There’s so much excitement about big data, data scientists, and all things that mean you need some serious SAS BI skills.  On Monday I was discussing the Kinsey Insitiute projections for data related jobs, but even the New York Times ran The Age of Big Data an article about it.  Appears everyone is talking about it!  oooh … Buzz! I love it.

SAS BI Developer Demand is Growing

The past December, BusinessIntellience.Com, reported that SAS Business Analytics SMB Sales Jumped 42 Percent and went on to comment that  ”[this]  jump demonstrates that enterprises of all sizes are seizing business analytics as a vital competitive tool.”  Last week, the same webzine was reporting that SAS in Leaders Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms according to the Gartner Inc report. 

As SAS Institute sells more SAS BI solutions, naturally more SAS BI Developer jobs become available.  On the Indeed.Com you can search out job trends to determine which fields seem to be growing.  [Disclaimer! These figures are based on Indeed.Com job postings and I have no idea what their counting rules are – so I realize this could be that more recruiters use Indeed or Indeed has  a better aggregation methodology.] With that said, check out the SAS BI growth compared to just BI. My point – the orange line it going up.

SAS BI, BI, BASE SAS, Statistician Job Trends

SAS Bi jobs – Bi jobs – Base SAS jobs – Statistician jobs

I added some other job description fields to help keep it real. Rather these are exact figures or not, I don’t have a hard time believing it.  Last December, in one week I had over 10 recruiters contact me about various SAS BI developer and administration jobs around the US.   Plus I get an email or a call every week for BASE SAS jobs and clinical jobs.

What is SAS BI Anyway?

In the Overview of the SAS BI tools there’s an explanation of the different clients. In the first chapter of the Building Business Intelligence with SAS book, there is an overview of the clients and how they interact.  [Check SAS Press for a free download of Chapter One. ] If you just want an overview of business intelligence as a field, check out Need Presentation Fodder post for some books and resources resources.

Learning More about SAS BI

The good thing about being a BASE SAS programmer is that you have an easier progression to SAS BI development roles.  There are some hurdles, different ways of thinking, but just understanding how SAS uses formats, functions, and macro coding makes it easier. With my BASE SAS background, I was able to learn the basics about stored processes in an hour and transitioned many of my reports within a week. <Shazam!>

For instance, check out the PROC GKPI code in this stored process – I bet you know what it’s doing! And how long does it take to register a stored process in the metadata, according to Angela’s You Tube demo, one little minute.

Also – look at Steve Overton’s post about building OLAP cubes – really you don’t think you sorta understand what the code is doing.  It won’t take long to learn is what others who have transitioned from BASE SAS to SAS BI OLAP developers have told me.

Some Preparation Tips

Here’s some ways to start preparing yourself for the jump:

• Getting access to the SAS BI clients may be your first big hurdle, ask your SAS Administrator if they have a play area or sandbox in the SAS BI environment where you can begin learning.  You can use the SASHELP data to work through the exercises in the Building Business Intelligence with SAS book.  [Order your copy here ]
• Ask your company to call the SAS Sales rep for a product demo.  It’s an amazing product!
• If you cannot get access here’s some things to do

• Learning or increase your PROC SQL and macro coding skills.  
• Learn to use the project prompts in SAS Enterprise Guide
• Learn what metadata is and how it’s used.

 Also keep following this blog … you know I love to share my knowledge!

Last week at Insurance and Finance User’s Group (IFSUG), I caught up with Sunil Gupta, a SAS Press author and a SAS expert. He was chairing one of the sections and presenting some information himself, which Angela Hall and Waynette Tubbs discussed in their blogs. However, Sunil is a busy man – the week before he was teaching a class about getting the most from PROC TABULATE in a live lecture from his SAS Savvy site.

Touring SAS Savvy

If you are just learning BASE SAS or SAS Enterprise Guide, then SAS Savvy should be a part of your weekly rotation. This site is a well-organized collection of original material and thoughtful links to other SAS resources. In addition, each month, Sunil hosts a live SAS Training session, giving you direct access to a leading SAS expert!

Frequently Updated Savvy Content

For the training sessions, Sunil uses a desktop sharing program and a voice conference. For the PROC TABULATE class, two others joined the session, so it was easy to ask questions and not feel like you were getting lost in the crowd. Sunil commented that after learning PROC TABULATE, he had stopped using PROC FREQ and PROC MEANS because he could accomplish those tasks and more with the procedure. [I agree! Here’s an stored process example using PROC Tabulate.]

