See What’s New in SAS ®  Viya ®  Workbench   R runtime support Code from scratch in R or bring your existing R code into Viya Workbench. Learn more.   Microsoft Azure availability Now available in private preview! Contact your SAS account executive to sign up.   SAS ® Enterprise Guide ® (coming in July)  EG connectivity will be available – in addition to VS Code and JupyterLab/Jupyter Notebook – as an IDE choice.     Storage snapshots You can now take a snapshot and save it as a persistent copy. Minimal storage capacity is needed. Learn more.   Environment variable manager Easily add custom variables to your data. Examples we expect users to try include SAS_LOG_CFG_PATH and SAS_LOG_OUTPUT_DIR.   Multiple workspace support Users can now contribute into the same storage location, unlocking team collaboration.   Cross-region connections in AWS Get increased data privacy and flexibility and less latency. Contact your SAS account executive if you would like to move your data plane installation to a different location.   Python libraries We’re continuing to improve and expand our Python libraries. Network Analytics is a brand-new option, and we’ve added more capabilities under the existing ML package (Cardinality, Assess & Assess Bias). Learn more.   Watch this demo to see some of these new features in action.     Workbench Tip Brought to you by Joe Madden, Workbench Product Manager                       How to enable NFS storage support You can now connect to your network file system (NFS) data using SAS Viya Workbench. Here are the steps you (or your admin) will need to perform: Get the Workbench-Dataplane AWS EKS NAT Gateway's IP Address from AWS Console. Add IP Address to allow list of NFS server (within your AWS subscription). Configure the NFS server to grant read and write permissions to the user with ID 1001 and group with ID 1001. Next, send the following details to WorkbenchOps@sas.com: NFS server hostname/IP NFS share name Preferred subdirectory Viya Workbench will access Once the steps above are complete, our team will complete a final step, enabling access.   Do you want to modify your compute options or have feedback for our team? Contact us at WorkbenchOps@sas.com to set up an appointment. We look forward to hearing from you! ... View more

NEW VIYA FEATURES Check out these new features and what they mean for you   ​SAS Visual Statistics Grow decision trees   SAS Visual Analytics Expanded graph options   SAS Viya: Machine learning Bias mitigation for random forests   SPOTLIGHT USE CASE   SAS Visual Statistics Grow decision trees   Imagine that you’re reviewing a decision tree designed to predict loan defaults. You notice a branch for high-income borrowers with credit utilization above 40% still showing a concerning 12% default rate. Instead of exporting that subset of data, creating new queries and retraining from scratch, you can simply right-click on that node and select “Grow tree.” Within moments, a new tree is generated – either on the same report page beneath the original or on a separate page – using only that set of high-income, high-utilization records.   This streamlined process retains all your original model settings and parameters, allowing you to dive directly into analyzing what drives risk in that segment. The “Grow tree” feature turns what was once a time-consuming “filter and retrain” task into a dynamic and intuitive exploration, enhancing both discovery and decision-making efficiency.   TIP OF THE MONTH Brought to you by David Weik Senior Software Development Engineer, SAS   SAS Visual Analytics    Quick tip: Did you know you can export SAS Visual Analytics reports as web pages?   That’s right! With just a few clicks, you can take your report out of SAS Viya and host it on any static web server. This allows you to share your insights across your organization or even with people outside of it.   To create a Report Package, go to Export > Report Package on your report, and then select the pages you’d like to export.   My colleague Stu Sztukowski just recently shared one of his snowboarding adventures as an exported dashboard. Check it out: https://stu-code.github.io/snowboarding-dashboard/.   If you missed SAS Innovate, our FREE on-demand Digital Pass is now available, featuring 30+ hours of content from Orlando. Register here. Also, check out Innovate On Tour to join us in a city near you! ... View more

