20-5-20 -> your "keypass" to the fast lane of analytics innovation, speed and self-service       Whether you are new to SAS Visual Analytics (VA) on SAS® Viya® or migrating from an older release, there are over 45 features when it comes to Analytics, Augmented or Automated Insights. The recorded webinar and follow-up material can be found -> here *** The live software demonstration portion of recording depicts a loan default risk use case utilizing many (if not most) of the capabilities outlined below. ***               Just as vehicle technology has evolved (e.g. Adaptive Cruise Control, Pre-Collision Throttle Management, Pre-Collision Braking, Lane Departure and Sway Warning, Multi-View Cameras, Hands-Free Driving, Remote Car Starter, etc.), when it comes to Analytics, Augmented or Automated Insights so too has SAS VA for SAS 9.4 to the latest Viya release.  Whether you’re a report builder (driver) or a report viewer (passenger), the latest Viya platform puts you in the fast lane of analytics innovation, speed and self-service.       20 Analytic Innovation features in SAS VA v7.5.x for SAS 9.4 (that are also in SAS Viya): - in no particular order -   Box Plots Correlation Matrix Related Measures Forecasting Network Analysis Path Analysis Text Topics Data Aggregations Auto-Charting Suggested Visuals Change Object/Visual Type after-the-fact Scatter Plots with Correlation/Fit Line Heat Map with Fit Line Histograms Decision Trees Visual Statistics - Cluster Visual Statistics - Generalized Linear Model Visual Statistics – Linear Regression Visual Statistics – Logistic Regression Visual Statistics – Model Comparison       5 of those existing Analytic Innovation features are greatly enhanced in SAS VA for Viya: - in no particular order -   Quick Calculations Data Aggregations – operators and functions Geo-spatial Analysis / Geomaps Options (in general) for Analytical visualizations Custom expression editor       20 Analytic Innovation features are brand new for SAS VA for Viya: - in no particular order -   Recommended Reports PII (Privacy) indicator Outlier indicator Report (Outlier) Insights Automated Explanation Automated Prediction Explain Data Parallel coordinates plot Report Review Visual Statistics - Generalized Additive Model Visual Statistics - Nonparametric Logistic Regression Machine Learning 1of6 - Bayesian Network Machine Learning 2of6 - Factorization machine Machine Learning 3of6 - Forest Machine Learning 4of6 - Gradient boosting Machine Learning 5of6 - Neural network Machine Learning 6of6 - Support vector machine Integration with Model Studio (and/or Model Manager) Analytical Templates Dream up your own customized Analytic Innovation with SAS Viya Jobs and/or Data Driven Content       BONUS Upcoming new Co-Pilot natural language interaction with SAS Visual Analytics. Be sure to watch the recording to see and learn about this exciting upcoming new feature !!!               The more Analytics you can add to your Reporting, Dashboarding, Visualizations or Storytelling, the more value you will get out of SAS Visual Analytics and the more Innovative you will be within your own organization.         ... View more

Watch this Ask the Expert session to learn how the new Viya platform puts you in the fast lane of analytics innovation, speed and self-service.   Watch the Webinar   You will:  Understand the practical benefits of migrating to or starting fresh with SAS Viya. See live demos of new features such as natural language generation, modern visualization and tighter AI/machine learning (ML) integration. Learn how SAS is investing in the future of visual analytics with cloud-first thinking, open integration and automation. See and learn about the upcoming new Co-Pilot natural language interaction with SAS Visual Analytics   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   How do you move/migrate existing SAS Visual Analytics report(s) from SAS 9.4 to Viya? https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/vacdc/v_033/vareports/n0ysrhs91sch41n1hxnnm5jpb2rp.htm   Can you integrate SAS Visual Analytics for Viya with Microsoft Office? Yes: https://communities.sas.com/t5/Ask-the-Expert/How-Does-SAS-Viya-Integrate-With-My-Favorite-Microsoft-Products/ta-p/914941   Ted mentioned SAS Studio briefly when talking about SAS Viya Jobs.  Are there other integration point(s) between SAS Studio for Viya and SAS Visual Analytics for Viya? Yes: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Take-the-Low-Code-No-Code-SAS-Studio-plunge/ta-p/794526   Does SAS VA’s mobile device support include the Analytical capabilities that Ted talked about and demonstrated as well? Yes: https://support.sas.com/en/software/visual-analytics-apps-support.html   Where can I go to learn more about SAS Visual Analytics? This course is free and available to all, https://learn.sas.com/course/view.php?id=6344   Where can I go to learn more about SAS Viya, not just Visual Analytics? This course is free and available to all, https://learn.sas.com/course/view.php?id=214   Can we give path to SAS datasets to pick data for visualization? What formats of data can be loaded? https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Simplifying-SAS-Viya-Part-3-Loading-Data-into-Memory-Using-SAS/ta-p/961151   Can we customize dashboards with Open Source (e.g. Python/R) code? The three “programmatic/coding” ways to integrate with SAS VA include: SAS Viya Jobs (built in SAS Studio and deployed within SAS Visual Analytics): https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/vacdc/v_033/vaobj/p0i2cowtx1nglqn1iye9jgkp1zk0.htm Data Driven Content (e.g. built with Javascript and deployed within SAS Visual Analytics): https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/vacdc/v_033/vaobj/n1tlhkaafz8e77n1xxc6de9iuv59.htm SAS Visual Analytics API support: https://developer.sas.com/rest-apis/visualAnalytics   Please see additional resources in the attached slide deck.   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

