Tag: Information Map

SAS Information Map Studio: Data items with same name

In SAS Information Map Studio, you may notice that some data items have similar names with a numeric after the name. When you use the data items from various tables they may use similar names. It can be difficult for the end user to understand what the…

Info Map: Use SAS Functions to get dates – oh yeah

You can use the Expression Editor and some SAS functions to create new data items from existing data items.  Here’s how to create some common Date data items.  SAS functions make it easy to perform actions and all you need is a variable and som…

Info Map: Get me a new Data Item, puhhleeze!

When creating a new data item, you might want to combine two or more data fields to make one.  For instance, you want to create the data item Full Name from First Name and Last Name data items. Using the SAS CAT functions makes this is an easy task. There are three CAT functions available from the Expression Editor.  Each of these functions has a slight difference that is useful in various situations. For this example, you will learn how to use the CATX functions to create the Full name data item in three different ways: Employee Name is the First Name and Last Name Employee is the Last Name, First Name Employee Code uses the Employee Number and Last Name The CATX function does 3 things: Concatenates two or more data items Removes the white space at end of the character value Allows you to set a delimiter (comma, space, and so on) between the data items Create Employee Name For this data item, you want a space between the first name and last name.  When adding the code place a space between the quote marks. Create Employee For this data item, you want a comma between the last and […]

Info Map: I want an Average not a Sum!

In Information Map Studio, you can easily set the default measure for a data item in the Properties area.
(1)  Use the Default aggregate function drop-down to select the default.  When you set this item to AVERAGE, the data item defaults to Average t…

Info Map: Why does the data item show as scientific notation?

When a data item is created in Information Map Studio, the defaults are assigned for classifications and aggregations.  If the data item is a percentage, this defaults may not make sense.  For instance, the following figure shows the Gross Margin in scientific notation instead of a percentage. When the data item was imported, the default aggregation method was SUM, which does not work in this case.  The gross margin is your profit from this sale and it should remain constant or in other words. So how do you fix it? You need to change the default measurement for the data item. For a value like Gross Margin, there is not reason to aggregate this data item – when is a sum of all Gross Margins for a customer or product used? For this item, the gross margin is associated with the Product data item.  Any product no matter to which customer in any region, the gross margin remains constant.  You have to select a default aggregation method, so I chose Average.  I thought it would make the most sense to the end user.  I could have also used Minimum.  In the following figure, minimum would have set the value to […]

Create, Access, and View Data – All the tools you need!

SAS EBI is comprised of several applications.  Here is a quick overview: Make Data SAS OLAP Cube Studio Build OLAP cube using SAS datasets. SAS Information Map Studio Build information maps from SAS datasets and OLAP cubes. SAS Enterprise Guide Connect to SAS datasets, RDBMS, and even Excel spreadsheets SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office Possible to create data in MS Excel that you can save to the server and then use in other BI Tools.  This would be an option for smaller datasets that are updated infrequently and not centrally stored, for instance, an department organization structure. Use Data Web Report Studio Create reports from OLAP Cubes, Info Maps, or SAS datasets. SAS Enterprise Guide Create reports and more from OLAP Cubes, Info Maps, or SAS datasets. Also create reports that can be shared as a stored process for the other SAS SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office In MS Excel – Create reports from OLAP Cubes, information maps, or SAS datasets.  Mix SAS data with the data from Excel spreadsheets. In MS Office/PowerPoint – create reports from cubes, information maps, or datasets.  Not as much flexibility as with MS Excel, but you can easily create report that you can share […]

Sample Data Sources

As you start to learn the SAS Information Map Studio and SAS Web Report Studio, you may want some sample data to play with or otherwise explore.  Here is a list of free sources that I have found that can help as you learn and want to challenge yourself. Simple Data Tables Here are some sources for simple data tables.  These are datasets with all of the data contained in one table and do not need to join to anything else. SASHELP This listing of data may be most familiar to BASE SAS users. This library has several ready made data sets (i.e. SHOES, CLASS, and CARS). If you do not see a SASHELP library in your list, then ask your SAS Administrator to add it. SAS Enterprise Guide Data EG 4.3 shipped with some fun ready-made simple datasets:  Bullets,  Drugs, and TotArrests.  [Hmmm …. ] This data was located in this path on my EG 4.3  installation: C:\Program Files\SAS\EnterpriseGuide\4.3\Sample\Data DATA.GOV http://www.data.gov/ has a ton of simple raw data tables on a variety of topics: earthquake activity, income data by county for 2007, and unemployment statistics.  It is actually just fun to poke around to see what is available. This site also has links to other […]