in order to render you an answer. What you're probably seeing on those upstream nodes is a green spinning circle to indicate which ones are part of the lineage for the one you're counting - it means you can't edit those until the query is finished, since the currently executing count wouldn't be relevant if one of the upstream nodes changed. Once the count is returned for the node in question, the circles should disappear and you should then be able to see they have the same counts as they did before but are once again editable.

 

As far as starting from the top or the bottom, the only scenario I can think of where a top-down approach would be beneficial is if you use a lot of Cell nodes to break up large pieces of logic into multiple steps. In those cases, getting the Cells "ready" first by counting them allows the downstream nodes to start with the answer as of the most recent preceding Cell node that has a count, rather than running the whole query from the beginning. In either case you'll get the same answer, but it's possible you may have a slightly better user experience doing it top-down. For example, if you have [Select] - [Split] - [Cell] - [Select], if you count the split first, the second Select node won't have to do all that work all at once, so you'll see the results in shorter chunks. The overall time will be the same, but it will give you more granular control.

 

Hope that helps!


Register today and join us virtually on June 16!
sasglobalforum.com | #SASGF

View now: on-demand content for SAS users

amckirby
Fluorite | Level 6

Shill - thanks for your thorough response!  I especially appreciate the explanation of what is happening with the upstream nodes when I update a node downstream.  I was under the impression that they were re-calculating and therefore slowing the process. 

 

Your explanation was very clear and helpful...thank you very much!

 

Alan

BeverlyBrown
Community Manager

Welcome to the CI Community, @amckirby! Hope you'll keep coming back...and bring more SAS users with you. 

Register now for SAS Innovate! Join your SAS user peers in Las Vegas on April 16-19 2024.

BeverlyBrown
Community Manager

By the way, thanks for marking Steve's reply as an "Accepted Solution." Other users with the same question will run across it faster. 

Register now for SAS Innovate! Join your SAS user peers in Las Vegas on April 16-19 2024.

amckirby
Fluorite | Level 6
Well...it was an accepted solution for me...I hope it works for others!
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