12/22/23 edits -> 1) Fixed broken links in attached slide deck 2) I'm honored this was the #1 Most Popular SAS Ask-the-Expert learning event for 2023 -> SAS Tech Report: December 2023 update (dsqjvx52uljvw.cloudfront.net)   Watch this Ask the Expert session to learn examples of generating emotion with your visualizations, analytics, reports and dashboards.     Watch the webinar   You will learn: How to compare and contrast typical visualizations with those that might generate emotion. How to make a human connection with your data within your organization. A different way to think about and use SAS Visual Analytics.   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 For accommodating people with color blindness, what is a recommended color palette? https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Accessibility-Features-in-SAS-Visual-Analytics/ta-p/825215 And scroll down to “Use colors with different luminosities for accessibility to color blind users.”  Image shows blue and yellow on left as seen with color vision and blue and yellow on right as seen without color vision.”   Will AI tools be incorporated in VA to build reports? Like loading data and writing the prompt to describe what we are trying to gain from the report? Part 1 of 2 BI without AI is like corn flakes without the milk - SAS Support Communities Part 2 of 2 AI works wonders on your BI, like Organic Milk works wonders on your H... - SAS Support Communities   Can SAS Visual Analytics be used to depict pathways for structural equation modeling and analyze data for the model? If yes, please provide resources to learn more on how to use SAS Visual Analytics. Structural equation modeling is available but through programming currently. Here is the current documentation for the latest version of SAS Viya: https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/v_039/statug/statug_introcalis_toc.htm   Does Ted have a formal background in Emotional Psychology? Although he does not, he has many years of SAS Visual Analytics experience working with customers from varying industry groups.  He has experienced many a dashboard that is short lived and others that catch attention and spur action.   This webinar was originally advertised as being loosely based on publicly available research by Doctor Brené Brown. Can you elaborate on that? Doctor Brené Brown studies human connection.  Ted finds the parallels to computer software, the differing usage personas of computer software, and the interaction amongst these usage personas to be fascinating and inspiring.  So thus why he came up with this webinar.  He also gives credit to the various other SMEs as well who are linked on each one of his slides.   Early in Ted’s presentation, was he saying NEVER to use something like MS-Excel. Why? Ted is suggesting NOT to ONLY use something like MS-Excel and NOT to MOSTLY use something like MS-Excel when it comes to invoking emotion with your dashboards.   Which of these recommendations are possible with older versions of SAS Visual Analytics and which require newer releases? All of the capabilities covered can be utilized by ANY release of SAS Visual Analytics with the exception of ... The following features require ANY Viya version of SAS Visual Analytics: Playable Dashboards, SAS Viya jobs integration, and Data Driven Javascript Content integration. The following features require the newer/newest Viya versions of SAS Visual Analytics:  Integration with MS-365, Fair AI Tools and Report Insights.   Any suggestions for accounting for ADHD induced time blindness by the report preparer when creating reports? https://www.verywellmind.com/causes-and-symptoms-of-time-blindness-in-adhd-5216523   When do you feel AI will take over data processing, data analysis, and data storytelling through effective and efficient visualizations? https://www.sas.com/en_us/company-information/innovation/responsible-innovation.html   What would you say to report builders whose responsibility it is to only present info, not persuade the report consumer to any particular action, that is, the consumer is responsible for what, if any action, is indicated by the data? Data owner(s) <-> Report owner(s) <-> Report decision maker(s) should work together as to the best Calls to Action ideally. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-owns-data-appears-your-reports-dashboards-nicola-askham?trk=pulse-article   Is it part of Base SAS and SAS Stat license? Or needs an additional license? In SAS 9.4, SAS Visual Analytics was a separate license. With the newest SAS Viya, Visual Analytics is included.   Will this be presented at upcoming SAS Explore? Hopefully 😊   Recommended Resources Vulnerability in Presentations (includes link within it to Dr. Brené Brown’s ‘Ted Talks’ recording) General information on SAS Visual Analytics Moving from SAS®9 to SAS® Viya® Move to Viya Board Please see additional resources in the attached slide deck.   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

