Business Intelligence SAS Users Group :: BISUG newsletter [Year 2005 Issue 4]

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The April issue of the BISUG newsletter provides a review of selected SAS Business Intelligence papers presented at the SUGI conference (SUGI 30) that was held on April 10-13 in Philadelphia, PA. The review was written by Alex Dmitrienko (Eli Lilly and Company).
Business intelligence themes at SUGI 30
Looking at the large number of business intelligence papers at SUGI 30, it will be fair to conclude that business intelligence was one of the main themes of the conference. The attendees got the first glimpse of this theme right at the opening ceremony on Sunday night. To underscore SAS Institute's commitment to business intelligence and analytic solutions beyond business intelligence, Dr. Jim Goodnight (CEO of SAS Institute) asked Rick Styll (Business Intelligence Product Application Manager, SAS Institute) to do a quick demo of the recent release of the SAS web-based business intelligence product, Web Report Studio. Thanks to modern technology, you can view the video of this demonstration on the SUGI 30's web site. To find the video, select the View the videos nowlink under SUGI 30 videos, choose Opening night and, lastly, choose the eighth link (the intelligence platform - Jim Goodnight).
Enterprise Guide
What's New in SAS Enterprise Guide – Your Key to Analytic Business Intelligence
Stephen McDaniel (SAS Institute) Stephen McDaniel (Senior Development Manager, SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office Teams) described the main features of Enterprise Guide 4.1, the seventh major release of Enterprise Guide, which is planned to be delivered in the last quarter of 2005. The following is a brief summary based on my notes and slides provided by Stephen McDaniel (please keep in mind that this is a very high-level summary that does not cover some of the new features, for example, information maps or OLAP-related components). A more detailed review of what Enterprise Guide 4.1 brings to users will be provided later this year. Report integration A great new feature of Enterprise Guide 4.1 is the introduction of SAS reports. SAS reports are XML-based documents that can include multiple results (for example, multiple plots). This new feature enables the user to combine analyses in one convenient report by dragging them from the Project window. The user can easily change the report layout and modify the formatting on the fly. I saw this new report integration feature in the Demo room and was quite impressed. Stored process One of the biggest improvements in Enterprise Guide 4.1 is related to stored process authoring. A stored process is essentially a SAS macro with a point-and-click interface. While Enterprise Guide has supported the creation and management of stored processes for a long time, Enterprise Guide 4.1 takes stored processes authoring to the next level. To give an example, the new version of Enterprise Guide makes it very easy to turn a complex process flow (sequence of linked data sets, SAS programs or Enterprise Guide tasks and output) built by a user into a stored process and make it available to other users. Other interesting features include the use of macro variables in stored processes to automate repetitive tasks, extension of parameterized queries to parameterized projects and a new tool (Stored Process Mover) to facilitate the transfer of stored processes between SAS metadata servers. Process Flow The process flow view in the Project window has been considerably enhanced. First of all, the process flow view now supports dependencies. For example, the user can create a link between several elements (for example, Enterprise Guide tasks) and a SAS program to indicate that this program should not run until the tasks are finished. This feature comes in handy when various elements in a process flow are executed on different servers and it is important to control the order in which the process flow nodes are processed. Secondly, users can now print process flow diagrams to help visualize the structure of an Enterprise Guide project. Query Builder task The Enterprise Guide team has made an extensive effort to modernize this task. Most important/popular data management operations have been moved to the first screen of the Query Builder wizard. Stephen mentioned that several users had already tested the new task and were pleased with the changes. Other Enterprise Guide tasks Enterprise Guide 4.1 lets the user decide whether or not a task should stay up after the user has clicked the Run button (the Enterprise Guide 3.0 default is to hide the task interface). With this new feature, the user can run a task, review the results and easily modify the task parameters without having to reopen it. Enterprise Guide 4.1 comes with more than 10 new built-in tasks (they will be almost 80 standard tasks in Enterprise Guide 4.1). Just to mention a few, there is a useful data characterization task that provides a quick summary of all variables in a data set. Another useful task is a publishing task that can be used with scheduled projects. When added at the end of a process flow this task can automatically save or publish the results.
Boost Your Programming Productivity with SAS Enterprise Guide
Stephen McDaniel (SAS Institute) Stephen McDaniel provided an overview of Enterprise Guide 3.0 which he called "the swiss army knife of SAS." He talked about data migration, Enterprise Guide's ability to work with multiple data sources and SAS servers, stored processes, output style editing and lots of other great Enterprise Guide features. Stephen also covered more advanced topics such as creation of simple Visual Basic scripts for automating and scheduling tasks. By the way, you will find an interesting article on Visual Basic scripts for Enterprise Guide in the recent issue of SAS Technology Report (written by Bill Sawyer, Senior Technical Support Analyst, SAS Institute). Stephen also pointed out that SAS Institute currently provides an upgrade (called Enterprise Guide Hot Fix 2) which includes about 25 fixes from Enterprise Guide 3. For more information about Enterprise Guide Hot Fix 2, please see the SAS technical support web site. You do not need to download Enterprise Guide Hot Fix 2 if you have received the most recent production release of Enterprise Guide (Enterprise Guide 3.0.2). However, please stay tuned because SAS Institute is planning to deliver one or two more upgrades for Enterprise Guide 3. We will keep you posted.



