At the moment, quote() can only add enclose a string in ' or ". It would be useful if any character could be added. And if the quoting character is one of < > [ ] { } ( ), this function would also know to enclose the string in balanced brackets.   A 't' third parameter to trim the quoted string would also be useful. ... View more

Whilst you can see history of what users have connected to Visual Analytics via the Usage Reports or by searching metadata logs, there is currently no way to see what VA users are connected in real time.  This feature would be beneficial in working out what user might currently be maxing out the server for example. ... View more

The DATA= option on the PROC DELETE statement will accept numerical suffixed datasets lists, like have1-have3 , but not lists using the colon suffix wildcard, like have: .  Can we enhance PROC DELETE to allow the use of dataset name lists defined by using the colon wildcard.  Note that the DELETE statement in PROC DATASETS does support dataset name lists made using colon suffix.   See this thread:  https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/How-to-drop-tables-with-same-prefix-witout-a-cicle/td-p/616454 ... View more

SAS should write a PROC to do meta-analysis.   1. There's a shortage of good software to do this, so SAS would add to its market. 2. There are lots of articles on it, but they often contradict each other, so the expertise of the people at SAS Statistics would be valuable. 3. LOTS of people do meta-analysis. 4. There is a book on doing this in SAS but it is very dated. 5. There are some articles on doing it with PROC MIXED but they are scattered, not fully coherent, use old versions of SAS (I found good one that uses v 6). And no source that I found has a complete method. E.g. one that includes combining effects, forest plots, diagnostics and so on.   ... View more

The only way to have a label displayed on a VA object is to change its matching data name. This is very coarse. A name and a label serve distinct purposes; typically the name is used by the developer while the label is for the report user. Sometimes blank labels are needed, and sometimes the same label is needed for 2 data entries. Add a label field in the SAS VA data properties.   ... View more

Create an "FIFO stack" of log references "in" each node.  When a new log listing for a node is created because the node's operation ran, "push" the new log on the stack and "pop" the oldest one off and discard it.  Create a way to view prior logs saved in the "stack".  Keep three logs by default, allow for more or less by providing a setting to control stack array length.   You never need to see an old log result, until you do  When you do, you just ran something and discarded the log result you wanted to review. ... View more

Request It is requested to enable dynamic text features in VA. It should be feasible to include in reports specific values (measures & dimension) as single objects and or combined (text&images&values). It should be feasible to include in va reports values and text and images and have the possibility to define formatting also with conditional formatting (e.g including icons and images as per specific rule) Use case/Workarounds It has been required to include single values in Reports with a specific formatting in order to give right evidence to kpi’s and key values (#number of contracts, budget, …) The workaround identified so far is to use cell of a standard VA table, but the formatting opportunities are limited and result is not effective. Using of the table workaround is complex for user and requires to design in fix format (Standard VA feature should enable to ensure adaptive) Considerations Feature could be very useful for improvement usability and effectiveness of reports Feature is expected to be available both for web and for Mobile and as standard Va feature so that report in WEB and in Mobile can be the same (avoid duplicating development of report). As per our evidences feature is already available in many BI tools competitors. ... View more

The format $QUOTE will enclose the value in double quote characters and properly handles doubling up any embedded double quote characters..  It would be useful to have a format that would generated a quoted string using single quote characters.  String literals quoted using single quotes will suppress any embedded macro triggers and can be used in pass-through SQL code.   Perhaps they could add a letter to the end of the format name like they have done with the date formats. ... View more

To traverse a dataset from its last record to its first, let the user provide a dataset option ReversedOrder="Y"|"YES".   Let this work with SET, MERGE, UPDATE statements, and for any procedures that read datasets, applying only when the dataset is being read.   Default ReversedOrder="NO".   I have no idea how feasible this is, but I've frequently encountered situations where I would want to do this.  It feels mathematically unnecessary to have to resort a dataset in descending order just to -- or to sort datasets in descending order, and provide an index in ascending order just to -- have this capability.   I would love to know why this couldn't be done, but not as much as having the ability to do it. ... View more

When performing linear regression from EG, our data scientists always want to save the parameter estimates to a data set for use in subsequent tasks. in the current versions of EG they have to manually insert code to add outest= option. after running the task with inserted code, the outest data set does not appear on project canvas, the user has to select it manually from server list and add it to the project canvas and connect it to the regression task.   idea: add an option to the linear regression task to save parameter estimates to a data set (generate code: outest=<data-set-name>) and add that data set to the project canvas. ... View more

If SAS attempts to resolve a macro variable reference and cannot, it throws a helpful warning (assuming default option SERROR is on): 1 %put &nope ; WARNING: Apparent symbolic reference NOPE not resolved. &nope Unfortunately, if the the macro processor makes multiple passes of a token (because of multiple ampersands), it does NOT throw a warning when a macro reference cannot be resolved on one of the intermediate passes.  As an example, the following code mistakenly has three ampersands in front of VAR instead of two.  On the first pass, the first two ampersands resolve to  a single ampersand, and then SAS tries to resolve macro reference &var and it cannot.  At that point, I would like to see SAS throw a warning that symbolic reference VAR cannot be resolved.   %let var1=foo ; %let i=1 ; %put &&&var&i ; If you turn on symbolgen, it shows the resolution process, and shows that SAS tried to resolve VAR:   8 options symbolgen ; 9 10 %put &&&var&i ; SYMBOLGEN: && resolves to &. SYMBOLGEN: Unable to resolve the macro variable reference &var SYMBOLGEN: && resolves to &. SYMBOLGEN: Macro variable I resolves to 1 SYMBOLGEN: Macro variable VAR1 resolves to foo foo The WARNING is useful, and would be helpful to have it generated any time there is a failed resolution attempt.  I don't see any value to suppressing this warning when there are multiple resolution passes. ... View more