NEW VIYA FEATURES Check out these new features and what they mean for you   ​SAS Model Manager  Monitor Model Fairness   SAS Visual Analytics Report data privacy and enhanced report parameters   SAS Intelligent Decisioning Function documentation   SPOTLIGHT USE CASE Fairness monitoring    Your team has deployed a credit risk model to evaluate loan applications. Initially, the model excels across key performance indicators – accuracy, precision, recall – and passes fairness checks at launch. However, as data and customer demographics evolve over time, bias may gradually emerge, potentially impacting certain groups unfairly.   With the new enhancement to performance monitoring in SAS Model Manager, you can now track fairness metrics over time right alongside traditional performance indicators like ROC charts or F1 scores.    For example, you can monitor how your model’s decisions vary across different age groups, genders or income brackets using metrics like demographic parity or equal opportunity.   When a fairness drift is detected – such as a noticeable drop in approval rates for a specific demographic – your team is instantly alerted. This enables proactive investigation and corrective actions, such as retraining the model or adjusting thresholds to prevent potential regulatory or reputational risks. This enhancement promotes a more responsible and transparent AI life cycle, offering ongoing insight into both model performance and fairness. It helps organizations uphold ethical standards and meet compliance requirements.   TIP OF THE MONTH Brought to you by David Weik Senior Software Development Engineer, SAS   In SAS Model Manager, sharing content is simple – just click the share icon in the top right corner.  Clicking the icon gives you two options: copy the link to your clipboard or share directly to Microsoft Teams. I’d like to highlight the second feature, which lets you quickly share a deep link and message directly to a Microsoft Teams channel or chat.  This makes it easier to communicate insights or get feedback on your models. You can see what this looks like below.       P.S. Don’t miss out on SAS Innovate, which is the perfect opportunity to dive deeper into these new features and further connect with the SAS community. Register now.   Can’t make it to Orlando? Get a digital pass (just select “Virtual” when you register) or check out Innovate on Tour.  ... View more

NEW VIYA FEATURES Check out these new features and what they mean for you   SAS Viya Enhanced SAS Compute Server   SAS Studio Two New Steps   SAS Information Catalog Column Tagging     SPOTLIGHT USE CASE Enhanced SAS Compute Server   The enhanced SAS Compute Server (available beginning with SAS Viya 2025.02) enables you to run SAS procedures that were previously only available on CAS.   That means you no longer need to lift your data into CAS for advanced analytics work, such as training a gradient boosting model. Instead, you can run PROC GRADBOOST directly on your data in WORK.   Of course, this still takes advantage of the SAS Viya multithreaded algorithms.   In addition, if you are a Python programmer, the sasviya.ml package is now included in your PROC PYTHON environment, which enables you to capitalize on the SAS algorithms in a Pythonic way, unlocking more potential for your data-crunching needs.     TIP OF THE MONTH Brought to you by David Weik Senior Software Development Engineer, SAS   The SAS Extension for Visual Studio Code lets you program in a notebook style.   You can create a SAS Notebook using the file extension sasnb, which can be stored on your local machine, the SAS Server or SAS Content.   SAS Notebooks support four cell types:   SAS: for writing SAS code (naturally). Python: for writing Python code – implicitly wrapping your code in PROC PYTHON. SQL: for writing SQL code – implicitly wrapping your code in PROC SQL. Markdown: for writing documentation using the popular Markdown syntax.   P.S. Don’t miss out on SAS Innovate, which is the perfect opportunity to dive deeper into these new features and further connect with the SAS community. Register now.   Can’t make it to Orlando? Get a digital pass (just select “Virtual” when you register) or check out Innovate on Tour.  ... View more

See What’s New in SAS ®  Viya ®  Workbench   New Python packages for cardinality, computer vision and GMM: We are thrilled to announce a second batch of Python packages for SAS Viya Workbench users! Cardinality and GMM are both longstanding SAS routines and can now be leveraged using scikit-learn-inspired syntax in Python. If you’ve tried the existing SAS Viya.ML package, we know you will feel right at home. In case you didn’t know, SAS has a rich history of delivering computer vision solutions. We have made these same analytics available in Python! Click here to learn more about using the Computer Vision Python API in Viya Workbench.   Deep learning enabled for SAS users: The SAS implementation of DLModelZoo (proc dlmodelzoo) is now available for all users in Viya Workbench. Background Job Submission remains on our product roadmap for now, but we hope you’ll have the chance to leverage pre-processing and SAS scoring in the near term. DL model training will be a better experience when you can submit the job and close your browser.   AWS cross-region support: New Viya Workbench installations will now support cross-region PrivateLink connections, which means that you can select your preferred AWS region when deploying your infrastructure. For example, customers in the western United States can select US-West-1 as their data plane location, and it will connect to the US-East-1 control plane.   Workbench Tip Brought to you by Joe Madden, Workbench Product Manager   Are you a Python user looking to level up by learning SQL? Check out the tutorial video on how to get started with SQL in Python. The video shows an important step required for installing the popular postgres package, psycopg2 (spoiler: We require the binary installer).       Do you want to modify your compute options or have feedback for our team? Contact us at WorkbenchOps@sas.com to set up an appointment. We look forward to hearing from you!   ... View more

