Reporting by category using local SAS EG setup

Nico · Posted 12-13-2011 08:14 AM

I am hoping on some advice on the following. Currently, we are trying to make a report on the performance of several teams. The current report is in Excel and results in a single page for each team with two graphs and two tables in a 2 x 2 setup on a page.

Making this report in SAS EG based on the same data is not hard. We have added a parameter (we still use SAG EG 4.1) to select the team. Based on this parameter I generate the two tables and the two tables for the specified team.

This leads us to the challenging part. The SAS EG installation is a local one, so we do not have Web Report Studio or anything like that. The most convenient way of distributing the reports to the end users is to make a PDF file containing all data for the different teams, with each team on a separate page. However, we have not been able to work out how to do this easily. Is their a way to generate a report for each possible value of a parameter and combine those into a single report?

Alternatively, we have tried to generate the separate graphs and tables using a BY-variable (i.e. the team). However, we haven't succeeded in combining those into a report in such a way that all graph / tables belonging to one team are on the same page. This seems only to be possible if you only have two items that you can put next to each other on a page, but not in a 2 x 2 setup on a page.

Are we missing something here? Does anyone have a way in which we can achieve what we want or is what we want not possible?

If so, does anyone have any good suggestions for alternatives? Aside from buying a SAS server with Web Report Studio :-)...

TriciaA · Posted 12-14-2011 03:36 PM

Have you considered outputting to an Excel file using the Tagset? The entire spreadsheet would contain the report; however each sheet or tab could contain the different reports. The tagset gives you a lot of control over the output.

Here's some helpful links:

http://support.sas.com/rnd/base/ods/odsmarkup/excelxp_demo.html

http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi31/115-31.pdf

I'm curious to know what you work out - even if it's not this solution.

Tricia

SAS BI Blog

Nico · Posted 12-15-2011 03:27 AM

I actually did not know about this technique and it definitely looks interesting. Especially if you want to output data.

The thing is that we are actually trying to move away from Excel for reporting, so it would feel like a loss in a way .

Furthermore, we are trying to minimize coding, since I am the only person with SAS Base experience. So I am still hoping for a solution using the regular tasks and the reporting functionality in SAS EG.

TriciaA · Posted 12-15-2011 06:21 AM

Nico:

If you are just wanting to control the layout for the graphs - use the GOPTIONS. They can be tricky but will allow the several graphs to fit a page at once. Also I think if you want to try the PDF route - then you'll want to use the ODS PDF so it can control the layout.

Here are some papers that discuss using the GOPTIONS and PDF tagset. If memory serves - it works just for graphs and not for supporting PROC FREQs.

Good luck:

Tricia