In the first part of the course, Sunil gave a quick tour of the site structure and then he demonstrated the search feature, which indexes the built-in content and over 600 links. What’s nice about the site is upon logging in, you can see a list of new links. For example, there’s a new Clinical Trials Certification Exam, a new Pharma Industry Clinical Study Analysis/Process Flow, a new SAS Log Error Checking Tool, a new article on Macros called “Defensive Programming”, some new Utility Macros to validate data, new SAS/GRAPH Dashboard Examples, and an updated SAS Tip Sheet. Whew!

Mind Mapping the Site Structure – Unique TOC!

An interesting way that SASsavvy is organized is that the topics are divided between Data Management (Data Step and Functions), Analytical Analysis (Enterprise Guide, ODS Statistics, Statistical Analysis), and Advanced Programming (Macros and Dictionary Tables). If you navigate into one of these areas, you can see more details on the subject. Each major subject has its own section, which is indexed graphically. For example, the Enterprise Guide page has a nice diagram with boxes leading off into Examples, Tutorial Videos, various papers, fact sheets, and forums. Generally, all the major topics are organized using this method.

Use the Gallery for Code Examples

As the subject of this particular course was PROC TABULATE, this is where we focused for our remaining time. A useful feature in this section is the PROC TABULATE Gallery. The Gallery shows over a dozen table layout examples produced by PROC TABULATE. If you are trying to code a table layout, you can browse through the various output examples to select the one that most closely matches your case. From there you can click a “SAS Code” link to get the code used to create it. None of these layouts needs any customization – you can do them all with PROC TABULATE and the code provided.

Finally, we spent some time looking through the PROC TABULATE e-guide. A variety of these specialized e-guides is available on the site. The Proc Tab e-guide is about 30-pages long and growing. This is where Sunil shows his book writing skills as he starts the e-guide off with a diagrammatical approach to constructing a Proc Tab program. The e-guide goes through the considerations and planning to define the key dimensions and options for creating any diverse output. This type of tool is a real time saver and a great educational resource.

Your Turn to Visit SAS Savvy

When I find neat resources, I like to share them with you. This is not a paid link – it’s just a good resource.  Sunil has a unique ability to break down complex ideas into simple, quickly understandable concepts.  He’s one of my SAS Heros! You can become a member of the SAS Savvy site – there are three membership plans. Sign up for a money back guarantee on your first month basic or premium membership – visit SAS Savvy now to sign up for a membership.   

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 People
  Working 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 Ideas
  Each time I attend – I come away with some new ideas or approaches. You can often meet others who either already know how to solve a situation you are facing or they can rattle off about 10 different approaches.  After one conference, I created a dashboard based on a discussion with an experienced user that landed me a big fat raise the following year.  While I cannot promise you a raise, I can promise your professional skillset will increase.
   
• Demo Hall
  This is probably the area I head to first – love to see the cool new toys and talk to the SAS developers.  I’m hearing some rumors about the next release of SAS BI – might be some big changes in store.  

  Make sure you stop to meet Paul and Michelle at Metacoda and check out the latest release of the Metacoda Security plug-in. (Tell them Tricia sent you-it’s worth a free demo.)

  Plus the SAS Posters are usually in that area – so you can pick up some cool tips from reviewing those. There are some artists among us … who knew?

  And ….  SAS Press has a little corner setup with all of their books, some sofas, and candy.  You can look through the books to figure out which ones you want to take home – 20% off.  They are offering a deal where you can order books at 20% off and pick them up at the conference.

Ok, I might be Interested …

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Let me tell you about some papers already on my schedule.  By the way, after you register you can assemble your schedule online so you always know where you are going.  Here’s all the papers for #SGF2012.

• Get the Fast Pass to Building Building Business Intelligence with SAS and Google Analytics 
  You know I was going to talk about my own paper first!  Angela and I can hardly wait to tell you all about SAS BI and Google Analytics.  I’m hearing rumors that SAS Publishing may be giving away a free copy of the book.  I may be biased – but I’m pretty sure this will be one of the best presentations.    
   
• Lost in Wonderland? Methodology for a Guided Drill-Through Analysis Out of the Rabbit Hole
  Steve Overton, who blogs here,  is talking about “data infrastructure needed to support this type of information system through the use of OLAP technology, effective data architecture, report linking, and information maps.”  Steve is doing two other papers – one about moving users from MS Active Directory to SAS Mgmt Console and another about develping a flexible ETL process so changes are noted within the entire data warehouse.  And you thought he only knew about SAS OLAP cubes!
   
• Create Multi-Sheet Excel Workbook for Large Data Sets by SAS® and VBA, Charlie Huang will demonstrate a quick way to create multiple sheets for you SAS output.  Very cool method using some VBA code that is easy to learn! Charlie blogs at SAS Analysis – always some cool, practical ideas from him.
   
• An Advanced, Multi-Featured Macro Program for Reviewing Logs, Chris Swenson shows you how to use his super-fancy %CHECKLOG macro to review your programs.    Chris Swenson blogs at Thoughts from Both Sides and his macro library is the bomb! 
   