Enterprise Guide (continued)
Efficient Data Access using SAS Enterprise Guide: Best Practices
Chris Hemedinger (SAS Institute) Although Enterprise Guide automates many processes and frees the user from dealing with data handling/data conversion details, it is important to visualize the data flow and understand the steps Enterprise Guide and SAS servers go through to perform data queries. Using Oracle databases as an example, Chris Hemedinger (Development Manager, Enterprise Guide) demonstrated that the Query Builder task in Enterprise Guide can sometimes generate PROC SQL code that cannot be executed by external databases. Download the presentation (PowerPoint presentation).
Filling the Gap: Extending the SAS Business Intelligence Server with Custom Tasks
Chris Hemedinger (SAS Institute) Alex Dmitrienko (Eli Lilly and Company) SAS Enterprise Guide and Add-In for Microsoft Office ship with a large number of tasks for data manipulation, analysis, and reporting. In addition, Enterprise Guide and Add-In for Microsoft Office support a powerful framework for developing business-specific custom tasks. This presentation provided an overview of the architecture of custom tasks and an example task for producing general purpose tabular summaries. To download this custom task, please visit the Business Intelligence Exchange (under Pharmaceutical industry custom tasks). Download the presentation (PowerPoint presentation).
Using SAS Enterprise Guide in a Global Programming Environment
Karen Curran (Omnicare Clinical Research) Karen Curran (Director of programming, Omnicare Clinical Research) presented a very interesting paper that introduced an Enterprise Guide-based global programming system developed by Omnicare Clinical Research. Karen provided a detailed description of the options the company explored and pointed out several advantages of using a system built around Enterprise Guide, including Enterprise Guide's user-friendly interface, access to several SAS servers from a single Enterprise Guide session and an ability to run multiple Enterprise Guide sessions at the same time. Although the SAS users at Omnicare Clinical Research faced a learning curve which resulted in lower productivity during the transition period, they were happy with Enterprise Guide and the perks that came with it. Download the paper (PDF document).
End-to-End Web Reporting Using SAS Enterprise Guide 3.0: Who does What and When
Marje Fecht (Prowerk Consulting) Peter Bennett (SAS Institute) Marje Fecht and Peter Bennett provided a very informative description of Enterprise Guide from three perspectives: Enterprise Guide administrator (a detailed review of the work that needs to be done upfront to crate a flexible and secure environment for the end user, e.g., Enterprise Guide settings, metada settings, etc). SAS programmer (stored process authoring, built-in tasks that help programmers quickly run ad-hoc analyses). Enterprise Guide user (work with stored processes and custom tasks). A very good review of the main components of Enterprise Guide. Download the paper (PDF document). Marje Fecht and Peter Bennett have kindly agreed to share their slides (four zip archives). Please take a look at them if you missed their lively presentation!
Add-In for Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office Integration with the SAS Business Intelligence Server
Jennifer Clegg (SAS Institute) I-Kong Fu (SAS Institute) Jennifer Clegg (Development Manager, Add-In for Microsoft Office) and I-Kong Fu (Product Manager, Add-In for Microsoft Office) provided a detailed review of the current release of Add-In for Microsoft Office which ships with SAS 9.1 as part of the Business Intelligence Server. The Add-In integrates with Microsoft Excel and Word and creates a very flexible environment for business analysts who are accustomed to working with Microsoft Office. It does not require that PC SAS be installed on the user's computer and enables the user to get access to the power of SAS analytics directly from Microsoft Office applications. Download the paper (PDF document).
What’s Coming in SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office 2.1
Jennifer Clegg (SAS Institute) I-Kong Fu (SAS Institute) Jennifer Clegg and I-Kong Fu introduced Add-In for Microsoft Office 2.1 which will be released at the end of 2005 and summarized key features of the new version: In addition to Microsoft Excel and Word, Add-In for Microsoft Office 2.1 will support PowerPoint. Improved support for Excel-specific features (ability to open data sources into pivot tables). Support of multiple results on one spreadsheet or slide (similar to SAS reports in Enterprise Guide 4.1). As with Enterprise Guide 4.1, a detailed review of Add-In for Microsoft Office 2.1 will be provided later this year.