Visual Analytics 7.4: Report with Hyperlink Column

[Patrick]

Hi all,

My first VA question ever! Please treat me as VA beginner.

What I have

- SAS 9.4M7 under RHEL, SAS Visual Analytics (VAAR) 7.4

What I need

Create a VA report that has a column with a clickable http link (different per cell).

When clicking the link a Excel file gets created from a data source not loaded into Lasr (via a SAS Stored Process).

What I can do

Load data into Lasr that got the fully working link already pre-populated in one of the variables.

What I don't manage to get working
The link not just showing as text but as a "clickable" hyperlink to an "external page".

The link points to a SAS Stored Process that creates an Excel file.

Below sample SP works if called directly out of Chrome using a link like: 
https://<server>/SASStoredProcess/do?_action=form,properties,execute,nobanner,newwindow&_program=<path & prog> 

I would now just need this link in a VA report but can't get this to work. 

For my real case: The link will differ per cell - but I can create the link before loading into VA so there it can be static on a cell level. 

*Process Body;
data _null_;
 /* Set HTTP headers */
  rc = stpsrv_header('Content-type','application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
  rc = stpsrv_header('Content-disposition',"inline; filename=class.xlsx"); 
run;
%let _odsdest=EXCEL;
%let _odsoptions=;
%stpbegin;
ods EXCEL options(sheet_interval="proc" sheet_name="Test"); 
proc print data=sashelp.class;
run; 
ods EXCEL close; 
%stpend;

Ideally

I would like to surface some "description" in VA and not the full link if that's possible. 

I've seen that VA also allows directly for Stored Processes and I could easily load the parameter value (the key value) such a VA Stored Process needs (but: The SP must execute under the functional SP server user).

That's how this VA report would need to look like:

I could ideally surface the link like in row 4 - but it's also o.k. to show the actual link.

I hope I could explain my challenge sufficiently clear.

Any guidance how to go about this highly appreciated.

Thanks,

Patrick

[Renato_sas]

Hi @Patrick,

Have you considered setting up an external link from the VA List Table object to the Stored Process? Please see Creating Report Links :: SAS® Visual Analytics 7.4: User's Guide. You could set the Stored Process URL to receive the target URL or a descriptive text as a parameter and use the Stored Process code to use a lookup table to retrieve the URL based on the description. You wouldn't have a true hyperlink like in your example but you would be able to click anywhere in the row to launch the Stored Process. 

Best,

Renato

[Renato_sas · Accepted solution]

I forgot to mention that the Stored Process could work as a proxy and determine what to do depending on the URL passed as parameter, to simulate different URLs in each cell like you described.

[Patrick]

@Renato_sas 

Thank you for your guidance. I luckily found someone in our project team who wasn't as ignorant as I am. It turned out that defining the column as URL and then passing the HTML string as parameter did the trick. 

Not sure why I've missed this when looking into the documentation. I was reading the right section but apparently misunderstood what was explained there.

[Renato_sas]

I'm glad it worked!