Detailed Column Level Metadata

[RobK777]

Hello,

Using EG 5.1 I'm trying to figure out how to see detailed column metadata.  Management Console and DI have the capabilities to browse/edit column properties and subsequently view notes, documents and extended attributes.

Does anybody know if this capability is available in EG or if there is a plug-in which may handle such a request.

Kind regards,

Rob

[PaulHomes]

Hi Rob,

Are you primarily interested in browsing the column metadata or editing it? I did write a basic metadata column finder as a custom task for SAS Enterprise Guide (after being inspired by reading Chris Hemedinger's book on custom tasks). There's a little more info about it in a blog post I wrote at the time: Reading Custom Tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide Using Microsoft .NET. The custom task is currently read-only to metadata and provides several of the column metadata attributes (but doesn't go into associated notes, documents and extended attributes). It needed a little more polish so I'd put it on the back-burner for a while whilst I worked on other projects. When I get a chance to work on it again I can send you a copy if you're interested. I'm also quite keen to do another EG custom task that interfaces with the Metacoda Commutual product we are working on, since that will provide deeper access to SAS metadata (and associated comments/discussions).

Cheers

Paul

[RobK777]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your input yet again...

We are looking only to browse metatdata related notes, extended notes, documents, etc...  Appreciate your offer to send over a copy, I would like to have a look at. 

As for now I think we'll concentrate on a custom solution to develop complete metatdata data dictionaries.

I have to a send a wish list to SAS for future releases.

Kind regards,

Rob

[PaulHomes]

Hi Rob,

No worries, happy to help where I can. If you want to send me your email address via a communities direct message I can arrange a copy of the custom task for you when it's available.

I also remembered that I heard about something at SAS Global Forum 2013 that you might be interested in. SAS 9.4 has a new product, DataFlux Business Data Network, that provides data dictionary features for ETL. There was a paper about it: What's New in SAS® Data Management and there's a product page too. It's a web app so you could run it in a browser side by side with EG. I don't know if there are any plans to provide access to this information directly from within EG - that might be a good question for your SAS account rep.

Cheers

Paul