*** Note: I’m soliciting feedback/ideas before this webinar even takes places, see Comment section at end of presentation abstract below ***   Dr. Brené Brown's famous quote   SAS Visual Analytics stories are data with a soul   Thursday, June 1 st at 11 a.m. Eastern Registration page -> click here   What does it mean to have a soul?  You'll know soul is evoked when you feel something deeply, for when something touches us deeply, we say it "touches my soul."  Dr. Brené Brown delivered a TEDx (Ted Talks) presentation on the power of vulnerability.  One of her main themes of that presentation is that inspiration is not in delivering data (per se); but rather, inspiration is in telling stories about the data and how the data can help us lead better lives.  Data wrapped in stories can move people, elicit emotion, and inspire people to take action.    Aristotle claimed that in order to persuade, you need to rely on three complementary argument types: appeal to ethics (ethos); appeal to logic (logos) and appeal to emotion (pathos).  This Ask-the-Expert webinar will address examples of generating emotion with your visualizations, analytics, reports and dashboards.  In this new world of remote work (multi-tasking work and non-work activities) as well as “silent quitting”, it’s much harder to catch the attention of co-workers and management to act on what should be critical work matters.  In turn, you will hopefully make a human connection with your report consumers.    This Ask-the-Expert webinar will begin with typical visualizations that do not elicit emotion.  It will then showcase seven example areas that could enable you to tell your most impactful story with your data from an emotional persuasion point of view:  Color Selection  Bias Detection Time Perception  Sentiment Analysis  Animation, Images and Video  Call to Action / Why / Because Can “Generative AI” help evoke human emotion in your report viewers  The webinar will conclude with what to think about in creating a consumer-centric report that moves people to action specifically within your own organizations.  Webinar follow-up will include resources where to get more details on topics covered.    Thursday, June 1 st at 11 a.m. Eastern Register Now ... View more

      The companion summary video to this article can be found here. It is part of the SAS How To Tutorials video series.   As a Technical Advisor on the SAS Visual Analytics (VA) adoption team, I empathize with those users who have grown accustomed to point-and-click development of their reports, dashboards, and data storytelling (including the data preparation necessary to facilitate such endeavors).  Self-Service Data Preparation has been inherent within SAS VA for several past releases.  In recent times, there has been a growing field known as Data & Analytics Engineering.  Analytic teams (which have now absorbed report, dashboard and data storytelling initiatives and resources) need better support to build data pipelines for whatever BI question they happen to be working on.   SAS VA users do not have to necessarily now learn coding to transform data into clean, reliable data sets for analysis and having to learn and apply software engineering best practices to analytics code and data pipelines.  The same SAS Studio that has modernized SAS data and analytics programming efforts with an interactive development environment can be used in the following manner as well.         I personally went through the process of learning SAS Studio for SAS Viya and seeing how wonderful it is to work with in concert with SAS VA.  What follows are 10+ example areas that a SAS VA user (or any SAS Viya visual product interface) should embrace.  I encourage users to comment back at the end of this community article as to what listed or additional features within SAS Studio benefited you personally or your organization specifically from a Low Code / No Code point of view.           I intentionally utilized a SAS Viya system where I have NO system administration authorizations (e.g., SAS Environment Manager, CLI, Kubernetes, etc.) to mimic the true experiences of a typical point-and-click SAS VA user as close as possible.   The data files used for the following illustrations can be found in the attached LowNoCodeSASStudio.zip.  In the business story line simulated (a fictitious telecommunications company), our analysts are interested in churners (customers who discontinue service).  In this scenario, the company has customer data from 3 data sources (each from a different department): Accounts, Billings and Equipments.  They would like (among other needs) to join all 3 datasets, remove some missing values and run some analyses.  The combined data needs to end up in-memory to the SAS VA user community (or any SAS Viya visual product interface).    I used my personal SAS Server/Home location (to upload source data), WORK data library (for temporary created target data), CASUSER CASLIB data library (for in-memory created target data), and My Folder location (for created SAS Studio content) as assigned by my systems administrator per my log-in to my SAS Viya system.  In a real-life customer Test and Production environments, you’ll want the end result in-memory tables (for SAS VA) to reside in a publicly available (group authorization) global session CASLIB.  If source data or SAS Studio content needs to be shared as well in your environment, you’ll want to work with your SAS Viya system administration.   