July 2024

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SAS Community member MayurJadhav published an article comparing BASE SAS and CASL capabilities as you pursue insights in your data. Check it out. Dear Reader: One thing was loud and clear in the recent Tech Report reader survey: You want all the tech tips, especially for SAS® 9. The Aug. 29 issue will debut even more tips and other changes you requested, including access to Tech Report back issues and “What’s New” info. Survey respondents said keep the name and monthly cadence, so we will. Meanwhile, to whet your appetite, this edition introduces the advice column “Tech Tips with Chris”: Question: What makes a SAS programming tip stand up to the test of time? Answer: 17 years ago I wrote a technical blog post about SAS variable lengths and formats, and it still gets hundreds of visits every month. Why is that? I would love to think that people consider it essential reading. You can't get too far in your SAS user journey before realizing that how variables are stored (data type and storage size) is different than – but linked to – how variable values appear (display format of categories and precision). The simple explanation for why this post is so popular is that it is the top Google result when you search "SAS lengths formats". And if you ask ChatGPT to "please explain the difference between length and formats in SAS variables," guess what? ChatGPT totally cribs my blog post in its response. I'm okay with that! It's most important to me that SAS users get their questions answered, even if I don't always get the credit. I mean, I had to learn this information from someone else, so I say, "pay it forward." Even though I am happy when people find their SAS answers via SAS communities or Google or AI chatbots, I still get jazzed when people send their SAS questions directly to me. I always learn something new about a topic in the process of explaining it to others. And if I get that question often enough, I write an article to share that then eventually may rank on Google or train an AI to answer it the next time. So...what's your SAS question? Are you looking for advice (or a pep talk) about a SAS challenge or need an answer a "how to" question? Or maybe you would like to know why something is the way it is in SAS (like how did the INTCK function get its name or what's the '7' in SAS7BDAT files?). Reply to this email or send a note to communities@sas.com! Chris Hemedinger Guest Editor, Tech Report   Someone forwarded you this edition of Tech Report? Subscribe to receive your own copy each month! The Simple Guide to SAS: SQL Joins In a recent blog post, SAS’ Kirby Thomas demystifies joins, one of the more complicated data-merging tasks for new coders. On the reproducibility of responses by AI assistants Suppose you and a colleague pose the same question to an AI assistant. Should you expect to get the same response? In a recent blog post, SAS’ Rick Wicklin explains why different users might get different responses to the same prompt. Display the largest values for each group  A common task is to find the largest values of some variable for each group in a set of data. Rick Wicklin shows you three ways to solve this problem in SAS. Confounding what and how What do you do if someone asks if any of your variables are confounding with one another. Would you know what they are asking? How would you determine if there was confounding in your data? This blog post by SAS’ Danny Modlin addresses the what and the how of confounding. You’ll learn two possible ways to determine confounding with nominal/categorical variables and more. What’s New for SAS 9 users: Updated SAS Universal Viewer Check out the LinkedIn post by SAS’ Barbara Deaton where she shares her favorite highlights of the SAS Universal Viewer. You’ll also find out where to get it. What’s New in SAS Viya: private preview of SAS Decision Builder on Microsoft Fabric Whether you work in financial services, retail or education, there’s now an opportunity to translate your data from insights into action with a combination of SAS technology on Microsoft’s unified analytics solution, Fabric. SAS’ Albert Qian provides a sneak peek.

Creating a Model Nutrition Label: Model Cards for SAS Model Studio Models
Model cards are now available in SAS Model Manager. The model card in SAS Model Manager was built to be like a nutrition label for AI models. What sets the SAS Model Card apart from previous model cards is the use of descriptive visuals, to make model cards accessible to all personas involved in the analytics process, including data scientists, data engineers, MLOPs engineers, managers, executives, risk managers, business analytics, end-users and any other stakeholder with access to the SAS Viya environment.

SAS Bowl XLII, The SAS Hackathon 2024
Join us at 10:00 a.m. ET on Wed., Aug. 14 for a SAS Hackathon edition of SAS Bowl Trivia. New to SAS trivia? You can find game history and specifics in this Community memo. There you'll also find links to previous events, which include recordings. Register for the event and receive an invite with game details and a Teams meeting link. On game day, Join the TEAMS meeting to play, and show off your SAS and worldly knowledge while competing for bragging rights and SAS swag.

Call for Content open through Monday, Sept 16
Don’t keep your experience and ideas to yourself! If you’re selected as a presenter, you’ll receive complimentary conference registration, complimentary hotel accommodations at the Hilton Orlando May 6-9, 2025 and limited airfare reimbursement.

MWSUG: Call for Presentations ends Sept. 13!
SAS is so rich in function and application that everyone is an expert on something. This year, share your expertise with fellow users at MWSUG 2024, Nov. 16-19 in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Although papers are not required this year, you’re encouraged to submit a companion paper with the presentation. Be sure to read the details on the submission process, open through Fri., Sept. 13.

WUSS 2024: Sign up separately for classes
WUSS, Sept. 4-6 in Sacramento, CA will once again offer a full menu of optional pre- and post-conference training classes on a variety of topics taught by seasoned experts. Classes are not included in conference registration and must be added separately. Through the regular registration deadline, your first half-day class is just $200 and each additional half-day class is only $150, so bundle multiple classes for the best value.

SESUG: Check out logistics for the Sept. 22-24 event
The conference hotel is one block from the North Bethesda Metro Station, making it easily accessible from standard points of entry into Washington, D.C. Plenty of inexpensive flights are available, and you can hop on the metro from Reagan National (Yellow and Red Lines) or Dulles (Silver and Red Lines). Train travel is easy from many destinations as well, and Union Station is on the same line as the hotel stop. It’s easy to join in on the expert SAS training, valuable presentations, networking and social activities. We hope to see you there!

Using SAS With Microsoft 365: A Programming Approach
Join SAS’ Chris Hemedinger at 11:00 a.m. ET on Thurs., Aug. 1 to learn how you can unlock new power and flexibility by using the Microsoft Graph APIs from your SAS programs.

Tricks for Report Builders: Report Design Best Practices
Join SAS’ Nicole Ball at 11:00 a.m. ET on Tues., Aug. 6 to learn how you can create beautiful interactive reports that help convey your message.

Top Tips for SAS®9 Programmers Moving to SAS® Viya®
Join SAS’ Mark Jordan at 11:00 a.m. ET on Thurs., Aug. 15 to learn how SAS Viya opens up a world of possibilities for advancing your analytics processes.

Workload Orchestration in SAS Viya 4
Join SAS’ Kevin Bickford at 11:00 a.m. ET on Thurs., Aug. 22 to learn how SAS Workload Management will extend the power of SAS Analytics by optimizing and prioritizing SAS analytic workloads within a SAS Viya Kubernetes cluster.

Solving Multi-Objective Optimization Models in SAS® Optimization
Join SAS’ Jay Laramore at 11:00 a.m. ET on Thurs., Aug. 29 to learn how multi-objective optimization is used to analyze the best tradeoffs among numerous optimal solutions to help enable effective, strategic decision making.