"New Custom Category" as text?

[ChrisNZ]

The "New Custom Category" feature could be a tremendous way to reduce memory footprint.

Character values could a few bytes long at most and then formatted using the Custom Category values to their full meaning. This idea is thwarted by the tedious fact that one must manually enter all the value mappings one at a time.

Is there any way to paste text like one can do for a calculated item (a "Text" tab is not visible for the "New Custom Category" entry) ?

If not, I reckon this should be a top priority for improvement as it could have a such a massive impact as a way to reduce table size and memory usage (and therefore hopefully boost speed as well).

[Renato_sas]

@ChrisNZ, unfortunately this is not possible, but I can see how that would help improve the user experience. Would you mind sharing your suggestion in the Ideas Section of the community?

Thank you,

Renato

[ChrisNZ]

@Renato_sas I could submit one such idea a day, considering that using VA (and to some extend EG) is mostly about finding ways around the limitations and getting used to paper cuts.

Creating an idea entry has very doubtful returns. I still do once in a while, but it really doesn't seem like it's worth it. Likewise for the improvement suggestions (or even defects raised) that come after contacting tech support (at times I am feel like I am working for SAS QA). Who knows what happens to them? There used to be a suggest@sas.com email address, but that's been canned for some reason. There are so many things that could be fixed or enhanced but it looks like SAS is not interested in user feed-back beyond lip service.

About the current topic of remapping value (creating a format really), what SAS is currently enforcing in VA is that either values are remapped one by one using a mouse (we all know that variable cardinality never exceeds 3, right?) or the SAS VA admin must manually move tables and run code each time we want a new format available in VA. How was this ever accepted? Do I really need to create an idea for SAS to start pondering whether they'll consider if these limitations make sense or not? If so it shows how much user feedback is an unimportant source of input. Rather SAS R&D should be scouring all user channels for ideas/suggestions/feed-back.

Sorry for the rant. Maybe I should take a break and have a piece of dark chocolate. I'll do just this right now actually.  🙂

[AnnaBrown]

Hi ChrisNZ,

No problem on the rant. 

I wanted to let you know that the SAS Visual Analytics team, including product managers RickStyll_SAS, I_Kong_SAS, muralinori_sas and others, do monitor this community. We’re discussing the functionality you mention here and will provide updates in the coming weeks with more information.

Anna

[Clare]

@AnnaBrown  Can you please let me know if there has been an update on the SAS discussion for updates/fixes.  We share the frustrations of @ChrisNZ with many of the things he has highlighted as a problem - and it would be useful to know what fixes are coming when.  If this has already been addressed - please can you point me to the correct thread.

Many thanks