More information on where are the files that you have access to through SAS Studio can be found here.     Quick access to server and local storage data   We will perform the ‘Upload files’ (only for now) based on a different example documented here.  Be sure to open the Explorer panel on the left-hand side of SAS Studio to enable the following.       More detailed information on SAS Studio accessing data into SAS Viya can be found here.     Multi-step (orchestrated) data engineering   A flow is a sequence of operations on data.  Data and operations are represented in the flow by nodes.  A flow can include a series of nodes in which the output of one node is the input to another node.  As you build a flow, SAS Studio automatically generates SAS code for each node. You can use flow to prepare data for reporting and analysis.  We will end up with everything depicted in the following screen capture after step series #4 later within this write-up (be sure to connect the steps within the flow).         You also have the ability to control the execution order of individual flows within a flow file in SAS Studio.  This is done by grouping the individual flows (or nodes) into "swimlanes" and specifying the order in which the "swimlanes" are executed.     In the meantime, we want to end up with the source file references and imports (with Horizontal Flow Layout which helps with debugging if issues arise).  Take advantage of horizontal re-sizing of screen.         Accounts.txt is space delimited and should have 3,714 records and 5 columns.  Billings.txt is tab delimited and should have 3,714 records and 6 columns.  Equipments.xlsx is an Excel data sheet and should have 3,715 records and 3 columns.  Be sure to save the flow to Folder Shortcuts -> Shortcut to MyFolder.      3. More and enhanced data transformation capabilities     There are a multitude of SAS data manipulation functions at your disposal within SAS Studio.  Working with a Query, we will re-format (with calculated columns), re-order and filter some of the data.  The result will be a will be a join of all three imported source tables.  Although all of this may have been possible through one Query, to re-emphasize the nature and benefits of multi-step (orchestrated) data engineering, we will add these to our existing flow (this is just a small sampling of overall capability):         Some of the character data needs to be numeric (SAS INPUT function expression) and vice versa (SAS PUT function expression and with COMPRESS).  Before our users create tables, charts, etc. we want to also remove missing data from the variable Target_Churn since they are interested in doing an analysis on this variable.  Target_Churn=1 means the customer has churned (left) and 0 means the customer has remained.  We will remove the missing values for this variable by filtering the data.  We were asked to move Target_Churn and Current_Bill_Range right after Account_ID (as the first three data items in order) since they are important variables to the users.  When performing the join do not add the 2 extra occurrences of Account_ID.  The join should result in 3,694 rows and 12 columns.         solution for Account_ID_Char -> COMPRESS(PUT(t1.Account_ID,9.))      4. Loading/refreshing data to SAS VA (or any SAS Viya visual product interface)     Snippets are lines of re-usable and re-purposeable code templates.  Snippets can contain SAS code, XML code or text. You can insert Snippets into Program Editor, XML editor, text editor, flows, job definitions, job forms or job prompts.  SAS Studio is shipped with several code Snippets.  One benefit to SAS VA (or any SAS Viya visual product interface) is Load Data to CASLIB.  We will only use the Load SAS data set from a Base engine library part of the code and make edits to correspond to our data within the flow.  First, we will create a temporary output table connected from the previous steps so it can serve as our physical base table from which to create the in-memory target and for other examples that follow.         Final load code is in LoadCUSTCHURNfromWORK2CAS.sas in the attached LowNoCodeSASStudio.zip.      5. User-defined data formats     SAS provides formats for controlling how variables are displayed. You can use the FORMAT procedure in your SAS programs to create your own formats. The FORMAT procedure supports the creation of user-defined formats in catalogs on the SAS Compute Server. It also supports adding formats and format libraries for a SAS Cloud Analytic Services session.  This will be our first opportunity and only time within the context of this article where we would have had to write all of our code from scratch 😊 but you can copy/paste the provided code.  It is based on this referenced white paper (which describes various ways to accomplish the same user-defined outcomes).  This is also the only topic within the context of this article where a SAS Viya system administration authorization is required after a FORMAT is created by a SAS Studio user so it can be accessible outside of SAS Studio by any SAS Viya visual product interface.  Documentation guidance and best practices are available.   Code example as it applies to the previous steps (i.e. it assumes the SAS Studio To VA flow has run successfully first) can be found in UserDefinedFormatExample.sas in the attached LowNoCodeSASStudio.zip.  