As a SAS Enterprise Guide user, transitioning to SAS Viya from SAS9 opens up a world of advanced capabilities, enhanced performance, and modern analytics. This move is more than just an upgrade; it’s an opportunity to leverage the full power of cloud-based solutions, improved collaboration, and cutting-edge machine-learning tools.   Introduction   When moving to SAS Viya from SAS®9, it’s advisable to review your working methodology to fully leverage the advanced capabilities and scalability that SAS Viya offers. Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   Modernization involves aligning existing functionalities to new ones and selecting the most appropriate tools and applications for the job! This process may also involve migration which refers to transferring contents from one location to another. During modernization, you may opt for a full migration or partial migration, allowing flexibility to rebuild or optimize the remaining content using more suitable or advanced applications.   Transitioning refers to the process of changing from one state or situation to another. The scope and complexity of this process depends on the migration and modernization strategies employed, with the ultimate goal being a seamless and successful shift to the new system or platform.   Migration, Modernization, and Transitioning Options for SAS Enterprise Guide Projects   A range of options are available when migrating, modernizing and transitioning SAS Enterprise Guide projects.   Integration. SAS Enterprise Guide 8.4 integrates seamlessly with SAS Viya 4, allowing existing SAS Enterprise Guide projects to run on a SAS Viya 4 server while leveraging enhanced features such as like Python integration and advanced analytics capabilities.   Exporting code. Code created in a SAS Enterprise Guide project can be exported and transitioned, if necessary, to execute in SAS Studio.   Importing a SAS Enterprise Guide project. To preserve the visual flow diagram from your SAS Enterprise Guide project, import it using SAS Environment Manager to create SAS Studio Flow files, an intuitive point-and-click tool that visualizes data pipelines in SAS Studio. These flows may also need to be transitioned.   Importing multiple SAS Enterprise Guide projects. If you require multiple SAS Enterprise Guide projects to be transitioned in bulk, please reach out to your SAS administrator.  They have access to advanced tools like the SAS 9 Content Assessment tool, designed for understanding, preparing and importing SAS 9.4 content. This is often used with the SAS Viya Command Line Interface for bulk migration and modernization along with many other administrative tasks.   After importing the SAS Enterprise Guide projects as SAS Studio Flows, ensure they are functioning correctly.  Examine and transition which SAS Enterprise Guide tasks have been imported to SAS Studio steps, which SAS Enterprise Guide tasks have been imported as SAS Program steps, the process of importing SAS Program tasks to SAS Program Steps and  how notes are migrated.   Resources Available   If you haven’t already, you may find it beneficial to explore the following resources tailored for SAS Viya users.     The Transitioning SAS Enterprise Guide Projects to SAS Studio Flows course equips experienced SAS Enterprise Guide users with the knowledge to integrate and/or modernize and transition their single projects to SAS Studio flows.   If you are looking to understand the tools and processes available to migrate existing SAS 9.4 content to the latest release of the SAS Viya platform, please see the Migrating SAS 9.4 Content to the SAS Viya Platform course. This also includes migrating data and importing bulk SAS Enterprise Guide projects.   Other beneficial courses include the Managing and Querying Data Using Flows in SAS Studio course. This course is designed for users with low code or no code experience who need to efficiently manage and query data using steps in flows in SAS Studio.   The Developing Custom Steps with SAS Studio Analyst course is aimed at SAS programmers who want to build re-usable user interfaces for dynamic customization of SAS code. A custom step can be used in a flow, or stand-alone, and provides a user interface to common tasks that are routinely performed by you or others at your site.   The final course, SAS Visual Analytics 1 for SAS Viya: Basics introduces data preparation, data discovery, and report creation in SAS Visual Analytics, the reporting application for SAS Viya.   A complimentary SAS Viya Overview course is also available providing a comprehensive overview of the platform including its tools and features.   Closing   Whether you're seeking to maintain familiarity with the SAS environment or explore new possibilities in data science and analytics, SAS Viya offers a seamless and powerful platform to drive your analytics journey forward.   Which is your favourite resource?   Other Available Resources   Using SAS Enterprise Guide with SAS Viya 4 SAS® Enterprise Guide® Is Now Integrated With SAS® Viya® 4 Q&A, Slides, and On-Demand Recording Using SAS Studio Flows and Custom Steps in SAS® Viya® Fast Track Using SAS® Studio Engineer Steps in SAS® Studio Flows     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... 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There are numerous methods of sorting tables in SAS Studio, including using a ‘good old’ PROC SORT! During this post, we explore the importance of sorting SAS tables and evaluate each method, focusing on the point-and-click techniques in.   Sorting Data   Sorting data can be a helpful or necessary step in exploring your data. Some data processing steps need sorted input data. Other benefits of sorting include being able to visually examine the high or low values and even identifying and removing duplicate rows.       When sorting data, you can specify which columns to sort by.       For example, by adding Subject as the primary column, this data table will be sorted in ascending values of Subject (so, in alphabetical order, A to Z). Notice that the original order has been honored by default.   When adding multiple columns, SAS sorts the primary column first and then the secondary column within the primary column. In this example, Subject is sorted in ascending order and then TestScore is sorted in ascending order, within the Subject values.   You can specify the order of the rows to view large to small values by using the descending option.     For example, these rows are primarily sorted by Subject in ascending order and then, within the subject, by descending values of TestScore.   When sorting, the default behavior is to keep all records (rows), including duplicates.     Notice that we have a duplicate value for Name and for Subject in the first two rows and duplicate Name, Subject, and TestScore values in the last two rows.   If the direction is to remove duplicate rows, all values for a row are compared to the previous row written to the output table. If an exact match is found, the row is removed. In this example, Louise with a French test result of 92 is removed, because it’s a duplicate row.   If the instruction is to remove rows with duplicate values in the sort column, duplicates are removed based on the values of the columns on which the output is sorted. In this example, the second row of Bobby with a French result has been removed and the second row of Louise with a French result has been removed.   Techniques for Sorting Data With multiple methods available, each sorting technique serves a specific initial purpose based on the requirements.     1.      Query Step The Query step is an extremely versatile tool for data manipulation. You can select, sort, and create new columns, join tables, summarise data and filter both input or summarised data.   The CLASS_TESTDUP data contains seven rows, the following GIF demonstrates how to sort the table by Subject and TestScore (in descending order) using a Query step.     The Query step can also be used to deduplicate rows- that is- where all variable values match. This is achieved, as per the following GIF, by selecting (More Options) in the Columns pane of the Query node options and click Select distinct rows only.       2.      Sort Step The Sort step enables you to order your data by the values of one or more columns. In the following GIF, we sort the data by Subject and Name (both ascending by default). The output shows that rows 1 and 2 (Name of Barbara) and 4 and 5  (name Louise) have duplicate values for the columns designated in the Sort tab, specifically Subject and Name.     We can deduplicate the information above, using the Options button in the Sort Node details. Here, I have chosen to Maintain the relative order (this ensures that if multiple rows are detected, they are in the same order in the output table as the input table), and to Remove rows with duplicate values in sort columns. Two rows have been removed, row number 2 and row number 5.     Other sorting scenarios can be accomplished by investigating the different combinations of the options available by clicking  under the Options tab of the Sort step.   