What is the quickest way to develop a simple SAS Enterprise Guide custom task?

[klroesner]

Hello world,
We need a simple custom task in SAS Enterprise Guide 8.5 that takes a SAS data set as input and a library and data set name as task parameters. I can only find documents that are more than 10 years old. Furthermore, we do not have much experience in development with C#.Net and VB.Net.

• Can anyone tell me where I can find current documentation or papers?
• What is the easiest and fastest way to develop a custom task for SAS Enterprise Guide?
• Can I use VS Code for development?
• Is there a simple example somewhere that I could adapt?

[ChrisNZ]

Not too sure what you are trying to do. Can you explain more, or at least give us the links to the documents you found?

[ChrisHemedinger]

I have several examples on my GitHub account, shared when I wrote a book about this topic. Here's one example:

https://github.com/cjdinger/SasRunningTotals

You can probably use VS Code for this with the .NET SDKs, but I've only ever used Visual Studio. You don't actually need a lot of code to make this work, especially for a simple task. But it takes some time to get familiar with the framework.

I'd recommend my book but I think it's out of print. I can offer this video demo though: Creating custom tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide 

[klroesner]

Hi Chris, thanks for information. I bought your book! 🙂 Are there any project templates for SAS Enterprise Guide 8.5 like the ones in your blog article (Creating custom tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide - SAS Support Communities)?

[ChrisHemedinger]

Excellent! No, I have not updated the templates. But good news, the same processes and templates still work for building tasks.

By chance, I had to fire up Visual Studio the other day to rebuild/service a task I created a long time ago so that it works with EG 8.6.  All smooth!

[AlanC]

I would highly recommend Chris's book. It is how I learned. I think I have done around half-dozen of them, most for clients.

Personally, I use Visual Studio to do the work. That said, there is no reason why VS Code wouldn't work. Look on my github site (savian-net) and there are probably examples there. Only use C#, not VB.NET. VB.NET is dead so no need looking at it.

It is fairly easy once you get started. Visual Studio will help you out a lot. Basically, make a file (class) and have it say implement the interface. Visual Studio will then basically ask 'do you want me to do it for you?'. Let it fill in the empty places and you put in the code. Using AI in VS, you can ask it to build a simple one for you. 'Vibe' code it.

Look up interfaces and that will tell you how it works. I looked up a simple analogy:

The waiter (API) is the intermediary that communicates your requests to the kitchen and brings the food back to you.