SASStudioSuperUserLoadFormatsSample.sas is an example of what that user authorization could then do without leaving their SAS Studio session to make them globally available.           6. Examine data tasks     SAS Studio is shipped with several predefined point-and-click tasks (organized into categories). Some categories and their tasks might not be available at your site because you do not have the required SAS license.  Although we will be looking at this slightly out of order, the Examine Data Tasks are suggested prior to loading your data into SAS VA (or any SAS Viya visual product interface).  It could help in discovering which data needs to be transformed.  Other suggestions (though not depicted here) include the Visualize Data Tasks as preliminary SAS VA usage (where the final production report/dashboard/data story will reside), as well as any of the statistical tasks as preliminary usage to any SAS Viya visual product interface (where the final production analytical models will reside).         7. SAS Studio results output options     Any SAS Studio functionality that produces output places it in HTML format by default.  You can set the Results Preferences to include any/all of HTML, PDF, Word, RTF, Excel or PPT formats, each with differing output styles.  You can customize the SAS Studio output environment to generate output for other output destinations or use a custom style for your output.               8. Create and schedule jobs     With our flow after step series #4 above (or from any saved flow), we can schedule it 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.         If multiple flows need to be dependent of each other, it is recommended to perform this as a SAS Viya system administration function.  Documentation guidance and suggested tips are available.     9. SAS Viya jobs also to create custom SAS VA functionality     SAS Viya jobs are not limited to flows.  You can use jobs for web reporting, performing analytics, building web applications and delivering content to clients such as SAS Studio.  These jobs can access any SAS data source or external file and create tables, files, or other data targets that are supported by SAS.  You can create an HTML form or task prompt to provide a user interface to the job. When the user selects an option to submit the information, the data that is specified is passed to a SAS session as global macro variables. The SAS program runs, and the results are returned to the web browser.  This is a neat way to create custom SAS VA functionality.  As an example, we will use CASUSER.CUSTCHURN (from previous examples) and SAS Tasks -> Visualize Data -> Graph -> Mosaic Plot to generate the code we need for the job (that will run on-demand and not scheduled).  Do NOT use WORK.CUSTCHURN as it’s temporary.         Copy and paste the code into a new Job Definition.  We will add ODS graphics on and off statements so the output can render in the interfaces outside of SAS Studio and then close out nicely.  The metadata folder where this is saved is where the SAS VA report will need to access.         Code above can be found in Code4ViyaJob4VAExample.txt in the attached LowNoCodeSASStudio.zip.   The job content object within SAS VA enables you to display the output from the SAS Viya jobs.         10. Prepare and explore data tasks (for the SAS Visual Statistics and SAS Visual Data Mining & Machine Learning user)     Preparing data for analytical modeling within any SAS Viya visual product interface can be performed by the SAS Viya Prepare and Explore Data tasks (e.g. Imputation by choosing which columns get which types of imputation).  We will run through Partitioning as an example to simulate creating Training, Validation and Test for model evaluation purposes.  These can run directly on in-memory data.         We will then use the code generated as basis to alter the original flow from step series #4 (a different saved version of it for backup purposes) and follow the trick documented here to run PROC PARTITION and global promote the in-memory table within the same set of code by utilizing CAS ACTIONS.  This likewise will make the in-memory table available outside of our SAS Studio session.         Last step code above is in WithPartitionLoadCUSTCHURN2CAS.sas in attached LowNoCodeSASStudio.zip.       Bonus. Custom Steps   Custom Steps enable you to create a user interface for other users at your site to complete a specific task.  Custom Steps are saved to SAS Content, so they can be shared with others at your site.  Currently, Custom Steps are utilized in a flow.  Future product plans include the ability to run them stand-alone (as a http URL, for example).  Going through the three examples depicted within the documentation, make the following changes if desired: * Instead of using SASHELP.CLASS -> use CASUSER.PART_CAS_CUSTCHURN (from example #10 above) * Instead of using Age -> use Num_Acct_Age_Months * Instead of using Height -> use Num_Avg_Days_Deliquent * Instead of using Weight -> use Num_Avg_Talk_Hrs         For more information on Custom Steps, please consult these community articles and instructional video.     CONCLUSION         As the name suggests, Low Code / No Code is a method of performing functionality with little or no coding.  This enables users to drag-and-drop pre-configured blocks, and create simple to advanced, enterprise-grade pipelines.  Utilizing SAS Studio in such a manner within the same interface as those who prefer coding has the added benefit to the SAS community of sharing and collaborating in Data & Analytics Engineering projects.  