Option Reference Specify the output order   Session default 1   (usually SORTEQUALS)   A system option that specifies that rows with identical values in the sorted columns are to retain the same relative positions in the output data set as in the input data set. Maintain relative order   (EQUALS)     A step option that specifies that rows with identical values in the sorted columns are to retain the same relative positions in the output data set as in the input data set.   Allow variation   (NOEQUALS)     Specifies that rows with identical BY variable values are to retain the same relative positions in the output data set as in the input data set.   Duplicate rows       Keep all rows      Does not remove any rows.   Remove rows with duplicate values in the sort columns   (NODUPKEY)     Compares values in the requested sorted columns of the current row with the previous for a match. If found, the current row is not written to output data set.     Remove duplicate rows (NODUPRECS)       Compares all values in the current row with the previous row for an exact match. If found, the current row is not written to output data set.   Force redundant sorting  (FORCE)     The Sort step checks for the sort indicator before it sorts a data set so that data is not sorted again unnecessarily. By default, the Sort step does not sort a data set if the sort information matches the requested sort. You can use this option to override this behavior.     Use tags to sort large data   (TAGSORT)     Useful when there is limited disk space because it stores only the sorted columns and the observation numbers in temporary files and then uses the files to retrieve the records on sort completion.       1 To verify the session default, use the OPTIONS procedure.     3.      Remove Duplicates Step The Remove Duplicates step removes redundant rows from an input data source. Use this step when reading from a CAS table and generating the output as a CAS table to ensure duplicates are eliminated.   In the following GIF, I have used a CAS table as input, chosen to Remove duplicates across all columns, Show detailed log information, Write duplicate rows to the log and output, promote and save as a new CAS table.   The log shows that the row with the name of Louise was a duplicate and has been removed.     4.      Table Viewer The table viewer enables you to interactively choose columns, apply filters, sort, and perform other actions on your SAS data.   In the following GIF, I have chosen to sort Name in Ascending order, Subject in Descending order and I have hidden TestScore. I have also used the (More Options) to select Show distinct rows > Visible columns to remove duplicate rows for the visible columns only.     Comparison of SAS Table Sorting Techniques The method you choose to use when sorting tables in SAS Studio depends on your requirements.   Opt for the Query step if your requirements extend beyond merely sorting or removing duplicates. Storing a CAS table in a sorted order is not necessary as the order of rows in a CAS table is not predictable. Select the Remove Duplicates step to eliminate duplicate rows from a CAS table and generate the output as a CAS table.   Other Resources   It would be rather remiss of me to not at least mention the powerful PROC SORT procedure! To find out more, please see this article How to sort data in SAS by Andy Ravenna (@AndyRav).   A useful paper if you have CAS tables, Parallel Programming with the DATA Step: Next Steps by David Bultman and Jason Secosky, for coding hints and tips.   Please feel free to add a comment to ask about other resources you may require!   To learn more about Sorting in SAS Studio and many other data managing techniques, please see the new Managing and Querying Data Using Flows in SAS Studio course.     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Have you seen the message in the Tasks section of the navigation pane in SAS Studio on SAS Viya 4, stating, 'The task functionality is being replaced by custom steps'? Discover all the details about this update in my latest post.   Overview Tasks are point-and-click user interfaces designed to guide users through analytical processes. They have been a longstanding feature within SAS Studio, available across versions 3.x, 5.x, and 2024.x (see my previous post for versioning information) and all use the same XML-based task model language.     SAS Studio currently provides users with predefined tasks and the flexibility to create Custom tasks using the Common Task Model (CTM) tailored to their specific requirements. This approach remains consistent for SAS Studio versions 3.x and 5.x. However, in SAS Studio 2024.x, Custom tasks are superseded by Custom steps.     Custom steps offer enhanced functionality, allowing users to create tailored user interfaces to guide users through specific tasks, including analytical processes. These steps retain most of the functionality of Tasks while introducing additional features. For instance, Custom steps can operate independently or be integrated into a flow. In SAS Studio Analyst and SAS Studio Engineer, the Designer interface streamlines the process of creating these Custom steps.    For all of these reasons, Tasks in SAS Studio on SAS Viya 4 will reach end-of life (EOL) in 2024.12 stable release and 2025.03 LTS release*.    *Subject to Change     Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.     Frequently Asked Questions   What is a Task? Tasks are point-and-click user interfaces designed to guide users through analytical processes.     What is a Custom Step? A custom step in SAS Studio on SAS Viya allows you to create a user interface to automatically update and run SAS code, enabling users to perform specific tasks efficiently. For more information, please see this SAS Viya Quick Start video on Creating Custom Steps by @StaceySyphus.     What’s the difference between a Task and a Custom Step? The primary difference is the underlying technology used. Tasks use XML-based task model whilst Custom steps use a flexible JSON-based model for custom transformations.   Another significant difference is the use of a Visual Designer for creating Custom steps in SAS Studio Analyst and SAS Studio Engineer, allowing you to create a Custom step with knowledge of SAS programming, including macros.     For enhanced functionality, you can also integrate Python code in your custom step.   Last but not least, Custom steps can be used in flows and standalone mode, whilst Tasks can only be used in standalone mode.     What will happen to the Tasks currently provided with SAS Studio? By the time Tasks reach EOL, most SAS-provided Tasks will be converted into SAS Studio steps and will be accessible in the Steps pane under their respective categories. Conversion of the remaining Tasks to SAS Studio steps will continue post-EOL. Currently, these steps can be used in Flows, but not in standalone mode. Step availability depends on your licence, please see this link for more information Summary of Flow Functionality.     What about my User-Created Task? After Tasks reach EOL, you will still be able to see your Tasks in the navigation pane. Upon opening, a message detailing that Tasks are no longer a feature available in SAS Studio and will suggest converting your existing Task to a step using the conversion tool. For more information, please see the SAS Help Centre | Convert Your SAS Studio Tasks to Custom Steps.     Where has the Task section in the navigation pane of SAS Studio gone? In version 2024.07, the Task section of the navigation pane will not be shown by default. To access the Tasks pane (until Tasks are EOL) select View   Navigation panes  Tasks.      Closing SAS Viya is updated continuously, with monthly releases that provide the latest bug fixes, security patches, and software enhancements. These updates are known as stable releases. Additionally, the long-term support (LTS) release is issued semi-annually, consolidating features, enhancements, bug fixes, and security patches from the stable releases. To stay current with recent updates for your version, please review the Summary of Flow Functionality and a Summary of Custom Steps Functionality.   Acknowledgments Special thanks to the SAS Studio Product Manager, @Alexey_Vodilin ,  for editing, contributions, and valuable suggestions for improving this article. Also special thanks to @StaceySyphus for the brilliant SAS Viya Quick Start videos and ongoing support.     If you are interested in learning more about Custom Steps in SAS Studio, the SAS Studio Learning Subscription contains the course Developing Custom Steps with SAS Studio Analyst.      Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

