Project Goal: build a website wherein clients choose some parameter values from a few drop down menus. When they hit a Generate Report button on the website on the other side SAS runs a program that takes the parameter values and generates the report (in Excel) which is then either emailed to the client, or made available on the website.
Will Base SAS 9.4 be able to do this or do I need some other SAS product or add-on?
Once I get the correct SAS product, how should I start educating myself on how to program the integration?
Note that I currently know absolutely nothing about website design, servers, etc... I do have a a Base SAS 9.4 program that generates the Excel report.
Thanks
Your description matches the capabilities of a SAS Stored Process, included in the SAS BI Server licence.
Thanks andreas_lds, that was interesting to read about, but I don't think that is the solution. Let me explain better>
I want to build a website. It will require payment by a customer in exchange for a report. The customer logs in, pays for a report, and then selects certain parameters such as month and year of the report, a style (from a list of styles), and a unit of measure - let's say kilograms. On the other side of that customer experience, the parameters the customer selected become global variables (parms) used in a SAS program. In addition to passing the parameters to SAS, it also tells SAS to run the program. The SAS software, the SAS program, as well as the data used by the program exists on some computer (i.e., other than the client's computer/mobile phone or whatever the client is using to log onto my website). The keep this question simple, the SAS program emails to the report (Excel spreadsheet) to the client as the last step.
I hope that clarifies things.
That still fits the design of a stored process, running on a EBI server. They can also run on Viya environment.
An EBI server has a web server and a SAS compute environment. With a stored process, you get a URL that points to the stored process. Along with a basic web page for user input (you can of course design your own). When a user submits the page, it creates macro variables with user inputs, and executes your SAS code (which is the heart of the stored process). It can then return a graph, or a table to the browser, or it could send an email with an Excel attachment, or whatever.
The EBI server will have a login page. But if you want to charge for access etc, you would build that somewhere else, and just like to the stored process URL.
Hello @texasmfp
As has been pointed out by others your SAS stored process on 9.4 can safely do them.
However this "It will require payment by a customer in exchange for a report." will require something more than that is already built into SAS. I suggest you approach SAS Tech Support
On a similar note, checkout Build Apps on Base SAS
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkepSRl0qS449OqZ1rCCVxjokBJuLBXLI
Be aware, scalability and ability to handle concurrent requests are not built/provided out of the box, there additional steps and software components needed to enable/offer that.
Hope this helps,
Ahmed
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