And it’s a seamless integration switching between the SAS VA “programming” environment (SAS Studio) and the SAS VA explore & visualize design environment (SAS VA itself).  Again, we look forward to reading your comments at the end of this community article as to what listed or additional features within SAS Studio benefited you personally or your organization specifically from a Low Code / No Code point of view.         [Update] SAS Studio 2021.2.3 (January 2022) was utilized for the above demonstration.  Since then, 2021.2.4 (February 2022) has introduced two new additional Low Code / No Code capabilities:  Load Database Table and Notes.  Going forward, to keep up to date with new SAS Studio features (regardless if related to Low Code / No Code), please consult the What's New Guide on a regular basis. ... 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(note:  this is an evolving blog – current as of 2021.1.5 September 2021 release - that may be continuously edited as SAS Viya 4 capabilities are updated or added)   It’s no surprise that as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, people have become more health and wellness aware.  The most obvious change in consumer behavior is the increased popularity in organic and plant-based ingredients.  For example, there are seven ways organic milk works wonders on your health.  As I write this posting here about updated and new ways that SAS Visual Analytics (VA) for Viya 4 offers capabilities that fall into the AI-enhanced business intelligence category, it made me re-visit my older post on this topic for earlier releases of SAS VA (BI without AI is like corn flakes without the milk).  So too there are seven areas where SAS VA for Viya 4 have been enhanced, and likewise new features have been introduced to work wonders on your business intelligence, reporting, dashboarding and data visualization workflows (aka BI).   Analogy: AI (Organic Milk) to BI (Health)     For those readers not already familiar with my earlier posting on this topic (or a reminder for those who haven’t read it in a while), artificial intelligence techniques (or augmented analytics) democratize advanced analytics to more users by addressing business problems with automated quantitative insights (what I'm “labeling” as AI within both articles).  This is a sequel to that original posting of mine.  Any capability outlined in the earlier posting not mentioned throughout below is still available in the newest releases of SAS VA.   Only those capabilities that this author considers SAS VA AI-Enhanced BI capabilities are considered here.     New features added since SAS VA for Viya 3.x or 9.4: (in no particular order)   Automatic Report Review SAS VA analyzes your reports and presents information in the Report Review pane that can help you improve their performance. The Report Review pane provides you with a description of each issue and offers suggestions for improvements that you can make to your report or to the data that your report uses.  For a detailed write-up on this new feature, please click here.  Likewise, for a video demonstration recording of this new feature, please click here.  The pane also checks for accessibility issues, which can impact users with color-deficient vision (color blindness) or other visual impairments.   Accessibility More specific to Accessibility issues, in addition to Report Review, there have been several additions to SAS VA including (but not limited to): Text objects enable you to mark text as a heading. Marking headings can improve accessibility for users of screen reader software. You can assign a text label to measure-based display rules. The label is displayed in data tips and on the Display Rules pane when viewing the report. The label is also announced by screen reader software. Reference lines in graphs are now accessible to screen readers. For more detailed guidance on creating Accessible reports using SAS VA and the capabilities offered, please consult this documentation link.   Logarithmic scale A new Logarithmic scale option is available for scatter plots, time series plots, line charts, forecasting objects, and numeric series plots.  There are two main reasons to use logarithmic scales in charts and graphs. The first is to respond to skewness towards large values (i.e., cases in which one or a few points are much larger than the bulk of the data, e.g. if you wanted to compare net worth of individuals worth $40,000 and $800,000,000).  The second is to show percent change or multiplicative factors.   Outlier Insights & Detection The new Insights window identifies possible outlier values in the data for the objects in your report.  If outlier values are detected, then the lightbulb (aka insights were found) icon appears in the report toolbar.  Likewise, measures in the Data pane are automatically checked for potential outlier values.  The Outlier icon appears beside measures that might have outlier values.  Outlier detection can be disabled by the Disable automatic outlier detection for the Data pane user setting and the disableAutomaticOutlierDetection configuration property.   Automatic Value Grouping When you Create a Custom Category that is based on a measure, you can generate the value intervals automatically by clicking Generate groups in the New Custom Category window. You can also generate a custom category for a measure by right-clicking a measure in the Data pane and selecting New custom category.  