SAS® Studio is a web-based application revolutionizing SAS interaction. Accessible anytime, anywhere, on any device, it offers easy data exploration, streamlined data transformation, analysis, and visualization through predefined steps, simplifying complex tasks for all.   We've prioritized user experience when designing the SAS Studio interface, ensuring it enhances productivity and satisfaction. This article highlights some productivity features (in no particular order), with many more integrated into the user interface.    Introducing SAS Studio   If you are new to SAS Studio, watch this video that explores the SAS Viya platform and introduces the SAS Studio application and its features.      Productivity Features   Below are some of the many features that enhance productivity!    1. The Start Page   2. My Favourites   3. Document Recovery Window   4. Background Submit   5. Submission Status   6. Easily access Keyboard Shortcuts   7. Optimizing Screen Real Estate   8. Moving Horizontally   9. Creating a Program Summary   10. Scheduled Jobs   1. The Start Page   The Start Page is available as soon as you sign in to SAS Studio, and enables quick initiation of SAS tasks including starting a new SAS program, building a flow, importing data, or creating a query. You can also access recently opened and saved items and items that you mark as favourites. These items can be:   opened from the list by either double-clicking the item or by right-clicking the item and selecting Open  added by right-clicking an item in the Explorer section of the navigation pane and selecting Add to My Favorites removed from your My Favorites by right-clicking on an item in the Explorer section of the navigation pane and selecting Remove from My Favorites cleared by right-clicking on the list and selecting Clear or Clear all    Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   2. My Favorites   Speaking of favorites...    When you add or remove files to My Favorites, as above, they are also added to the My Favorites folder in the Explorer section of the navigation pane.  This folder accommodates a variety of file types, including SAS data sets, other data files, programs, flows, snippets, tasks, and queries, allowing for streamlined organization and accessibility.      3. Document Recovery Window   By default, SAS Studio automatically saves open files, such as SAS programs, flows, queries and tasks in the event of a timeout or unexpected closure. The Document Recovery window enables you to administer these saved files.  To view the Document Recover window, click View > Document recovery or click Recover in the lower right corner of your SAS Studio browser window.    For each file in the Document Recovery window, you can choose from the following actions:   No action - retails the file in the list of recovered documents. The file continues to be available from the Document Recovery window until you recover it or delete it.  Recover - opens the file in a new tab in the work area. The file is deleted from the list of recovered documents.  Delete - deletes the files from the list of recovered documents.    You can also recover or delete all of the documents by clicking Recover All or Delete All.      When you have chosen your action you can select:   Apply and Close - applies the selected actions to the files and closes the Document Recovery window. Apply - applies the selected actions to the files, but does not close the Document Recovery window. Close - closes the Document Recovery window without applying any actions to the files. The files are still available the next time you open the Document Recovery window.   The default interval for saving open files is 30 seconds, this can be amended by selecting Options > Preferences. You can also clear the check mark so no document recovery occurs.      4. Background Submit   The background submit feature enables you to run saved flows, tasks, and SAS programs in the background while you continue to use SAS Studio. Simply, right-click a file in the Explorer section of the navigation pane and select Background Submit or click   on the flow or SAS program toolbar.      Points to note:   By default, a notification message is displayed when the file is submitted and again when the file has finished running. If you sign out of SAS Studio while the file is running, the file continues to run, but the notification message that indicates when the file is finished is not displayed. To view the submission status, on the main SAS Studio toolbar, select View > Submission Status. The submission is listed with the Background submit icon. If you have previously submitted items, they will appear in the Submission Status list. Once the execution is complete, a green check mark appears next to the file name to indicate success. Because a background submission uses a separate SAS Compute Server, any libraries or tables that are created by the submission do not appear in the Libraries section of the navigation pane in SAS Studio or as an output data tab. To save tables, ensure that they are output to a permanent location and assign a libref using your current Compute Server to view them.   5. Submission Status   The Submission Status window catalogues each submission of a program, task, query, or flow during this session of SAS Studio. To view the list, simply go to View > Submission Status or click Submission in the bottom right corner. Selecting an entry opens it in a new tab, along with the log-  ideal for reviewing and editing earlier versions of programs, tasks, queries, or flows.    Note:   When your SAS Studio session ends, all items from the Submission Status window are removed except for background submissions. You must manually clear background submission items to remove them from the Submission Status window. The code that is opened from the Submission Status window is a copy of the code that SAS Studio executed and is no longer associated with the original program, task, query, or flow. Editing this code does not affect the original program, task, query, or flow.     Items displayed in the Submission Status window can be customised in several ways:   Use the Filter pane to subset the displayed items by submission status. Use the Filter submissions list box to specify filter criteria for the Name column. To remove an individual item from the submission list, right-click the item and select Clear. To remove all items from the submission list, click Clear All on the Submission Status window toolbar. Items that are in the process of being submitted are not cleared from the list.   6. Keyboard Shortcuts   Do you prefer to use your keyboard over your mouse? Press F3 to run you flow or program? Ever wondered what other keyboard shortcuts are available?  SAS Studio offers a plethora of keyboard shortcuts. To find out what shortcuts are available, click   (Keyboard shortcuts) in the lower right of the application. My favourite -for flows- is using Alt+P to create a new flow and my favourite for programming is using Ctrl+/ to comment out lines of code Ctrl +\ to comment out a block of code (as per gif below).     You can also change the keyboard shortcuts by selecting Manage keyboard shortcuts from the Keyboard Shortcuts pane or by selecting Options on the SAS Studio toolbar and selecting Manage keyboard shortcuts.   7. Optimizing Screen Real Estate   Screen real estate can sometimes be quite a luxury, depending on the size of your monitor. Utilizing full-screen mode in an application enhances concentration and efficiency by maximizing available screen space, thereby reducing distractions and facilitating clear visibility and seamless interaction with content.   In SAS Studio, there are numerous methods to optimize your screen real estate, including:   Alt+P or View>Full screen to 'hide' the navigation pan and the SAS Studio toolbar.      << Hide Pane will hide the navigation pane. You can also click the same icon to hide and unhide the navigation pane, for example, below, click   (Explorer) to hide the navigation pane. Click  (Explorer) again to unhide.     Click _ (Minimize preview),   (Restore preview) or   ( Maximise preview) screens     8. Moving horizontally   Using the horizontal scroll in SAS Studio enables efficient navigation through wide datasets or code lines while maintaining optimal screen space. You can simply scroll using the mouse or use shift + mouse scroll down button when the mouse cursor is on the horizontal bar to move the horizontal bar to the right (see both actions in the gif below).     9. Creating a Program Summary   Hate creating documentation for your code? Take a look at the Program Summary! After submitting code (written or code generated automatically during execution), select More Options> Open in a browser tab> Summary. The Program Summary page is an HTML file that opens in a separate browser tab, providing details on program execution, the full source code, the complete log, and the results.      10. Scheduled Jobs   You can use the SAS Studio scheduling feature to schedule saved items, including programs, tasks, queries, and flows, to run at a specified time and frequency. When scheduling or deploying a SAS Studio flow, a SAS Viya job request is created that includes a SAS Viya job definition. The SAS Viya job request specifies how the job should be run and the SAS Viya job definition provides what should be run (in other words, a snapshot of the generated code and any other information required for the code to execute successfully).   Right-click the item in the Explorer section of the navigation pane and select Schedule as a job. In the New Trigger window, specify how frequently to run the job. You can also specify the time at which the job should run and the start date and the end date for running the job. Click Save. You can use the Deployed and Scheduled Jobs window to view and manage your scheduled jobs.     Here are some points to note:   When a job is running, you cannot cancel it. The job runs to completion. After the job is scheduled or deployed, any changes made to the SAS Studio flow can be incorporated into the job by redeploying the job. The SAS Studio scheduling feature provides basic scheduling functionality for a single user. Administrators can access more advanced scheduling options by using SAS Environment Manager.   Summary   These are just a few of the powerful productivity features available in SAS Studio on the SAS Viya platform. Is your go-to feature mentioned here? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and stay tuned – your favorite feature could be the star of our next post!   Acknowledgements Thanks go to the SAS Studio Product Manager, @Alexey_Vodilin  for editing, contributions and valuable suggestions for improvements of this article.   Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