We have a crosstab based report with 30+ columns. The column headers take up a lot of space. In order to save space it would be very convenient to be able rotate the column headers 90 degrees, like in Microsoft Excel for instance. ... View more

All tables are indexed, so this takes no time.   data ACCOUNT_444513219790; set XODSM.ACCOUNT_201101-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201112 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201201-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201212 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201301-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201312 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201401-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201412 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201501-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201512 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201601-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201606; where IP_LOCAL_ID='444513219790'; run;   If I use a view, it takes minutes since the where clause is processed in the second data step.   data _V_ACCOUNTS/view=_V_ACCOUNTS; set XODSM.ACCOUNT_201101-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201112 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201201-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201212 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201301-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201312 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201401-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201412 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201501-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201512 XODSM.ACCOUNT_201601-XODSM.ACCOUNT_201606; run; data ACCOUNT_444513219790; set _V_ACCOUNTS; where IP_LOCAL_ID='444513219790'; run; I would be better if the where clause was processed by the view.   Suggestion: Any where clause on a view should be passed on for processing by the view whenever possible.   An example of a case when this is not possible is when data sets include the where=option. Another example is when the point= or key= options are used in the view. ... View more

  data T(sortedby=X); X=1; output; X=2; output; run;   will not set the validated flag in the data set's metadata as seen here:     One must recreate the table using for example proc sort to set this flag. This is hugely wasteful.   The following option would ask SAS to check the sort order as the data is written, in order to avoid this waste:   data T(sortedby=X validatesort); X=1; output; X=2; output; run;                   ... View more

Internally, we would like to show year over year growth of 20% with 25% being a stretch goal. Standard visuals only support one target for a targeted bar chart. Also we are unable to show the data values for this target within the report, only within the data tip values.   Here is my current solution build using the custom graph application:     We would like to see the high/low target range shading similar to below:   This was built with the customer builder as well, but it does not look the best in the standard data styling skin consistent with the rest of our reporting.   -shawn ... View more

  When you call the zipcitydist() function and supply an zipcode that doesn't exist in sashelp.zipcode like below:   option notes; data zip; zip = 12345; run; proc sql noprint; select zipcitydist(00000,99999) from zip; %runquit; Part of the log displayed is this note:   NOTE: ZIP code value 0 could not be found in SASHELP.ZIPCODE. Not necessarily a bad note, unless your dataset is millions of rows, and you get a note for each one.   Can the default behavior of this note be changed so that only the first 10 or so examples are displayed and then we get a note saying further examples were omitted from the log?  Currently the only alternative is to use 'option nonote' which is overkill.   ... View more

If you stop all tasks, sometimes one with respond with a status of  'stopping...' forever.  So, you have to kill the program, start up EG again and try to get back to where you were.     So, if SAS can kill the task when exiting EG, why can't it just kill the task and allow me to continue?  Just kill the task immediately! No 'stopping...' message should ever appear. ... View more

The box that is opened when we view properties should be large enough so that core properties -- e.g. the dataset name -- can be viewed in their entirety.  I just opened up the properties for a dataset that has a 5-character LIBNAME and 32 character dataset name.  The dataset name was truncated.  The Properties window cannot hold long dataset names.  That window should -- at a bare minimum -- be able to display a dataset name with an 8-character LIBNAME and 32-character dataset name.  Ideally, the window should also be able to fully display dataset names that are longer than this because we all know that the character limits on LIBNAMEs and dataset names has to be increased in the future.   Similarly, the window that that pops up when I want to open files should BY DEFAULT reopen at the maximum width I last had to set it to in order to view my projects.  Every morning I go through the same routine of having to manually expand the column that displays pathnames/project names because the default width is ridiculously slow -- as if nobody at SAS knows that most of us no longer use EG in a desktop environment anymore but rather on a networked system.  With all the talk about AI it seems that it should be relatively easy to program EG so that those of us on systems with long pathnames to our projects don't have to manually expand the filename column each and every time we open an instance of EG.  This may be a minor nuisance but it is one that we encounter virtually every time we open EG. ... View more

If the update host-name references option in SAS Deployment Manager can show following information it would be really helpful.   1) Count of files that will be updated. There could be a large number of log, perf log files which aren't required during this change. An estimate of the number of files can help to better plan and remove any unwanted files in advance.   2) Estimated time of completion. In-case of multi-tier large SAS deployments it could take some time for the process to complete. One way to check if the process is running fine is to verify the log. If the system can display a progress bar with the percentage complete & remaining it would be helpful. Currently it only shows which component it is updating but there is no progress in terms of percentage displayed. ... View more