You can specify the number of value groups to create and the prefix to use for the names of the generated value groups.   Auto Save in a multi-user / collaborative environment If you are a report designer and you use the autosave feature for reports, the message that indicates that you are working on an older version of the report can be automatically identified by SAS VA if your report has been more recently saved by another user. If you choose to open the updated report, then your autosaved report is discarded. However, if you choose to use the autosaved report, SAS Visual Analytics considers that report to be new and gives it the same name as the initial report.   Conversational AI SAS Visual Analytics for Viya 4 includes the ability to create and configure conversational bots to help users with their tasks.  Each bot is an autonomous program that can interact with users and respond to questions or provide information for a given topic area. SAS Conversation Designer in SAS Viya uses natural language processing along with a collection of intents, utterances, entities and dialogues to process data and provide information to a user. A bot user does not have to present their questions in a special format, but can simply ask questions naturally the way they would pose them to a human.  In the context of SAS Visual Analytics integration, you can display information from a report to embed within your bot.  More information on SAS bot development can be found here.  And more information on SAS bot publishing can be found here.   Only those capabilities that this author considers SAS VA AI-Enhanced BI capabilities are considered here.   Existing features enhanced compared to SAS VA for Viya 3.x or 9.4: (in no particular order)   Note: because these are existing feature updates, it is assumed the reader already knows how these capabilities facilitate AI-enhanced business intelligence.  If you are new to SAS Visual Analytics in general please consult the various resource links throughout below after reviewing this original write-up on this topic.   Automated Explanation (including Explain Data) & Automated Prediction * The automated explanation object now displays geographic maps when the response variable is a measure and the selected underlying factor is a geography. * The automated explanation & prediction objects support the following additional languages: Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Thai, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, and Swedish. * SAS VA now displays a notification when automated explanation objects in the background are finished loading results. * Automated explanation objects identify extreme values (possible outliers) in the characteristics summary. The full list of values is displayed in the Anomalies tab of the details table. * You can explain the characteristics of data items that are assigned to any object. This feature enables consumers of a report to quickly access the same summary that is provided by the automated explanation object. * Automated explanation objects list the most important factors in the summary description. * You can explain characteristics of members of hierarchies that are assigned to an object. * The automatic explanation object includes a forecast of future values when you assign the new Time data role. * In the Automated explanation object, groups are no longer calculated and displayed by default. You can select the Show high and low groups option to calculate groups. * For objects that contain multiple visual elements (for example, automated explanation, automated prediction, and advanced analytical objects), the Displayed visuals option enables you to select the elements that are displayed.   Object Templates for Analytical Objects Although the ability to create basic object templates is not new (or page templates for that matter), the new Object Templates for Analytical Objects should enable report developers to think of many new use cases for re-use and re-purpose of analytical insightful dashboard designs that now more integrate with SAS Visual Statistics and SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning.  Recall this older posting by the same author on the importance of analytical insightful dashboards.   Decision Trees * Decision trees have a new High cardinality predictors option that enables a greater cardinality limit for the categorical predictor values at each node. * When you create a new partition data item, you can stratify based on a category variable. * When you register a model (not just Decision Trees), you can now specify the model repository where the model is stored. * Decision trees can now display validation statistics in each node and in the details table. * The Interactive Decision Tree mode is improved with a new Split Node window. This window enables you to better specify the split variable, number of branches, split points, and how missing values are treated.  The Split Node window has been enhanced to enable better control over the number of splits and how they are created. You can now prune and split an interior node in the same action. * The process for splitting a decision tree has been enhanced. * Generated text is now localized in the following objects: forecasting, network analysis, path analysis, and text topics.  If SAS Visual Statistics is not licensed at your site, then the basic decision tree also has localized generated text.   