From Zero to SAS: Using SAS Studio to Summarize and Manipulate Your Data Q&A, Slides, and On-Demand Recording   Watch this Ask the Expert session to learn how to point and click your way to summarizing and manipulating data with SAS Studio before analysis.    Watch the webinar     You will learn about: The features of various versions of SAS Studio. Using Tasks and Steps in SAS Studio to manipulate and summarise data.   The questions from the Q&A segment held at the end of the webinar are listed below and the slides from the webinar are attached.   Q&A Answered Where does SAS Enterprise 8.3 belong? Enterprise Guide 8.3 is a different application than SAS Studio. Although, it can also be used to write and develop SAS code and use point-and-click functionality to generate code. Enterprise Guide is a Windows application, while SAS Studio is browser-based.     Can you save an autoexecute file in SAS Studio on SAS 9? Yes, there is the ability to create and save an autoexec file in all versions of SAS Studio. In SAS Studio on SAS 9, it's under the More Application Options menu in the upper right corner. SAS Studio 3.8 - Editing the Autoexec File   In SAS Studio on SAS Viya, access the autoexec using the Options button on the Application menu. You can add to that, or you can copy and paste it and put it into another SAS program. SAS Studio 2024.x -  Editing the Autoexec File     How do I get dark theme in SAS Studio? There isn't currently an option to view in dark theme in SAS Studio 3.8.   For SAS Viya 2024.x User icon (top right of the application bar) > Settings> General> Choose a theme drop-down menu.     What is the best browser to run SAS studio on SAS 9? SAS Studio supports multiple web browsers, including Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Mozilla Firefox. Some releases of SAS Studio also support Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. I personally use Chrome. Here is a link to the documentation for more information: https://support.sas.com/software/products/sas-studio/faq/SASStudio_browsers.htm#:~:text=SAS%20Studio%20supports%20multiple%20web,Internet%20Explorer%20and%20Microsoft%20Edge.     Can you show how you linked them at the end again? You can click on the output port (on the right side) of one node and drag to the input port (on the left side) of another node.     Did you say there is a free SAS Studio version online? If yes, how can I access it? Yes! Here's the link to SAS On-Demand for Academics, which is free access to SAS Studio 3.8 on SAS 9. It is available for anyone learning SAS, whether you are an official student or not: https://www.sas.com/en_us/software/on-demand-for-academics.html If you want to try SAS Studio on SAS Viya, then here is a link to the 14-day free trial: https://www.sas.com/en_us/trials/software/viya/viya-trial-form.html   If you are a student with a university email you can access SAS Viya for Learners. Here is the link for SAS® Viya for Learners     What is SAS Studio? What’s different from other SAS interfaces? We have lots of different applications in SAS and they're all designed to do something slightly different. The applications used for writing and submitting SAS code are mainly Base SAS (also called the Windowing environment, or the Display Manager), SAS Studio, and SAS Enterprise Guide. But the application that's generally compared to SAS Studio is SAS Enterprise Guide. They both have the point-and-click interface and they both can write and submit code. The biggest difference between the two is the fact that you can use SAS Studio on a web browser, whereas SAS Enterprise Guide is a Microsoft Windows application. But they are generally quite similar.     You seem to have a lot more options in the SAS Steps section. Is it because I'm running another version of SAS Studio Analyst (2022.09)? Yes, that's definitely the case. We have added a lot more steps since that version. And we continue to add more with each release. This link takes you to the most up-to-date documentation on flow functionality, including the steps available. Use the version drop-down menu to select your version of the software.     Do you have a list of best practices when using SAS Studio Visual Programming? Please see this SAS Communities post for more information on the Visual Programming perspective. SAS Studio 3.8 Visual Programming     Is it possible to import process flows from EG? When you open a SAS Enterprise Guide project in SAS Studio 3.8, the process flows in the project are extracted and converted to process flows in SAS Studio. For more information here -  Converting SAS Enterprise Guide Projects to SAS Studio Process Flows   For SAS Studio 2024.x, you would need to migrate the Enterprise Guide project. SAS Studio will endeavour to translate the tasks used in SAS Enterprise Guide into steps in SAS Studio. You want to make sure that SAS Studio has migrated the flow correctly. For more information Tips for SAS Enterprise Guide Users     Where is the SQL displayed and saved? And how many kinds of joins are in the dropdown list? In SAS Studio 3.8 With the Code/Results view active in the Query task, select Edit to create a copy of the code in a new SAS program. Please note, the code is no longer connected to the task and vice versa.       There are 4 types of joins; inner, left, right and full join.       SAS Studio 2024.x When using a Query step in a flow you can review/copy the generated code (as per picture below). This is for the whole flow.   When using a standalone query you can Edit the code, as per below screenshot.   There are currently 4 types of joins; inner, left, right and full join. Always check the most up-to-date documentation.     Can it handle large datasets with millions of records (>20 GB size)? Yes, but performance always depends on the size of the SAS server provisioned behind the scenes.     Will the drag and drop join work, if the target columns from different tables are not named the same, or not formatted the same? For example, Country $20 vs. CTRY $2 Tables can be joined based on columns with different names. SAS automatically matches columns with the same name and type for the join. If no matches are found, a manual join can be performed.     Can it convert existing SAS code into a process flow? Yes, you can convert existing SAS code into a flow in SAS Studio 2024.x. When the SAS program has been saved, either right-click on the .sas program using the Explorer section of the navigation pane and select Create flow from program or open the flow, click More Options (3 dots in the right of the program window) and select Create flow from program. Follow the instructions.     Do we have Chi-square testing functionality in the versions you demonstrated here? Yes, you can achieve Chi-square testing functionality by using the One-Way Frequencies Task/Step. SAS Studio 3.8 – One-Way Frequencies Task: Setting Options SAS Studio 2024.x - One-Way Frequencies     I am a little confused as to the purpose of the City table in the process flow window. Can you explain? The CityState column in the Employeesales SAS table contains the City and State. The demo extracted the state from the CityState column and created a new column called State, that only contained the last word (after the comma).     Do we have a similar webinar/training for SAS EG? We do have lots of training for SAS Enterprise Guide. https://learn.sas.com/enterprise_guide Ask the Expert- SAS Enterprise Guide     Currently, we cannot connect to Unix and Local in EG, is that possible to do in Studio? Not sure if this is our enterprise limitation or not. I would have to know a little bit more about what's going on in the set up. My advice would be to reach out to Technical Support and ask them to help if you're having any issues like that.     How do I export tables loaded in memory to local in SAS Viya? You can use the PROC CASUTIL step with the SAVE statement to save an in-memory table to a variety of different file types (SASHDAT, SAS7BDAT, XLSX, CSV and others). Once the file is saved to disk, you can use the Explorer in SAS Studio to navigate to the file on your SAS Server, then right-click and select Download to download a copy to your local machine.     When you create flows by migrating multiple Data Integration Studio jobs, does it place the flow nodes? And does each node become its own node of code or is the migration tool smart enough to see the same node being used over and over and create just one reused node? Please see Tips for SAS Data Integration Studio Users for information on migrating DI Studio jobs.     Recommended Resources Many of the resources on this page are for SAS Studio 3.8 Whilst many resources on this page are for SAS Studio on SAS Viya (2024.x)   SAS Studio, SAS Studio Analyst & SAS Studio Engineer- oh my! General Feature Comparison among SAS Studio Releases What Is the Difference between SAS Studio Tasks and Custom Steps?   SAS OnDemand for Academics Getting Started with SAS Studio - Youtube Getting Started with SAS Studio - Tutorial Overview of SAS Studio Tasks 5.2  (use the version drop-down menu to select your SAS studio version) Understanding Tasks in SAS Studio 5.2 (use the version drop-down menu to select your SAS studio version)       Want more tips? Be sure to subscribe to the Ask the Expert board to receive follow up Q&A, slides and recordings from other SAS Ask the Expert webinars. ... View more

