SAS Enterprise Guide 7.15: Customizing Process Flow arrangement

[bbenbaruch]

I love the fact that we can copy an output node from one EG project to another.  The problem is that EG decides where the copied results node should be placed -- and it is never where I would want it placed in the Process Flow diagram.

We need to be able to "reformat" our Process Flow diagrams so that after developing a process it can be arranged visually the way we wish it to be visually arranged.

It would also be nice if we could instruct EG to not necessarily display lines between nodes that sort a data set and the data set.  It is visually distracting to have several lines from different parts of a Process Flow going to a data set just because it had to be sorted multiple times.

Similarly, it would be nice to be able to instruct EG to not display selected data sets in the Process Flow.  When I need to create several temporary data sets that are just "interim steps" I do not want them stacked up in a column so that the data set I am really interested in is displayed way down in the Process Flow.  One solution would be to simply instruct EG to not display certain output data sets. Another solution would be to allow us to reconfigure the arrangement of output data sets and have that arrangement made "permanent".

As good as Enterprise Guide is as a tool for visually organizing process flows, it still has serious flaws.

[BillSawyer]

Hi Ben,

EG does have a problem with maintaining the copied arrangement, but, you should  be able to re-arrange after the copy although I have seen rare cases in which even then EG does not maintain the manually re-arranged order.

Right-click in the background of the process flow and  select   Auto-Arrange then you should be able to re-arrange the objects in the process flow.  

Alternatively, in some cases it would be easier to create a copy of the project file  then remove the parts of the process flow that you don't need in the new project.

The lines that connect programs and tasks to output data is key to showing the flow of the project, and, I'm not aware of any planned future change in this regard.

However, having the ability to control the number of output data sets for certain  program nodes or  for the WORK library is something that would be useful.  EG can already control the number of output data sets to display in the process flow but it is project wide and cannot currently be controlled by only certain program objects.  Tools > Options > Results > Results General > "Maximum number of output data sets to add to the project".

With this option, the data is still available and can be seen in the associated SAS Library list.

Additionally, I have already suggested this to R&D and Product Management and will update that request with this SAS Communities link so that the suggestion can hopefully be prioritized accordingly..

Thanks,

Bill

[BillSawyer]

.....Just noticed a mistake in my response.  Instead of  "Right-click in the background of the process flow and  select   Auto-Arrange then you should be able to re-arrange the objects in the process flow."     it should be:   "Right-click in the background of the process flow and  UN-select   Auto-Arrange then you should be able to re-arrange the objects in the process flow."

Thanks,

Bill