Network Analysis * Options for the network analysis object have changed. The new Network structure option and Link type option specify the structure and link directionality for the network. * The stress centrality metric for network analysis objects is no longer available. For reports that you promote from previous releases, the stress centrality metric is changed to betweenness centrality. * The calculation of network metrics for the network analysis object now uses a different SAS Cloud Analytic Services (CAS) action set (the network action set). Some results might be different from previous releases.   Working with Data items Example use cases of what is now possible can be found here. * Displaying the earliest or latest value for the selected date or datetime item is now possible. * You can now assign a Date format or a Datetime format to a calculated data item. * Date and Datetime values can now be used as a number in calculated expressions. * The properties list in the Data pane now includes a read-only preview of the expression for calculated data items. Only five lines of the expression are displayed. You can click Edit beside the expression in the list of properties to open the Edit Calculated Item window. * The expression editor window for calculated items and advanced filters has been enhanced with a new layout. * A filter field is now available when you select data items to create new filters, ranks, and display rules. * A new search field in the Options pane enables you to find specific options by using label names. * You can now display a search field in the list control. The search field enables report users who are designing or editing reports to find specific values that they want to select or clear in the list. * The Add Data Items pop-up window has a new Select all check box. * You can edit the calculated expression for geography data items that are based on a calculated item.   Geo-spatial Analysis For a Getting Started with Geo Analytics in SAS VA, please consult the linked recorded webinar and material.  Enhanced features that have been released for Viya 4 since then include: * For geo coordinate and geo region-coordinate objects, the Enable data label thinning option hides data labels as needed to avoid overlapping text. * Geography items have a predefined role for three-letter ISO codes. * For geo coordinate objects and geo region-coordinate objects, new options enable you to control the size of markers and bubbles. * You can disable zoom and pan controls in geomap objects. * The geo line and geo line-coordinate objects enable you to display line segments on a map. You can use geo line maps and geo line-coordinate maps to display linear geographical features such as roads, railroads, pipelines, bus routes, and so on. * The geographical lookup values for SAS Visual Analytics have been updated with the following changes:  1) The country name for Macedonia is changed to North Macedonia; 2) Localization support for country subregions is improved. For example, the subregions of India now support names in Devanagari script in addition to Latin characters. * The maxRowsLookup.geoLine configuration property specifies the maximum number of result rows for polylines in a geo line map that is in SAS Visual Analytics reports. For more information, see Configuration Properties: Report Data Service. * The OpenStreetMap High Contrast map background is available for geographic maps. The High Contrast map is optimized to provide the best usability for users with low vision.  If you set the map background to Automatic, then the High Contrast map is automatically selected when the high-contrast theme is displayed. * The interface for Create a Geography Data Item By Using Custom Polygonal Shapes, Lines, or Coordinates from a Geographic Data Provider has been enhanced. * Single Sign On (SSO) authentication to an Esri Server for Data Driven Content or SAS Viya jobs is on the product roadmap for an upcoming release.   SAS Viya Jobs   Although this was technically doable since the SAS VA 8.x releases courtesy of Web Content or Data Driven Content, The new job content object enables you to natively connect to and display the output from SAS Viya jobs. You can use jobs to access the functionality of SAS code.  And as was mentioned in the previous version of this posting, although not everything one can incorporate with custom built web content, data driven content or SAS Viya Jobs classifies as true AI-enhanced business intelligence, there are examples that can be developed.   CONCLUSION   Just as consumers are looking for reasons to eat healthier and they want more information about where their food comes from and how it was produced, report “consumers” are looking for reasons to automate their data analysis and they want more information and assistance from the software what is contained in their data and how it should be interpreted.  Any AI-enhanced business intelligence capability you can introduce to your user base, the more you can reduce time-to-insight and increase decision-making speed.  SAS Visual Analytics continues to add or enhance these descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytical capabilities so that citizen data scientists (in a true self-service manner!) can really contribute to their business success.     User Benefits Of AI In Business Intelligence.     ... 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