Discover SAS® Studio -an innovative web application that transforms the way you engage with SAS. Seamlessly accessible through your web browser so, you can access SAS at any time, from anywhere on any device. Dive into data files and libraries with unparalleled ease and effortlessly create data pipelines for data transformation, analysis and visualizations using a variety of predefined steps, simplifying complex operations for everyone.   With multiple releases available, this article highlights features of SAS Studio that can boost your productivity and enable you to achieve more in less time! What will your favourite feature be?   SAS Studio releases   SAS Studio was initially released in March 2014 on SAS 9. Since then, versions have been released for SAS Viya that include updates and enhancements, to address user feedback, incorporate new technologies, and improve overall performance.   SAS Studio 3.8 on SAS 9 SAS Studio 3.8* (SAS 9) empowers users to write SAS code seamlessly through a browser and serves as the foundation for SAS On-Demand for Academics- our free learning software. Enhance coding efficiency and productivity by using code snippets, tasks, standalone queries, and basic flows ( via the visual programmer mode) to generate SAS code.         SAS Studio 5.2 on the SAS Viya Platform SAS Studio 5.2* (SAS Viya Platform) can also be used anytime to write and generate SAS code and is the foundation for SAS Analytics Pro.   This version has undergone a redesign and omits flows yet retains valuable features such as code snippets, tasks, standalone queries and GIT integration.   Noteworthy distinctions between the SAS Viya and SAS Analytics Pro versions exist; the SAS Analytics Pro version depicted here does not incorporate background submit functionality, scheduling, or SAS Viya Jobs but SAS Analytics Pro does support proc python. For more information see General Feature Comparison among SAS Studio Releases.       *SAS Studio 3.x and SAS Studio 5.x  are not slated to receive any additional features. All new advancements and features will be available in SAS Studio 2024.x.     SAS Studio Basic on the SAS Viya Platform (2022.x,2023.x,2024.x) SAS Studio Basic serves as the entry-level product, offering foundational features. It enhances productivity by enabling users to create data pipelines using, standalone queries, and predefined steps and flows. A SAS Studio Flow uses steps to provide a visual sequence of operations on data. When added to a flow, the step becomes a node and can be connected to specify the order of execution. The output of one node is often the input to another node.   SAS Studio is shipped with many predefined steps, depending on your SAS Studio license (SAS Studio Basic, SAS Studio Analyst or SAS Studio Engineer).   SAS Studio Basic also includes Git and Python integration.     SAS Studio Analyst on the SAS Viya Platform (2022.x,2023.x,2024.x) SAS Studio Analyst includes the SAS Studio Basic product functionality plus some additional features for analysts, including analytical and reporting steps and a custom step visual designer! This amazing feature enables you to create a user interface to facilitate customization of SAS code that is routinely submitted by you or other SAS Studio users.       SAS Studio Engineer on the SAS Viya Platform (2022.x,2023.x,2024.x) SAS Studio Engineer includes all of the functionality of SAS Studio Analyst and additional data engineering steps, specifically data quality steps and data integration steps like slowly changing dimensions. These steps have been designed to work with a variety of databases.    In addition SAS Studio Engineer includes the Execute Decisions step which seamlessly integrates with our Intelligent Decisioning product, facilitating the execution of decision flows within your data pipeline. This enables a cohesive connection between data preparation and insights.         Learning More   Would you like to learn more about the different versions of SAS Studio? Take a look at the table below for a sample of useful videos, courses and documentation available.   Already have SAS Studio? Which release/version do you have?   To view the release information for SAS Studio:   On SAS 9, click (Help) and select About SAS Studio. On SAS Viya, click User Name, to the top right of the screen on the application bar, and select About.     SAS Studio 3.8 SAS® Analytics Pro (SAS Studio 5.2) SAS Studio Basic SAS Studio Analyst SAS Studio Engineer Video Getting Started with SAS Studio   Getting Started with SAS Studio on SAS Viya Video Writing a Basic SAS Program Develop Code with SAS Studio ** Video   Use Python Code in SAS Studio Video Working in SAS Studio     Build Flows with SAS Studio Video       Create Custom Steps with SAS Studio Repository     SAS Studio Custom Steps Repository Video           Data Integration with the Merge Table Step Course Exploring SAS® Studio for SAS® Programmers Exploring SAS® Studio for SAS® Analytics Pro   Building SAS® Studio Flows in SAS® Viya® Course   Writing a Custom Task for SAS® Studio     Developing Custom Steps with SAS® Studio Analyst Course       Using SAS® Studio Flows and Custom Steps in SAS® Viya®- Fast Track   Course         Using SAS® Studio Engineer Steps in SAS® Studio Flows Documentation     Summary of Flow Functionality Documentation     Summary of Custom Steps Functionality   **Designed for 2022.x, 2023.x & 2024.x and predominantly accurate for SAS Analytics Pro and SAS Viya 5.2  (see General Feature Comparison among SAS Studio Releases for more information on differences)   Summary   SAS Viya is continuously evolving and updating to include even more amazing features and enhancements! You can use this link General Feature Comparison among SAS Studio Releases for the most recent information on SAS Studio feature comparison.       With multiple releases at your disposal, which release contains your favourite feature? My favourite feature has to be custom steps in SAS Viya. You can use the point-and-click visual designer to build an intuitive user interface that will update SAS code when submitted- without even seeing the code!   Let me know what your favourite feature is!   Acknowledgements   Thanks go to the SAS Studio Product Manager, @Alexey_Vodilin  for editing, contributions and valuable suggestions for improvements of this article.       Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

In my previous post, SAS Studio Custom Steps: Reduce, Reuse & Recycle Part I, we discussed how you can reduce setup and configuration time when creating custom steps by reusing the controls in the Sample Controls custom step. Following on from that post, we will now discuss how to recycle custom steps using the SAS Studio Custom Step Repository.   Reuse & Recycle   SAS Studio custom steps are a great way to promote code reusability. Once developed, they can be used by other SAS Studio users.   This video reviews the SAS Studio custom step repository in GitHub where you and other SAS users can publish, share and download custom steps. We will download a single step, upload it into SAS Studio and use it as a standalone step.       Want to try it for yourself? Here are the instructions.   View and Investigate the SAS Custom Step Repository   To view the SAS custom step repository, go to github.com/sassoftware/sas-studio-custom-steps. Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page. The repository contains several custom steps, including steps representing advanced data transformations. We recommend checking the built-in SAS Studio steps and the SAS Studio custom steps repository before creating your own custom step, just in case a step already exists that’s the same or similar to your requirements. Scroll down to the Getting Started section. Click the link labelled Using a Custom Step from the GitHub repository in SAS Studio for the most up-to-date instructions on downloading custom steps from this repository and making them available for use in your SAS Studio environment.    You can download the complete repository or a single file step.   Click the link labelled sas-studio-custom-steps, in the breadcrumbs at the top of the page, to return to the home page. You are encouraged to participate and contribute to the repository. Scroll down and click the link labelled CONTRIBUTING.md to review how you can contribute your own custom steps!   