Querying SAS Data from Outside SAS

[TimCampbell]

set
Hi everyone.

We have a relatively new installation of SAS and some of our business users are asking if they are able to query SAS datasets from outside tools like PL/SQL developer or similar.

Aside from the obvious point that SAS will be much better at accessing it's own data and that they should be able to do whatever they like with the data using Enterprise Guide they still need a definitive answer to the question.

My guess (and hope!) is that they can't and will need to learn how to use the SAS tools properly but does anyone know if this is correct?

Tim

[RichardinOz]

Have you investigated the SAS Microsoft Office integration tools?  Business users can access SAS data from within Excel and other Office applications.

Another option is/(was?) the SAS Data viewer - a free Windows application which can be used to query sas data.  It's a bit clunky and I don't think it has seen much development since Version 8 but it is free.

The SAS data structure is proprietary so it is best to stick with the tools SAS provides

Richard

[TimCampbell]

Thanks Richard,

I will have a look into the SAS Data viewer to see if it will work with out setup.

We do have the SAS plugin for Excel but again it isn't quite what the users were after.

Tim

[TimCampbell · Accepted solution]

In the time since posting this, one of my colleagues (with obviously better google-fu than myself) has found this page this morning which suggests that it is possible using SAS/SHARE to set up an ODBC connection to the data on our SAS server.

http://www.sas.com/offices/europe/uk/support/sas-hints-tips/ht1.html

So it looks like I will now have to come up with some reasons as to why we shouldn't do it!

[manojinpec]

you can also buy license for sas connection to that paricular database