getting the most out of sas ®enterprise guide the most out of sas enterprise... · work with...

Getting the Most Out of SAS® Enterprise Guide® u www.sys-seminar.com u 1-800-997-7081

2997 Yarmouth Greenway Drive, Madison, WI 53711

Phone: (608) 278-9964 • Web: www.sys-seminar.com

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Getting the Most Out of SAS® Enterprise Guide®


Questions, Comments

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• Technical Difficulties: Call 1-800-263-6317

• We have several hundred attendees, so we won’t be able to answer

questions live.

• Please email questions or comments to [email protected].

• A copy of the presentation and a recording of the webinar will be emailed

out to attendees. This can be shared with people who did not attend.


Systems Seminar Consultants, Inc.

Consulting, Training, and Support

• SAS

• SQL

• ETL

• Reporting Systems

• Business Analytics

• Data modeling

• Automating Processes

• “Big Data”

Apply good IT and systems practices to real life business applications.

Work with Marketing, Finance, Retail, Insurance, Utilities, Manufacturing,

Healthcare, Government organizations.

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Presenter – Jennifer First

• Strategic business planning

• Project management

• Sales and marketing management

• Development of custom training plans

• Marketing, Financial, Admin, HR management

• Publishes SSC's SAS technical newsletter, The Missing Semicolon

• Coordinates WISUG (Wisconsin SAS User Group) meetings

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Introduction

• SAS Enterprise Guide is an incredibly flexible tool, with many options,

items, and ways a user can leverage the tool.

• This presentation should have something for everyone:

• Definitions

• Options

• Organization and Documentation

• Leveraging Point and Click

• Graphing and Reporting

• Tips and Best Practices

• How should we be using EG?

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What Is SAS Enterprise Guide?

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• Enterprise Guide is an user interface for SAS.

• EG passes SAS code to a server to run the SAS code.

(whether you are writing code or using the tasks in EG)

• The server could be your local machine, a server on your network, it could

even be on another platform


Enterprise Guide for the SAS Novice

• Immediately begin working with Enterprise Guide projects, tasks, and

wizards with no previous SAS experience.

• Perform analyses and queries and create reports that would normally

require extensive knowledge of SAS.

• Focus on the content of analysis rather than the details of coding.

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Enterprise Guide for the SAS Expert

• Avoid repetitive or trivial coding by using Enterprise Guide for simple

coding tasks.

• Modify the automatically generated code and use it as a springboard for

more complicated programs.

• Devote less time to searching for minor syntax errors.

• Organize SAS processes in one file.

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What is a Project?

• An EG project is a single file. (.egp)

• Contains a set of data, tasks, code, and results.

• Only one project can be open at a time.

• All work in Enterprise Guide must be done within a project.

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What is a Process Flow?

Project Process Flow 1

Data

Task

Program

Output

Notes

Logs

Process Flow 2

Data

Task

Program

Output

Notes

Logs

….

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What Is A Task?

• A task is a point and click user interface that generates SAS code.

• Each task has an analogous PROC (although not 1 to 1 relationship).

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• Under the Task List, select the drop-down and select “Tasks by Name.”

• EG will list the task name but on the right hand side will include the

analogous SAS Procedure (PROC).

Tasks vs. PROC’s

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• Business background that used many SAS files

• Rely on busy programmers for basic reports (joining, concatenating,

summarizing, etc.)

• Cobbler’s child with no shoes!

My Background with SAS and EG

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• About 6 years ago, discovered Enterprise Guide

• I could do 90% of my analytics myself

My Solution: Self Serve Analytics

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EG at SSC

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• Convincing the programmers…was not so easy

• 15 years+ of SAS experience- “If it’s not broke, why fix it?”

• Each programmer found something valuable in EG.


How Does One Use EG Most Effectively?

That depends what you are doing…

But we have a few ideas

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Customize Your View

On the View menu:

Task List, Server List, Project Tree, Notes, Prompt Manager, and more

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Stacked Maximize Workspace


Options Menu

• Many of Enterprise Guide’s options can be set up by going to the top menu

bar and selecting Tools, Options.

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Options - Project Views

How the Project Tree and Process Flow looks

• Group Stored Process and Program Items in Separate Folders

• Renaming Options

• Display Path of Data and Files

• Show Generated Code

• Show SAS Output Log

• Show Generated Results

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Options - Results

• Manage general results options

• Choose your result format: (SAS Report, RTF, HTML, PDF, Text, or a

combination)

• Set a limit on output data sets, page size, ODS Options, and more

• Change options for output graphs and stored processes

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Options - Results

Style Manager

Specify the look of any output, including background colors, font colors,

logos, table borders, and more.