See what's new in SAS Viya Workbench!   Data quality “QKB” enabled for all users SAS Quality Knowledge Base is available within Viya Workbench for all users, providing SAS language elements that perform data quality operations such as matching and standardization. The data quality operations analyze and transform data to improve accuracy and consistency. The result is higher quality data, which yields higher-value analytical results. See the syntax up close.   ModelOps connectivity with REGISTERMODEL proc This new procedure lets you send a model from Viya Workbench into SAS Model Manager. Data scientists experimenting with Viya Workbench can deploy their models into the Viya ecosystem so their colleagues can continue within the analytics life cycle. Learn more.   Git included The Git command line tool comes preinstalled. Launch the VSCode terminal and start running your projects immediately by connecting to your repositories in a snap. Learn more.   Easily access your SQL data with SAS/ACCESS Connect to many of the SAS/ACCESS engines. Viya Workbench includes ODBC drivers for Oracle, Postgres, SQL Server, Redshift and Snowflake. The preinstalled ODBC means there’s no need to worry about extra layers of setup when connecting to your enterprise databases. Learn more.   Workbench Tip Brought to you by Joe Madden, Workbench Product Manager   Learn how to connect SAS Viya Workbench to your Snowflake data. In this video, we’ll walk through a basic connection so you can get started on your own cloud-native project.   Watch Now   ... View more

THE RUNDOWN This release introduces several exciting new features, such as enhanced open-source model scoring in SAS Model Manager, additional steps in SAS Studio, and greater flexibility in SAS Information Catalog with the ability to link external content to column annotations.   Don’t miss out on SAS Innovate, which is the perfect opportunity to dive deeper into these new features and further connect with the SAS community. Register now.   Can’t make it to Orlando? Our Innovate On Tour stops will be available soon!   NEW VIYA FEATURES Check out these new features and what they mean for you.   SAS Model Manager Improved Performance for Open-Source Model Scoring SAS Model Manager now leverages the capabilities of Proc Gateway, enabling the scoring of open-source models multiple threads and reducing data movement, leading to big performance improvements. Learn more.   SAS Studio New Steps In this release six new steps have been added to SAS Studio: ANOVA Statistical Power and Logistic Regression (Generating Statistics), Panel Data Models and Spatial Regression Models (Working with Econometrics) and Partition Data and Unique Identifier (Preparing Data). Learn more.   SAS Information Catalog Add Links to Column Annotations In addition to the capability to add simple text annotations to a column inside of SAS Information Catalog, we can now add links to external content to these annotations as well. Learn more.   SPOTLIGHT USE CASE Improved Performance for Open-Source Model Scoring Imagine scoring a model built in Python against hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of rows. In a single-threaded environment, this could take forever. But with the new multi-threaded scoring, you can process data directly on the CAS server, dramatically speeding up the process and reducing data movement.   TIP OF THE MONTH Brought to you by David Weik, Senior Software Development Engineer, SAS      Quick Tip: Did you know there are three simple ways to add tables to a step in your SAS Studio flow?   Drag & Drop from the Libraries Pane – Simply drag a table from the Libraries pane and connect it to the step's input port. Right-click to Add a Table – Right-click the ports of a step, select Add a table, and then choose your target table to add it to the flow. Drag & Drop Directly onto the Step – The easiest option: drag and drop a table directly onto the step. The system will automatically connect the tables to the correct ports, filling all input ports first, followed by output ports. For example, if there’s one input and one output port, drop the input table first, then the output table. My favorite method is the third one—it’s the quickest and requires the least amount of manual work! ... View more