Downloading a Single Step   If necessary, click the link labelled sas-studio-custom-steps to return to the home page in the GitHub repository. Click Lookup to open the folder containing the Lookup step and instructions. The Lookup custom step will add a column to a table by performing a lookup on another table using hash objects. Please be aware that custom steps in the repository are hosted by SAS but contributed to by the global SAS community. This means that they are not guaranteed to be backwards compatible, so it’s advisable to view any requirements, version dates, or both. The Lookup step does not have any requirements. Click the Lookup.step link. Click   to download the step to the Downloads folder.   Uploading a Single Step   Now we can upload the custom step in SAS Studio. Log into SAS Studio on SAS Viya. If necessary, click   in the navigation pane, on the left. To make SAS custom steps available in the Shared tab of the Steps section in the navigation pane, we need to save it in SAS Content.  Expand SAS Content. To make it available to other users, it needs to be saved in a folder that has the restrictions/permission you require. I only have My Folder available to me in my SAS Viya environment which means that, when the custom step is saved, myself and administrators will see it in the Shared tab of the Steps section in the navigation pane but no one else will. Expand Folder Shortcuts and Shortcut to My Folder. Select   to upload the file. Click Add and navigate to the Downloads. Select Lookup.step and click Open. Click Upload to upload the custom step to your folder.   Using a Custom Step in the SAS Studio Workspace   Now I can use the custom step in a tab in the SAS Studio workspace, often referred to as standalone. Of course, you can also use this step in a flow if that suits your requirements. We will use the GEOEXM data table from the SASHELP library. This data table contains street addresses from North Carolina. We will use the ZIP Code as the lookup key to return the variable that contains the County name from the ZIPCODE data table, also from the SASHELP library.   Click   in the navigation pane to access the Steps section. Select the Shared tab and right-click Lookup and select Open in a tab. Click   at the end of the prompt labelled Base table. Click SASHELP, select GEOEXM, and click OK. On the prompt labelled Columns to keep, click . Select Name, City, and ZIP and click OK. Click   at the end of the prompt labelled Lookup table. Click SASHELP, select ZIPCODE, and click OK. On the prompt labelled Lookup Key Column(s), click   and select ZIP and then OK. Click   on the prompt labelled Return Column and select COUNTYNM and click OK. Leave the prompt labelled Value to use when lookup does not return values. At the end of the prompt labelled Result Table, click  . Click WORK, enter NC, for North Carolina, in the Table field, and click OK. Click Submit Custom Step to run the custom step.   The output data table named NC appears to the right of the custom step and contains 21259 rows and 4 columns. The last column, named COUNTYNM, contains the column returned from the lookup.       Summary   There are so many valuable assets available regarding SAS Custom Steps for SAS Studio! During this post we downloaded one step, take a look here for advice on uploading all steps from the SAS Studio Custom Step Repository.   To summarize:   For custom steps to be available in the Shared tab of the Steps section in the navigation pane they must be saved in SAS Content. To make them available to other store custom steps in a folder with the necessary permissions. Before embarking on creating custom steps, check the SAS provided steps and the SAS Studio Custom Step Repository in case a similar step to your requirements already exists. Share your finished custom step with other SAS Studio users by adding it to the SAS Studio Custom Step Repository. Learn more about SAS Custom Steps by attending the Developing Custom Steps using SAS Studio Analyst course.   Useful Links:   SAS Studio Custom Step Repository (GITHUB) Uploading all Custom Steps from the SAS Software GitHub repository to SAS Viya How to Download a Custom Step from the SAS GitHub Repository     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... View more

Step into the future of data management! With the recent release of SAS Viya (2023.12), the Manage Columns step has undergone a major upgrade, catapulting its functionality to a new level. From the ability to modify column data types, lengths, informats, and formats to creating entirely new columns, the possibilities have expanded significantly. Moreover, the option to output a view instead of a table adds a new layer of flexibility to your workflow. The upgraded Manage Columns step isn't just about features - it's a game-changer for migration from DI Studio to SAS Studio too.   The Manage Columns step is available in SAS Studio Basic, SAS Studio Analyst, and SAS Studio Engineer. These licenses also include the Query step, which encompasses functionality similar to the Manage Columns step, with the exception that the Manage Columns step allows for input and output CAS tables—a feature currently not available in the Query step.   Let’s demonstrate the enhanced features of the Manage Columns step by using a SAS table as input and a view as output, briefly assess the generated code and then compare it with code generated using CAS tables.   Enhanced functionalities   To create a new flow, use the SAS Studio toolbar and select New > Flow Add the CARS SAS table to the new flow by clicking   (Libraries) in the navigation pane and expanding SASHELP. Right-click the CARS table and select Add to flow. Alternatively, you can drag the CARS table onto the flow canvas. Click   (Steps) in the navigation pane and, if necessary, expand Transform Data. Drag the Manage Columns step onto the CARS Table node until the mouse tool-tip changes to Connect to output port. The node details show the options for the Manage Columns node when selected. Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   Click  (Maximize preview) on the node details to focus only on the node details In the Filter text field of the Available Columns pane, enter M. Double-click the Make and MSRP columns to add them to the Select tab. Add a label to the MSRP row of Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price ($). Click  (Change Format) in the MSRP row and expand Numeric. Select COMMA, and assign an overall width of 8. Click OK. Click   (Clear filter text) in the Filter field to return to the full list of columns in the Available Columns pane. Double-click the Invoice column to add it to the canvas.  Alternatively, right-click Invoice and choose Add. Add a label to the Invoice row of Invoice ($). Click  (Change Format) in the Invoice row and expand Numeric. Select COMMA, and assign an overall width of 8. Click OK. Click New Column. The Edit Expression window appears. Here you can add data and functions to the expression box to create new columns. In the expression box, enter 1-(. Notice the close bracket is also included. Use the Data tab on the left and double-click Invoice. Enter / and double-click MSRP. Enter Discount in the Column name text field and Discount (%) in the Column label. Use the drop-down box for Type and choose Numeric. Click  (Change Format) for the Format field and expand Numeric. In the  Filter field enter per. The formats beginning with per are filtered. Select PERCENT and click OK. Click Save. The new column has been added to the list of columns to output. The order of the columns can be modified by selecting the columns and using the Move columns drop-down. I will leave them as is. Click  (Restore preview) to return the focus to the flow and node details. Select the output node of the Manage Columns node. Alternatively, you can add a Table step to the output node of the Manage Columns node. Select the Create a view radio button. Click  (Run entire flow). If necessary, click the output node of the Manage Columns node and select Preview Data. The view appears in the node details, with 4 columns and an unknown number of table rows. The view is a definition of a virtual data set. It contains the information required to access the data values and is stored separately from the data values. Click Submitted Code and Results and scroll to line 158 (approximately). Notice the code generated is a Proc SQL.   Using CAS Tables.   Let’s substitute the input and output options with CAS tables. For demonstration purposes, I have simply uploaded the CARS table to the CASUSER CAS library using the following code:   cas; caslib _all_ assign; proc casutil; load data=sashelp.cars outcaslib="casuser" casout="cars"; run;   Click Flow to return to the Flow. Select the CARS table node and click  (Library) in the Table node details. Double-click CASUSER and select CARS. Click OK. Right-click the output port of the Manage Columns node and select Add a table. In the Table node details, click   (Library), double-click CASUSER, and name the table cars_discount. Click OK. Note the change in the Table node icon. Click  (Run entire flow). If necessary, click the cars_discount node and select Preview Data. The cars_discount table contains 428 rows and 4 columns. This table can now be used by other SAS Viya applications. Click Submitted Code and Results and scroll to line 152 (approximately). Notice the code generated is now a Data step.   