• Capitalizing on SAS® and Hadoop.  Been hearing a lot about SAS and Hadoop – so I curious to learn more about what Hadoop is and what cool things it will bring to SAS BI.  There are some other  papers on this topic as well – so I may be a busy lady.
   
• Leveraging an Upgrade to Improve Metadata, Brent Whitesel and Angela discuss strategies for working with SAS folder metadata structure. This paper will be a little advanced – but I’m sure there are some tips for all the SAS Administrators out there. 
   
• You Don’t Have to Go Home…but You Can’t Stay Here, Chris Hemedinger was chatting last week in his blog about this topic.  Even though it will be the last paper presented – Chris has an awesome speaking style so you won’t want to miss it. He has some other papers planned – so be on the look out for those as well.

More to Come … 

These are the main papers that have caught my attention this week – I’m still scouring through the papers to see what else is out there. I’ll have more in a few weeks.  What papers are on your agenda? And don’t forget to sign up if you haven’t already!?! You don’t want Tinkerbell to cast a spell on you!!

Credit:  All Disney images courtesy of Free Disney Clipart Site. 

Today I’m blogging at the All Analytics site about how you encourage users to adopt your dashboard (or really any reporting tools).  

Join the Dashboard E-Chat Tomorrow

When I was at the IFSUG conference, I attended a presentation by Stephen Harris, a senior VP at Bank of America. He discussed very thoroughly the issues he had getting users to accept the BI Dashboard as a reporting tool and the methodology he later developed to overcome the issues.  

There’s an E-Chat with him tomorrow at 3 PM EST where he will be discussing some of the issues and providing advise.  It’s a great chance for you to “speak” directly with an industry expert. If you cannot attend the e-chat – just leave a question here (quick site registration required) and then you can check back afterwards for his answer. 

Facebook and Privacy

Plus … check out my All Analytics vblog about the data Facebook shares with other sites when you use the quick log-in features. Please join the conversation – I would love to know what you think.  Now I have to go get ready for my red carpet interviews … <ha ha>!

Maybe you are like me and your SAS programs frequently bounce from PROC SQL to data steps depending on the task at hand. Some things you cannot do in PROC SQL as easily as the data step and vice versa.  Here’s 3 data set tricks that I have successfully used with PROC SQL.  These are some time savers that you can use in your work.  However, if you know some others add them in the Comments section – I double-dare you.

Credit: http://www.unprofound.com

Trick #1: Drop and Keep Options

You can use the DROP and KEEP options on the FROM or CREATE statements. This is handy when you want to exclude or include a list of variables.  Consider this example where I saved myself some typing because I know the only variable I don’t want is country. Otherwise I would have had to type out all of the other variables just to exclude a single one.

proc sql;
 create table Newtable  as
    select *
 from sashelp.prdsal2(drop=country);
quit; 

Trick #2: Limit the Observations

OBS allows you to control the number of observations input to the procedure.  I would use this if I had a particularly large data table and I just needed to test or see what was happening.

proc sql;
 create table Newtable as
    select *
 from sashelp.prdsal2(obs=5);
quit; 

PROC SQL also has a OUTOBS and INOBS options that would work as easily.

Trick #3: Renaming Variables 

You can rename a variable as you input or output the data.  This is useful if you just have a few variables that need a new name and you want to avoid typing all the variables.  Here’s how it works:

proc sql;
 create table Newtable (rename=(country=CTRY)) as
    select *
 from sashelp.prdsal2;
quit;

More Information

Many of the data set options can be used in PROC SQL.  SAS Support site lists all of the data set options.  Here’s a great SAS Global Forum Using Data Set Options in PROC SQL paper that goes into more detail. Lots of good things come from the SAS Global Forum!

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?”. I always say “Check the map!” How do you know if you’ve reached the destination of your BI provision if you don’t have a map, a documented and communicated strategy for providing all your Business intelligence requirements. In our work with clients we’ve identified 5 areas of Business Intelligence Strategy which we recommend corporations and SMEs alike design, document and distribute.

Your BI Strategy Roadmap

This outlines the scope of what is covered by the BI strategy. It should align to the overall corporate strategy and leave a tangible deliverable which can be communicated to the rest of the organisation, so they know the most effective method of BI provision.

Stakeholder Management

This is all about asking the right questions of the right people; identifying the impact and influence of the current reporting systems and identifying the up and coming challenges the organisation faces. Crucially the subject matter areas need to be identified as a high level approach to organising BI.

Architectural Blueprint 

This defines who governs data and reporting information. There is no “one size fits all” approach to providing Business Intelligence. Some organisations create a Business Intelligence Competency Centre, others have teams of MI analysts, others have even less structure – depending on the size and culture of the organisation. The question of development methodology and reporting lineage should also be addressed here.

