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 This approach remains consistent for SAS Studio versions 3.x and 5.x. However, in SAS Studio 2024.x, Custom tasks are superseded by Custom steps.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

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

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