Move from SAS EG/VA to Base SAS

[ghartge]

Good morning all,

Our organization is making a change in our reporting platform and moving away from SAS EG and SAS Visual Analytics. With that said, we wish to keep our SAS programming using it to create and export datasets for use outside of SAS VA and in the new platform. These datasets are currently being used in SAS VA in a SAS LASR server. We are going to export these datasets into the new repository/location for new report development, most likely MS Power BI.

I am thinking this is certainly possible through Base SAS, but we will still need some functionality beyond just the creating and exporting of datasets. For example, we will need to connect to SQL servers, import/export text and Excel files, and send email notices from the SAS programs as we currently do.

With the wealth of experience and knowledge in this community, would it be possible to get anyone's insights to the best approach, that is, what we would need as add-ons for Base SAS? Any/all graphing and data presentation/reporting will be done outside of SAS. Also, any experience or guidance on a move such as this would certainly be appreciated.

Thank you as always,

Gary

[Quentin]

Where are you going to run Base SAS?  Will you have a SAS9 server, or run on a PC?

When you say you want to email from SAS, I would think that works better from a server.  I remember I used to email from PC SAS sometimes years ago, but there was always the risk of security changing so that it wouldn't work.

As a company, SAS is clearly pushing users toward Viya.  There is still support (and even development) for SAS 9 on a server, and even PC SAS.  But people looking forward 5-10 years might have questions about migrating from server SAS to PC SAS.

If you don't want to do reporting/graphing/analytics, I would think you could go far with just Base SAS and a handful of SAS/ACCESS licenses (ODBC, SQL Server, Oracle, Snowfake, whatever you need to connect to).  All the ODS Graphics are in Base, so you'd actually be able to do plenty of graphing. And tabulate/report etc are in Base too.

Also, remember that EG is just a SAS client.  When you use EG, you're using base SAS.  Even if you decide to use PC SAS, you can still use EG as a client / IDE.

[ghartge]

Hey Quentin...thanks for the evaluation. Big help.

We will be running Base SAS from PC's. We did this about five/six years ago before moving to SAS VA/EG. I have also used PC SAS more about three decades. It has simply been the tool available, I was never involved with a conversion or install outside of going to EG. So again, your input is very helpful.

Our office has a dedicated email account which has helped with issues as you describe and we do not do a lot of it, but for a couple of instances it is a requirement.

Yes, SAS tried to get us to move to Viya, but the price tag was way more than what we can afford, or maybe willing to afford. The only use for PC SAS is we will have is to keep the current programs running in order to generate the required data for reporting. My guess is as we retire/move on those programs will be re-coded into something different.

I have generated text and Excel files from SAS EG and have used them successfully in MS Power BI which I believe is where the organization is going. It will be part of a significant upgrade from MS. From your input it seems we should be good to go if we move to Base SAS for PC and get SAS/ACCESS for ODBC, AND SQL. These are really the only connections we use (really only SQL). I am guessing PC Base SAS will have import functions for Office files (Excel, txt, csv, etc.).

I do have the Base SAS Software Fact Sheet, but these topics are not clear. I am simply trying to minimize surprises.

Thanks,

Gary

[Quentin · Accepted solution]

Yeah, my heart is with PC SAS too. : )

If I remember correctly, for connecting to SQL Server from PC SAS you can use the generic SAS/ACCESS to ODBC.   On our linux server, we have SAS/ACCESS to SQL Server, but I think on Windows SAS/ACCESS to ODBC should be sufficient.

For reading/writing Excel, you'll want SAS/ACCESS to PC Files.

Reading txt files should all just be Base.  I think even the newish JSON engine is in Base.

You might double check that you won't want SAS/STAT.  I just scanned the list of PROCs in SAS/STAT manual and it includes PROC FREQ!  If FREQ requires a SAS/STAT license that's a big surprise to me. I can't imagine using SAS without PROC FREQ.  But then I just looked online, and FREQ is also listed as part of Base.  Maybe with SAS/STAT you just get fancier options test tests that FREQ will run.

Good luck.

[SASKiwi]

@ghartge - I'd recommend making sure that you upgrade to SAS 9.4 M8, which is due out this month. This will give you five years of full support from now. Earlier versions go on limited support in 2025.

AFAIK, PROC FREQ comes with Base SAS and always has done. It's probably in the Stats doc for completness. 

[ghartge]

Thank you @SASKiwi