THE RUNDOWN Here’s to a new year filled with innovation and new features! To start, you can now edit tables directly in viewing mode in SAS Visual Analytics. Plus, SAS Studio has two new steps, and there’s seamless integration with workflows in SAS Intelligent Decisioning for even greater efficiency.   NEW VIYA FEATURES Check out these new features and what they mean for you. Product: SAS Visual Analytics New feature: Editing tables in viewing mode Description: In a previous edition, we discussed the ability to edit CAS tables in SAS Visual Analytics. Now, this functionality is not limited to the editing mode; you can also make changes in the viewing mode. Learn more.     Product: SAS Studio New feature: New steps Description: In this release, two new steps have been added to SAS Studio: Gradient Boosting and Confidence Intervals Statistical Power. Learn more.     Product: SAS Intelligent Decisioning New feature: Easy integration with workflows Description: Connecting a SAS workflow to a decision in SAS Intelligent Decisioning is now easier than ever, and a new example workflow has been added. Learn more.     SPOTLIGHT USE CASE SAS Studio The Gradient Boosting step generates a powerful ensemble of decision trees designed to handle both interval and nominal targets, harnessing the proven Gradient Boosting technique. By methodically refining each iteration, it zeroes in on patterns that simpler models might miss, resulting in more accurate predictions. This approach enables you to drive greater value from your data, powering better insights and improved decision-making.   TIP OF THE MONTH Brought to you by David Weik Senior Pre-Sales Solutions Architect, SAS Did you know that there are application-level settings in SAS Visual Analytics that can improve your daily workflow? To access this, simply click on your user profile and go to Settings. From there, under SAS Visual Analytics, you’ll have the option to adjust a variety of default settings.   Here are two of my favorites: 1. Under Report Defaults, I prefer to set the graph’s default title from “automatic title” to “custom title.” (See No. 2 and No. 3 in the image below.)     2. Under Modeling, there is a checkbox to automatically convert measure variables with two levels to a category, which is a huge timesaver for me. (See No. 4 and No. 5 in the image below.)   ... View more

THE RUNDOWN This month’s SAS Viya email series highlights exciting new features, including an Enhanced Submission Tab in SAS Studio, Visual Segmentation Trees in SAS Intelligent Decisioning, and the ability to create File Trigger Events in SAS Environment Manager. These enhancements bring even more power and flexibility to your SAS Viya experience.   NEW VIYA FEATURES Check out these new features and what they mean for you. Product: SAS Studio New feature: Enhanced Submission Tab Description: With the enhanced Submission Tab inside of SAS Studio programmers and Flow users get more insights on how their submitted workloads are running and also take a look through the history of their submissions in a session. Learn more.   Product: SAS Intelligent Decisioning New feature: Visual Segmentation Trees Description: Segmentation Trees in SAS Intelligent Decisioning can now also be viewed and edited in a Graph View. This new Graph View enables quick understanding of Segmentation Trees, especially as they get larger and more complicated over time. Learn more.   Product: SAS Environment Manager New feature: File Trigger Events Description: When creating Job Flows in the Monitoring & Scheduling page in SAS Environment Manager you can now also create File Trigger events and combine them together with Time based Triggers for an more control on how to schedule workloads. Learn more.   SPOTLIGHT USE CASE SAS Intelligent Decisioning A financial institution is using SAS Intelligent Decisioning to implement segmentation trees for customer classification. These trees determine personalized marketing offers based on customer demographics, transaction behaviors, and engagement scores. Over time, as the bank expands its customer base and diversifies its offerings, the segmentation trees grow larger and more complex, making them harder to understand and manage.   By using the Graph View users can more quickly navigate, understand, and enhance the segmentation trees. TIP OF THE MONTH Brought to you by David Weik Senior Pre-Sales Solutions Architect, SAS Using the Submission Tab in SAS Studio can help you when you are developing new programs or flows. This is made possible with quick filters that help you quickly spot successful runs and identify any errors.   In addition, you can view the runtime of each submission, search through it, and even open the individual submissions. This is especially useful if you've lost track of your progress since the last submission.   You can find it in the bottom right corner and open it by clicking on it (see #1 in the image below).   ... View more