Last week I attended the Wisconsin-Illinois User Conference in Milwaukee, WI. It was great! If you are new to SAS user conferences are a great way to get more training and if you are a seasoned SAS…
[Read the full article at the Http://www.bi-notes….
I have been very busy in the past month writing guest post for some of the different blogs that I follow and find interesting. I’ve also been reading some books that I wanted to share with you! Blogging! Blogging! and More Blogging! Here’s some of the guest posts that I have contributed around the web. Password Encoding with SASPaul Homes writes the most incredible blog (Platform Administrator) for SAS system administrators. I was honored when he asked me to contribute to his blog – considering I’m nowhere near the powerhouse of administration knowledge he is. However, I did have one tip about how to encode your password and use it in SAS programs or SAS Enterprise Guide profiles. User Conferences = Busy SummerWaynette Tubbs seems to be the social media face for SAS. Her blog about the SAS User Groups always has a few gems. She asked to reprint one of my other blog posts about the conferences I’m planning to attend this summer. I did appreciate that folks who have already contacted me to let me know I would be seeing them in Milwaukee, London, and Long Beach. Woot! Woot! [Make sure you follow Waynette on Twitter – @waynettetubs] […]
One of the best things about attending the SAS Global Forum is all the brilliant people you get to meet. Guy Garrett’s presentation about planning a BI strategy was quiet popular and I have to say he was very witty. Turns out implementing a BI strategy is similar to dating – who knew? Anyway – here’s a follow up from Guy – I encourage you to sign-up for the Achieve Intelligence monthly newsletter for more goodies. What is Your BI Strategy? I recently had the pleasure of presenting a paper on “How to Create a Business Intelligence Strategy” at the SAS Global Forum in Orlando. I started off by asking for a show of hands if the organisation the audience worked at had a current existing BI strategy. Out of approx 150 people only 20% put up their hands. I then followed this up with a further question: “Keep your hands up if your BI strategy is documented and accessible so that all information consumers at the organisation know what the strategy is.” Three hands remained. Check the Roadmap! Anyone who has kids knows the heart crunching moment when you’ve just started on a long journey and they say “Are we there yet?”. […]
SAS stored processes are similar to SAS programs in that they use the same programming language. Many of my SAS programs I created early on were only used by me, so I could live with a little uncertainty and it was easy enough to check the logs for any issues. If anything went wrong then I knew what I had to change. Stored processes required a whole new level of thinking – my first few stored processes back in the SAS 9.1.3 days were – well they left a lot to be desired. When I would roll out a new stored process I would often get a call from a user who had done something crazy and the stored process wouldn’t work. For instance, why would anyone put a state name in a customer name field to see if it would return all the customers from that state? Only one thing could happen – no report! Here’s some usability tricks that I have learned with my SAS Stored Processes to make them more robust and harder to break. Really the out-of-the box prompts provide a lot of functionality that really helps. That’s right – let’s build a better mousetrap! Tip #1: […]
I created a LogCheck macro [code provided] to review the log during a batch process. The SAS log files can be rather large and it is so much easier if you can just extract the issues in an easy to understand format. This macro reads in each line of the log file and keeps the ones with Error, Warning, Note, or specific text you want to trap. Then it sends a colorful email to report what issues (if any) were found. You can download the code and two sample programs to review or change for your situation. Let me know what you think in the Comments section. How can the code be improved? Any ideas you have? Using the LogCheck Macro Add the LogCheck macro to your batch job to report issues through email about the job. When the job has no errors, you will receive an email similar to the following. The subject line indicates no found issues – thus you have some assurance the job was successful. When the job has errors – the macros sends an email similar to the following. Notice the subject line contains the number of Errors, Warnings, and Notes present in the […]
Check out the results of my SAS Enterprise Guide code – 41 days til SAS Global Forum 2012 in Orlando, Florida! I’m excited – I can’t wait to meet some of my Web friends face-to-face finally! Oh and also catch up with some of my old buddies! Why Should I Attend SAS Global Forum? Here’s the reasons I like to attend: Like Minded PeopleWorking in smaller organizations, I was sometimes was one of a handful of data geeks running loose in the halls. It’s great to meet 3,000+ others who actually know what “code or let SAS EG do it?” means. The SAS users are one of the things that make this a great product to use. There are several meetups planned (think it use to be called Birds of a Feather) – I want to check out the joint SAS-L, SASCommunity, and SAS Discussion meetup. Plus after you arrive there are others – for instance, new SAS users, SAS BI users, etc. Oh and the .. Kick Back Party … you know you want to show off all your groovy dance moves! Don’t worry I’ll have my camera! Exchange of IdeasEach time I attend – I come away with […]
Wow – it’s a very exciting time to have an analytics career! You may have read the Preparing Yourself for Analytics Job Tsunami post at BeyeNetwork last week, which basically said we are headed for a shortage of analytics or data-minded people. Oh … music to my little analytic-trained, big-data-lovin’ ears! The article was pointing to the McKinsey & Company thoughts from last May about the arrival of big data and what it would mean. I liked this particular point: “There will be a shortage of talent necessary for organizations to take advantage of big data. By 2018, the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills as well as 1.5 million managers and analysts with the know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective decisions.“ -McKinsey Global Institute May 2011 Analysts with the Know-How to use the Analysis My favorite moment with customers is when I show them their data as a chart or graph and they say something like ”This is what I’ve been trying to say!” or “No wonder this situation is happening.” Suddenly, the issue they have been having with employee productivity, another department, or […]
You may be aware by now, our new SAS BI book Building Business Intelligence with SAS:Content Development Examples launched last week on the SAS Press site. That’s right, SAS Press or Amazon will be delighted to bring a copy of this SAS BI book to your door. When Angela and I set out to write this book, one of the first things we discussed was how new users get access to the SAS BI toolset and have no idea of its astonishing capabilities. This book guides you through each one so you understand it. Intermediate and advanced users will also find this book as a valuable reference. Several times, Angela & I have both found ourselves pulling out the draft copy to reference an advanced technique. This book fulfills a unique spot in the marketplace; there is no other single book that leads you through each SAS BI component with step-by-step examples along with hundreds of tips and techniques to make you successful! SAS Institute offers over nine SAS BI courses to cover all the topics we have jammed packed into this book. Making this an excellent study guide for those planning to take the SAS BI Content Development Exam. Your SAS […]