SAS Visual Analytics on Viya Reload-on-start set up

[Aq123]

Hello new to SAS VA here! 

Maybe someone could explain how to set up Reload-on-start in SAS VA on Viya?

Found this documentation :

https://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/vaag/69958/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n1s2hnpd892n7fn1dp18...

But in SAS Environment Manager I can't find Libraries in the side menu. It seems to me that this documentation is not suitable for my version of VA which I'm using.

Maybe someone could help? Thanks!

[HarrySnart]

Hi @Aq123 

The document you referenced is for SAS Visual Analytics on SAS 9.

For SAS Viya, here is the Visual Analytics Help Center: https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/vacdc/v_018/vawlcm/home.htm?fromDefault= 

You can use the drop down on the documentation home page to generate the documents for your version:

You can find the Visual Analytics version you're on by opening your user icon and selecting 'About' when you're in the Visual Analytics application.

SAS Visual Analytics uses in-memory CAS tables as data sources. You can re-load tables when the server restarts by adding them to an import job. 

Hope this helps

Thanks,

Harry

[Madelyn_SAS]

Visual Analytics has a feature called just-in-time loading, which will reload the data if it is not already available. 

[Stu_SAS · Accepted solution]

Hey @Aq123! As @Madelyn_SAS said, Visual Analytics on Viya has just-in-time data loading. When you first open a report, Visual Analytics will check if the data is loaded to CAS. If not, it will go to the CASLIB and load it up. For most datasets, the difference in initial loading of the report is not very noticeable. If you have a large dataset that is being loaded from, say, a PATH-based CASLIB, then the report startup time could take longer than usual. 

It is possible to pre-load tables on a CASLIB basis. It does not occur specifically at startup time, but you can put it on a schedule to check if data in a CASLIB is unloaded and then load it if it is not. You do this as an admin through Environment Manager. In Visual Analytics on 9.4, this is called "Autoload."  Here is how you can simulate Autoload for PATH-based CASLIBs.

1. Log on to SAS Environment Manager as an admin
2. Click the Jobs button (or, Jobs and Flows)
3. Click the Scheduling tab
4. Copy “Sample: Load cas-shared-default Public data” and rename it
   
5. On the copied job, right-click and select “Properties”
6. Click the “Arguments” tab
7. Click the edit button on the top right
8. Change the Input CASLIB and Output CASLIB to the CASLIB that you’d like to load
9. Change the filter to:
   

   or(endsWith(tableReference.sourceTableName, '.sashdat'),
        endsWith(tableReference.sourceTableName, '.SASHDAT'),
        endsWith(tableReference.sourceTableName, '.sas7bdat'),
        endsWith(tableReference.sourceTableName, '.SAS7BDAT'))

10. (Optional) Under "Settings", set "refresh" to true. This will load data automatically if it is newer than the in-memory data.
    
11. Schedule the job to run with a service account every x minutes by right-clicking it and selecting "Schedule," then adding a new time-based trigger
    

Every x hours, x minutes, x days, etc., Visual Analytics will check the datasets in this CASLIB and reload them if they are either (1) unloaded or (2) newer than the existing data if refresh was set to true.