having problems in doing scatter plot?can anybody help

[Andygray]

hi folks,

I am trying to create a scatter plot using SAS EG. I have 2 variables sales%, and advertisements %. i am looking to do a scatter plot on these 2 variables. I am struggling to do get a right meaningful sense from a scatter plot. Please provide me a method to do it beyond what is mentioned in support.sas.com. I am getting some L shaped plot so far. Is that any where near correct? Please guide me. Thanks

Andy

[Doc_Duke]

Tell us more.  Including your EGuide version.

In EGuide 5.1, I go to Tasks --> Graphs --> scatterplot then 2-dimensional, under "Scatter plot"

then click data and select the variables.

and that should be enough to get you a basic scatterplot.  The rest are niceties to make it look more professional.

Doc Muhlbaier

Duke

[ChrisHemedinger]

You say that you are having trouble creating a meaningful scatter plot.  Not all data are suited for plotting/comparison via a scatter plot.

You might want to explore your data a bit more.  Try the Tasks->Describe->Characterize Data task to see what else you can learn...

If you really are trying to show a correlation between these two vars, try the Tasks->Multivariate->Correlations task to see if there really is something meaningful there -- that task will create a scatter plot as a result, as well as other information.

If you have other numeric values that might be better, you can add them into the Correlate With role in Correlations, or try the Graph->Scatter Matrix plot to see what seems to make sense. 

Maybe a scatter plot isn't what you really need.  If you have a date or time dimension in the data as well, you might be better off using that as your X axis and show the various percentages as response vars over time.

Just be careful that you're not trying to tell a story that the data don't support.  It's a tricky temptation sometimes...

Chris

[Andygray]

Thanks Guys,

The version is EG43. I completely understand what your saying. I wish had the confidence and competency to tell the same to the Business side. Funny enough, the ones sitting on the business side aren't of analytics nor SAS background to understand me and they seem to throw the ball on me that is perhaps thrown to them through some earlier practice. A big chain of people.It's annoying (smiles).

Anyways, I exactly did what Doc@duke had written and got the output and had shown that to the business. Thats when i got the L shaped plot. Afterwards, the business said change the axis. Hahhaha what happened this time-, the same L shape looked differently. Hilarious eh????

The only reason I came in with such a question earlier is that, I just wanted to make the Business side happy from technology side by giving some presentable output and avoid unnecessary escalation to my superiors.

Fun. Thanks,

Andy

P.S We, the whole organisation is new to sas. Well, having said that, should we be new to statistics:)