Restore Interactive Perspective in SAS Studio

[Quentin]

Feature Request: Restore Interactive Perspective in SAS Studio

Proposal This is a product suggestion to restore the interactive perspective feature in SAS Studio.

Background and Functionality For over 40 years, SAS graphical user interfaces (including previous iterations of SAS Studio) have supported an interactive mode for submitting programs. SAS contains dozens of procedures designed to run interactively, including workhorse procedures like PROC SQL, PROC DATASETS, PROC TEMPLATE, and PROC REG.

Interactive mode makes SAS operate similar to environments like Python and R: users can submit commands, view results immediately, and execute subsequent commands that build upon the existing state of the program. Further technical details regarding interactive procedures in SAS can be found here: https://blogs.sas.com/content/iml/2024/10/09/interactive-procedures-sas.html.

Impact of Removal The interactive perspective is particularly critical for workflows utilizing PROC IML and PROC OPTMODEL. Without an interactive mode, the process of debugging programs becomes significantly more difficult. Additionally, it forces users to entirely resubmit long-running computational processes from the beginning rather than continuing them sequentially.

Current Status The interactive perspective was removed in the SAS Studio 2025.06 (June) stable release. According to the release documentation (https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Faster-Smarter-More-Intuitive-SAS-Studio-2025...), the feature will not be reinstated unless there is "sufficient demand for this functionality from our customers." This request serves to initiate that demand.