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Options - Results

Style Editor

• Develop a custom style

• Text - size, color, alignment, background

• Border - colors, style

• Images – banner, background, watermark

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Data and Query Options

• General options – labels, default columns and rows, default output library, etc.

• Improve performance, such as how many rows to scan when importing data or

how wide to make columns

• Query options to improve efficiency and automation

• Can also insert custom code to run before or after a task or query

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Editor Options

Custom configure editor options (including new exciting autocomplete options),

display options, and more, to increase efficiency.

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Organization and Documentation

Why should you organize and document your EG project?

• Easier to understand

• Easier to debug and fix errors

• Easier to maintain

• Easier to make updates and changes

• Easier to pass it along or share with someone else

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• Consider a Process Flow just for overall documentation.

• System documentation, maintenance logs, run time instructions, and wrap

up instructions.

Project Documentation

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Enterprise Guide Notes

• A text document that will appear as a project node in the Process Flow

and the Project Tree

• Can be associated with a data set, task, code module, output, or log or

can be independent

• Create a Note linked to each task used in the Project - what, who, when,

and why of the task.

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Enterprise Guide Notes

• Explain the purpose of multiple tasks working together, including

dependencies, and the overall purpose of the process.

• You may have one overall note per Process Flow or to document overall

pieces of your Project.

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Naming Conventions

• Good, consistent naming conventions are self documenting.

• Enterprise Guide will use default names like

‘WORK.QUERY_FOR_DAILY1’ and ‘Calculation’.

• Choose meaningful names, assign variable labels, and use good default

formats for numeric fields.

• This applies to data, variables, output, tasks, programs, and process

flows.

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• Include documentation in your code!

• Use a header box and change log for each program.

• Comment as you develop code (or even before) but don’t wait until after.

• Especially focus comments on difficult code, such as complicated

calculations.

• Remember, especially in Enterprise Guide, a non-programmer may need

to read and decipher this code.

Code Documentation

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Multiple Process Flows

• You can use a “folder” equivalent in Enterprise Guide – the Process

Flow.

• Store many data sources, tasks, code, output, logs, and notes in a logical

way in separate process flows

• Dependent on the complexity of your process, company standards, and

your personal preferences.

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Logical Breaks

• Break up a Financial Projection system, into 3 Process Flows: Income

Projections, Expense Projections, and Production Projections.

• Each process flow has its own data, tasks, code, output, and notes.

• Easy to keep track of and make changes to

• Works well for a process that has logical pieces to it

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Functional Breaks

System level and how the process will be run.

1. Overall System Documentation

2. Startup Processes, including Assigning Libraries and Setting Options

3. Data Import, Data Cleanup, Data Preparation

4. Preliminary and Exploratory Analysis

5. Final Analysis

6. Graphing and Reporting

7. Production, Scheduling, and Distribution


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Process Flow Organization

• Each Process Flow should be organized and easy to read.

• Enterprise Guide automatically arranges each component of the Process

Flow. This option can be turned off.

• Then you can drag around any of the items in the Process Flow to make it

easier to read and in the order you want.

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Documentation and Organization

• An EG Project that is documented and organized is central to the success

of a process.

• Even for ad-hoc processes, someone may need to create a similar

process down the road and could reuse part of what the user is

developing.

• Easy to take shortcuts in the short term to rush and get something done.

• Putting a small amount of time into this area will yield great results long

term.

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Leveraging Point and Click Functionality

• Enterprise Guide was designed to simplify the life of a SAS user.

• Many use EG as a code editor, but there is a whole other world of things.

• Useful to new SAS users but are also provide incredible time savings and

simplification to expert SAS programmers.

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Excel Import Data Wizard

• Import and modify data-drop fields, change variable attributes, which

worksheet or cells to import, and more.

• All without any coding!

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Changing Column Properties

• Name: name of the variable. SAS naming restrictions apply.

• Label: text that is sometimes displayed in place of the variable’s name.

• Type: character or numeric.

• Length: maximum length of the data values, in bytes.

• Informat*: determines how the data is read in.

• Format*: determines how the data is displayed.

• Include in output: determines whether the variable will be included in the

resulting SAS data set.

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Getting the Most Out of SAS® Enterprise Guide® u www.sys-seminar.com u 1-800-997-7081 40

Text Format (fixed width)

If the data is fixed width:

• Highlight Fixed Columns.

