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JanKmiecicki
Calcite | Level 5

While developing new reports using SAS VA 6.4, we set up an autoload process to load SAS datasets into memory. Process is working fine but we notice that all numeric variables (except with date or datetime format) are interpreted as measures. I would like to ask if it is possible to force VA to treat some numeric variables as categories - maybe some kind of tags under Management Console. I know that when I create report under VA I can change item to be category instead of measure but I have to do it every time when I use this source table as input. I would like to define once how to interpret variables and share it across business users. Other thing that I would like to avoid is conversion from numeric to character variable in source sas table before loading into memory. What I have not checked yet if applying user defined format has impact on how variables are recognized by VA.

6 REPLIES 6
MarcelHaas
Calcite | Level 5

In my experience it is by far the easiest to just make sure they are alphanumeric in the data. If you prepare the data in some ETL processes this should be pretty trivial?

JanKmiecicki
Calcite | Level 5

Thanks for you answer, but as I wrote in my post I would like to avoid converting from numeric to char when preparing input table for autoload process. I think there should be a way to set up if variable is category or measure, not only by its data type. As I can see when creating report via VA you can change its type from measure to category, so there is a king of flag / tagging mechanism. My goal is to set it permanently to avoid changing it every time. If there is no way to do it, it means that there is lack of some basic functionality in VA. Other thing is that by converting to alphanumeric, I will need more space: instead of 8bytes for numeric variable I will have to use 20 bytes after conversion to character one.  

JanKmiecicki
Calcite | Level 5

Hi, I have done some checks and there are two options to make VA treat variable as category:

1. Create it as character, alphanumeric on source table. This solution is not good for me so I try 2nd one:

2. Apply user define format on numeric variabe attribute in source table. I created picture format and apply to numeric variabe and it works fine when I load it into VA.

I hope it helps other to deal how SAS VA recognise categories and measures.

Suhas_77
Fluorite | Level 6

Hi Jan,

 

How did u import the the SAS dataset on which you have created a new user defined picture format ?

I had the same requirement and tried doing this but I am unable to import the dataset with the user defined format into SAS VA.

 

It makes sense as the SAS VA doesnt know how the format was defined. I read about a couple of workaround. Could you please let me know what worked for you.

 

Regards,

Suhas

Madelyn_SAS
SAS Super FREQ

Not all picture formats are supported as explained in

http://support.sas.com/kb/56/402.html

 

What is the problem you are having? Do you see an error? Or is the format just ignored?

 

If the format is just ignored, then make sure that you review this SAS note:

http://support.sas.com/kb/40/103.html

 

Suhas_77
Fluorite | Level 6

Hi Madelyn,

 

I am not using any of the date or time related formats. The problem I am trying to resolve is that I need to present aggregated data in a cross tabulated format. But all of my variables are numeric and SAS VA treats numeric variables as measures only and what comes on the rows as categories only (I can understand the design as categories are supposed to have only a few levels and measures have indefinite). I am trying to get around this by presenting measures in a picture format. Which it seems has worked for Jan here.

 

A more detailed explaination of my requirement can be found on the following link :

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Visual-Analytics/Using-Measures-across-rows-and-columns-on-Crosst...

 

The option that you have suggested for placing the new format on the application server format/config file might not be viable as our SAS admins will not allow it.

 

Thanks for your time on this issue. Any suggestion that you provide is deeply appreciated.

 

Regards,

Suhas

 

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