Summary   To summarise: The enhanced features of the Manage Columns step empower you to effortlessly navigate, customize, and organize your columns with precision. The Manage Columns step supports CAS input and output tables. In cases where both input and output tables are in CAS format, the step will automatically generate DATA STEP code, as PROC SQL lacks support for scenarios where both input and output tables are in CAS.   Other notes: Reducing output column lengths in the Manage Columns step may result in truncated values. The generated log will include a SAS note indicating the truncated target columns. The icon of a Manage Columns step enables you to ascertain, at a glance, the purpose of the node. However, for broader data manipulation requirements on SAS tables, the Query step is recommended.   Here are some other methods of managing columns in SAS Studio on the SAS Viya Platform.     Manage Columns Step Query Step Stand-alone Query Table Viewer Select and Order Output Columns ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔       Modify Output Column Names ✔ ✔ ✔         Modify Output Column Labels ✔ ✔ ✔         Modify Output Length ✔ ✔ ✔         Modify Output Informat ✔ ✔ ✔         Modify Output Format ✔ ✔ ✔   Group Rows   ✔ ✔   Filter Groups   ✔ ✔   Join Tables   ✔ ✔   Filter Rows   ✔ ✔ ✔ Sort Rows   ✔ ✔ ✔       Remove Duplicate Rows   ✔ ✔ ✔       Remove Duplicates by Sort Columns       visible columns only Calculate Columns ✔ ✔ ✔   Create a View ✔ ✔ ✔   Create a SAS Table ✔ ✔ ✔   Create a Report     ✔       Reference   Thanks go to @ChrisLysholm of SAS R&D for editing, contributions and valuable suggestions for improvements of this article.     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here. ... 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In my previous post, Explaining Custom Steps using Studio Assets, we used a template to create a custom step and examined the components to get a high-level overview of what is needed to build a custom step. During this post, we will discuss how you can reduce setup and configuration time when creating custom steps by reusing the controls in the Sample Controls custom step. Watch out for my next post where we will discuss how to recycle custom steps using the SAS Studio Custom Step Repository.   Investigating Controls   The Sample Controls custom step is a fabulous asset for exploring and reusing controls for your own custom steps. Before we consider how to reduce the setup and configuration time, let’s use the Sample Controls custom step to investigate what some of the controls do.   Click   in the navigation pane to access the Steps section. On the Steps toolbar click   and select Sample Controls. Each custom step must have a minimum of one page. The Sample Controls custom step has 4 different pages. This can be seen in the topmost section of the Control Library. We will review some of the controls in the Data and Control pages. By default, the first page, Data, is selected. Looking at the properties of the page control, we can see there are two options available, ID and Label. Both have a red asterisk which indicates that they are required.   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: If you do not see this image, scroll to the bottom of the page and select the "Full" version of this post.   Let’s look at some of the other controls in the Data page control. The control labelled Input data control is a section control. Section controls can be expanded and collapsed to show and hide controls and are a great way of organizing your controls on a page. The Section control has similar properties available to the Page control. ID and Label are, again, required and we have a check box to indicate the default state of the section. The Dependencies section enables us to show or hide prompts based on the values of another prompt (investigate the Dependencies tab for more information).     Click the text under the Section control to view the properties of the Text control. The Text control is used to provide instructional text for the end user. Again, the ID property is required – which is a common property throughout the different controls.     Click the next control which has a label of Select the course table. This is an Input Table control and enables the end user to select the input table when executing the step. Again, the ID property is required but there are other optional properties so you can customize the control exactly how you would like it.     Before we move on to the Controls page, I want to point out the Data section in the Control Library and how many of the other controls there are highlighted on the Data page. Feel free to review the instructional text to investigate the other controls.     What about the controls on the Controls page? Select Controls to see the properties for the Control page. The controls listed here are from the common control section in the Control Library. Let’s highlight a few: Expand the Check box control section and select the Check box control. This is used to choose between two opposite states, actions or values.     Expand the Date and time control section and select the control with the label Date. This is the Date and Time Picker control and enables the end user to choose- in this case- a Date from a calendar.     Expand the Numeric field controls and select the Numeric stepper control. You can use the numeric stepper to move through numbers at a specified increment by using the up and down arrows. You can state the default as well as minimum and maximum values.     I also want to highlight that you can test the controls using the Sample controls custom step. Click Preview to view the controls in the user interface as a new tab. On the Data page click   and choose SASHELP as the library and CARS as the table and click OK.   For Select a single column, click   and choose Make. Notice, the columns have been listed from SASHELP.CARS. Click OK.     Click the Controls tab and expand the Date and time control section. Click   on the Date control and choose any date.   Expand the Numeric field controls section and use the numeric stepper to choose 15 as the number.       Reduce and Reuse   So how can I reduce the initial setup and configuration time when using the Designer by reusing the controls within the Sample Controls custom step?   Return to the Sample Controls.step tab and select Controls, if necessary. Expand the Drop-down list control and right-click the control labelled Static drop-down list. You have the ability to move this control up, down, to another section, or to another page. You can also duplicate, delete, cut, copy, or paste the control. Select Copy.     Click New tab then select Custom step. Right-click on the workspace area, or canvas and select Paste. Select the control labelled Static drop-down list to view the properties that have been copied and pasted. You can then modify these properties if necessary!     Reduce and reuse!   Summary   There are so many valuable assets available when learning, using and creating SAS Custom Steps for SAS Studio.   To summarize:   Use the Sample Controls custom step to learn about controls, as well as see them in action! This is particularly useful when understanding dependencies. Copy and paste controls from the Sample Controls custom step to reduce setup and configuration time when creating your custom steps. Learn more about SAS Custom Steps by attending the Developing Custom Steps using SAS Studio Analyst course.     Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here.      ... View more

This blog enables you to demonstrate the fundamentals of custom steps using templates that are supplied with SAS Studio!   We’ll start by using a template to create a custom step and examine the components to get a high-level overview of what is needed. Then, we will explain how to use a custom step in a flow in SAS Studio or as stand-alone in SAS Studio.   This blog assumes you have a basic knowledge of building flows with SAS Studio flows. Knowledge of SAS Programming and the SAS Macro language is also necessary to create custom steps in SAS Studio, although not needed to use the templates.   What is a custom Step?   A custom step provides a user interface to enable customization of SAS code that is routinely performed by you or other SAS Studio users. It could be as simple as creating a user interface to select a date within a specified date range. Or you might not want to expose inexperienced coders to a complex program, but the program requires specific input parameters each time the code is submitted.   Explore a Custom Step Template   Let’s begin by creating a custom step using the templates available and explore some of the capabilities you’ll see when creating your own custom step.   I've already logged into SAS Studio. The starter template we will use, will create a simple custom step to rank one column from a SAS data table. The easiest method to create a custom step is to use the Designer tab, which is available in SAS Studio Analyst and SAS Studio Engineer.   