• Click the ruler above the sample text to denote the column divisions.


Text Format (delimited)

If the data is delimited:

• Under Text format, select Delimited.

• Select the appropriate delimiter.


My Favorite Task – The Query Builder!

Query Builder is a graphical way analysts can:

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• Join tables

• Select variables

• Filter data

• Sort data

• Change data source

• Compute columns

• Set up prompts

• De-dup observations

• Change query options

• Add titles, footnotes

• Limit output

• And more


Query Builder

• Intuitive, easy to understand and use, eliminates coding errors

• Query Builder builds code that can be reused and modified.

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Sorting

• Double-click additional variables on the Tables list to add them to the

Sort Data tab.

• Use the and buttons to arrange the variables in order of sort

priority.


Adding a New Computed Column

• Build an expression.

• Specify additional options, including a new column name, alias, and

format.

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Joining Tables

• EG will find join key or can manually specify

• Choose what type of join and other options

• Join up to 32 tables at once!

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Code Generated By SAS Enterprise Guide

• The Query Builder is generating PROC SQL behind the scenes!

• Use the code or modify it.

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Summary Reports: PROC Tabulate

• You can arrange your report in the the Preview Area.

• One or two dimensions, concatenation and crossing, analysis and

classification variables, and statistics!

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Summary Report/PROC TABULATE Output

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Characterize Data

• What variables do the data sets contain?

• What does the data look like?

Characterize Data Wizard creates:

• Summary report

• Graphs

• Frequency SAS data set

• Univariate SAS data set

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Characterize Data – Summary Reports

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Characterize Data - Graphs

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Keep these tables in a permanent library because…

• You can restart in the middle

• They’re useful for testing and debugging

• Disk space is cheap

Many Tasks Leads To Many Intermediate Tables

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Easily Create Useful, Beautiful Graphs

• Creating graphs is simple with EG’s interface!

• No SAS/GRAPH syntax

• Completed in a fraction of the time

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• Bar charts

• Pie charts

• Line plots

• Scatter plots

• Area plots

• Donut charts

• Bubble plots

• Contour plots

• Box plots

• And more


Graph Interface

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A Graph Created in SAS Enterprise Guide

• Easily create graphs within SAS

• Can be interactive! You can change colors or change to a pie graph

without rerunning data

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Packaged Reports

• Easy to package reports!

• With a few clicks, package multiple reports

• Charts, titles, text, images, and more

• Email or schedule for distribution

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Example of a Packaged Report

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Enterprise Guide Project Backup

• EG projects are stored as a single binary file (not plain text)

• Always back up the .egp file

• Back up to plain text with “Export All Code…”

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How Should An Analyst Use EG?

Use GUI for the majority of tasks

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Leveraging Enterprise

Guide Wizards

Using Shell Code

Understanding SAS Process/

Easier Debugging

Maximum Efficiency


How Should An Analyst Use EG?

Learn how to program as necessary!

• Debugging

• Integrate macro variables

Include System Date in Report Title!

• Explore the world of SAS functions

Hundreds and hundreds of useful function for use in SAS

• Understand code that others have written

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How Should A Programmer Use EG?

Don’t be afraid to use EG features!

Point and Click

• EG tasks have a consistent interface across all projects

• EG tasks constrain the user/developer to valid options and settings

• EG tasks minimize spelling and naming ambiguities

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Inserted Code

• Use tasks and code


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Enhanced, Enhanced Editor

• Line is blurring between coding and GUI with new editor options

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Don’t Box Yourself In With EG

• If you are a programmer, try some point and click!

• If you are an analyst, don’t be afraid of code!

• Explore your options!

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Recommended Reading

• The Missing Semicolon: http://www.sys-seminar.com/newsletter

Monthly Enterprise Guide Tips

• Chris Hemedinger-The SAS Dummy

http://blogs.sas.com/content/sasdummy/

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Questions, Comments

• Please email questions or comments to [email protected] or

contact us at 1-800-997-7081.

• A copy of the presentation and a recording of the webinar will be emailed

out to attendees. This can be shared with people who did not attend.

67


Upcoming Lunch and Learn

Introduction to SAS Macros

December 6, Noon Central

Steven First

We will email an invitation to our mailing list and attendees.

Please share invitation with others.

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Contact Us

Jennifer First

Vice President

[email protected]

2997 Yarmouth Greenway Drive • Madison, WI 53711

(608) 278-9964

www.sys-seminar.com

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