Using the navigation pane, click the Steps icon. Using the Steps toolbar, click New and sample custom steps, select Starter templates, and select Basic – Rank. We are now editing a custom step.   3. The Designer tab is a visual interface to help you quickly build the JSON code for the prompt user interface. The Designer tab has three main components:   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   Controls can be added by dragging them from the extensive list in the Control Library to the workspace area, also referred to as the canvas.     The Properties pane is then used to modify the controls settings. For example, every custom step requires at least one Page control. Here the Page control ID is inPage and the label that the user will see is Rank Options. Both properties have an asterisk, which indicates they are required. You will soon see the ID  is especially important and is a common control property!     On the canvas, select the control labelled Select an input table to view the properties of the Input Table control, which has additional options compared to the Page control.   On the canvas, right-click the control labelled Select an input table. You can copy and paste any controls that already exist, which means you can bypass the initial setup and configuration when implementing your custom step. You can also move the controls up and down the canvas, move them to a different section or page, and delete them.     4. Whilst you are constructing your user interface using the Designer, the appropriate JSON code is added to the Prompt UI tab. Select the Prompt UI tab to view, and edit, the JSON code.     5. Select Program to view the SAS code that is executed when a custom step is run. Each control in the Designer tab generates one or more macro variables. The ID of each control is used to generate SAS macro variables that can be used in SAS code on the Program tab of the step. The values of these macro variables are generally derived from the user input at run time.   6. Click Preview to view the controls in the user interface as a new tab. You can add the options required in the preview to test your controls, however you cannot submit the code here. Please note the information alert that states “Input and output tables do not display in flows; they will display as ports”. We will see this in action when we use the custom step in a flow.     7. Click the Rank-Basic.step tab to return to edit the custom step tab. The vertical menu on the right side of the Designer, the custom step's Properties menu, provides access to attributes assigned to the custom step. These attributes include a summary of properties, port details, and prompt hierarchies.   8. Let’s save the custom step by clicking Save As and navigating to the Shortcut to My Folder. Confirm the custom step is named Rank-Basic and click Save. There you go! Now we have our custom step, saved from a template, let’s move on to look at the various methods of using the custom step in SAS Studio.   Using a Custom Step in SAS Studio. The first method is using the custom step in a flow. The second method is using a custom step in a tab in the SAS Studio workspace, also referred to as stand-alone. Both methods will create an output data table that includes ranked values of MSRP from the SASHELP.CARS table. Use a Custom Step in a Flow  1. On the SAS Studio toolbar, in the top left of the application, click New and select Flow.  2. If necessary, click Steps in the navigation pane and select Shared.  3. Right-click Rank-Basic and select Add to flow. 4. Now that the step has been added to the flow we refer to it as a node in the flow. When the node is selected, the node details appear under the flow canvas so that we can specify the attributes and content.   Notice there are no options to add the input and output tables and the Select a column to rank control is not yet available. We need to add the input table first. There are multiple methods of achieving this, I will go with simply add the SAS table from the libraries section of the navigation pane. Select Libraries in the navigation pane and expand SASHELP. Drag and drop the CARS table to the input port of the Rank-Basic custom step. Once the mouse tool tip says Connect to input port, you can drop the table. In the Table node details, notice the Library text field states SASHELP and the Table name text field states CARS.   5. Select the Rank – Basic node to return to the node and click Add columns on the Select a column to rank prompt. Click MSRP and select OK.   6. Check the Create a new column for the ranked column checkbox. 7. Click Run entire flow to submit the flow.   8. Select Submitted Code and Results and click Output Data (1) to view the output data.   Scroll to the right of the table and view the column named rank_MSRP that contains the ranking number. Notice the name of the output table includes a long string of random numbers and is not very memorable. 9. Let's direct the output data to a specific table and location.   Select the Flow.flw tab. Right-click the output port on the Rank - Basic node and select Add a table. In the node details on the Table Properties tab, type work in the Library field and RankData in the Table name field. Click Run entire flow to execute the flow. Select Submitted Code and Results, Output Data (1) and confirm the table name is RANKDATA.   Open a Custom Step in a Tab Let’s move on to the second method of using a custom step, which is opening directly in a tab.  1. If necessary, select Steps in the navigation pane and click Shared.  2. Right-click on Rank-Basic and select Open in a tab. This opens a stand-alone custom step as a tab in the SAS Studio workspace.   Stand-alone custom steps are session-based, so when you close the custom steps, any specified values are not saved. You can open the same custom step multiple times in the SAS Studio workspace and can provide different values for the controls to quickly compare the results. You may also have already noticed that the input and output table controls are visible when using the step as stand-alone but not when using the step in a flow.   3. Click Input data, select SASHELP, select CARS and click OK. 4. In the Select a column to rank prompt, click Add columns, select MSRP and click OK. 5. Click Output data, select WORK and type Rank in the Table field. Click OK. 6. Check the Create a new column for the ranked column checkbox. 7. Click Submit custom step.     8. Once the code is submitted, the results appear. Scroll to the right of the data table and review the rank_MSRP column.   9. Click Code panel and Log to review the log of the code that was submitted using the custom step. RANK has 428 observations and 16 variables.   SAS Studio custom steps are a great way to promote code reusability and include many more features. Look out for my next blog that shows how to access and explore other custom steps available!     ... View more

As of SAS Studio version 2022.12, there is a new generated macro variable in town!   Code development and maintenance is much simpler when using the Column Selector control as it now generates a macro variable that lists the columns selected, separated by a space.   When code is generated for a custom step, whether it’s used as stand-alone or in a flow, macro variable(s) are generated for each control in a step. The ID of each control is used to name the SAS macro variables that can be used in the SAS code for your custom step.   Prior to SAS Studio 2022.12 This custom step has been opened in a tab in the SAS Studio workspace, also referred to as stand-alone.   The Column selector control, the prompt labelled “Select columns to print”, enables users to select single or multiple columns when executing the custom step. In this case, the user has selected 4 columns to be printed. The generated macro variables for these values are named varList_1_name, varList_2_name, varList_3_name, varList_4_name.   Select any image to see a larger version. Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.   One strategy when selecting multiple columns involves iterative processing using the macro language %DO statement to list all of the columns selected, separated by a space, for example,      From SAS Studio 2022.12 and onwards From SAS Studio version 2022.12, you can use the new macro variable generated that simply lists all of the columns selected, separated by a space.   The macro variables generated previously (varList_n_name) are still generated so existing custom steps are not impacted but having one macro variable that lists the values makes coding much simpler to develop and maintain!   Summary If you have SAS Studio 2022.12 and onwards, use the generated macro variable that lists the columns selected in the Column Selector control for easier code development and maintenance!   From this: To this:     Happy Coding!   Check these articles for more information on custom steps: Viya 2020.1.5 (April 2021) – Introducing Custom Steps in SAS Studio Flow SAS Viya: Stand-Alone Custom Steps   ... View more

Hi There, The lovely Chris Hemedinger and Rick Wicklin created a graph to show the timelines of Base SAS and Enterprise Guide, I was wondering if there was anything similar for Enterprise Miner? Or at least if anyone had a list of dates and version releases that a graph could be made from? Many thanks in advance, apologies if it's a silly question! Gemma ... View more