Capability Improvement

Provides the stepping stones to move from “the now” to “the future”. Are the resources you have skilled up? Do business processes need addressing, as often much legacy reporting has built up due to inconsistencies in processes?Investigation should also be made into the current hardware and software capability to ensure they’re fit for purpose.

Implementation Planning 

Finally the implementation of the strategy should highlight timescales, costs and resources to enable the board to determine the size of the implementation project. 

Creating a Business Intelligence strategy shouldn’t be an arduous exercise as long as everyone is on board with the concept of providing accurate and timely data in the most efficient method possible. The implementation of the strategy can vary depending on the size of organisation and the cultural appetite for change. 

There is also an argument that once a strategy, any strategy, is created then it’s already out of date, due to constant changes in the organisation, the market or the world. This is all the more reason to document and communicate the strategy, so that if things do change you can update the strategy to reflect the latest situation.

More Information

Surely an undocumented strategy is no strategy at all. Further insight into our streamlined BI approach can be found on our website Achieve Intelligence (www.achieveintelligence.com). Our monthly newsletter also captures thought-leading articles in the data and BI arena. Receive a free subscription at any time by selecting the following link:  http://eepurl.com/hJXQY

Blog Post Author

Guy Garrett is a freelance contractor and managing director of the Achieve Intelligence network a group of business intelligence  professionals who provide added value to their customers by  providing niche services in the BI arena. With over 20 years SAS experience Guy is able to talk in technical detail as well as operate at the strategic level. Learn more about how Achieve Intelligence transformed a monthly 150-page document into a business intelligence dashboard that helps the customer find the golden nuggets of information.

While at the SAS Global Forum, someone said to me – “You cannot write code in SAS Enterprise Guide.”  It was a little shocking to me that the person thought SAS Enterprise Guide was all wizards, flow diagrams, and magic. After talking to a few other folks I have found that it is a common myth.  

News Flash!  You can just code in SAS Enterprise Guide!  Today I’ll show you how I pull data from Outlook into SAS Enterprise Guide to create a tweet.  And I’m just going to code.

Mythbuster! You can Code in SAS Enterprise Guide

If you tweet a lot then you might be familiar with the #FF hashtag. It means people the Tweet-er suggests that you follow. Lately I have been getting more Twitter followers and some I think are really worth checking out.  However, trying to cut and paste all the names into a tweet is a buzz kill.   Here’s how I automated my process with SAS Enterprise Guide.  By the way – if you think I could add some efficiency to my code – speak up in the comments (with examples please!) 

Step 1: Setup a MS Outlook Rule

Here’s the initial process:

1. In MS Outlook, I created a New Followers folder.  Then I setup a rule so all the emails that had “now following you on Twitter” as the subject would automatically go to this folder.  
2. Each Friday morning I cut-and-paste the email list into SAS Enterprise Guide.  
   Hint: To create a new program in SAS Enterprise Guide, select File > New > Program.  
3. In SAS Enterprise Guide, just write your code!  
   In the example, I use a DATALINES statement to read the email titles.   This code extracts the Twitter_ID using the SCAN function.  I also capture how long the Twitter ID is and add 1 for the white space behind it.  (We’ll talk about this more in the next section.)
4. Select Run (or F8) and my new dataset ReadOutlookData is created.  Everything is organized into tabs.  So just click the Output Data (2) to see the new data or the Log tab to check what happened.  Click Program to return to your code.

Step 2: Get the Twitter IDs

Tweets should not exceed 160 characters – some weeks I have a lot of new followers so the tweet can become larger than 160 characters. In this code, I use a counter to test if the count is 0 and start a new tweet with the hashtag.  Then I append the remaining Twitter IDs to the tweet.  Once the string exceeds 140 characters, I output it.  Sometimes I like to add other hashtags, such as #SASusers,  #blogger, or #DataGuru so I want plenty of room.  I look at all the followers and determine who seems like they have good stuff or maybe fit a certain category.

The program then loops through the code to create as many tweets as needed.  By the way – maybe there is a better way to write this code.  Since the dataset rarely exceeds 25 rows I was not worried about being efficient.  

Step 3: Schedule the Tweet

Last step is to output as plain text so it’s easy to cut and paste to Hootsuite. Since I get up with the chickens, I like to schedule my #FF for later in the day so more people see the tweet.  

Proven to be True

It’s true – you can just code in SAS Enterprise Guide. By the way, SAS provides a free tutorial for SAS Enterprise Guide to help you learn about its features and uses.  Any comments on this method?  

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 SAS
  Paul 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 Summer
  Waynette 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]
   
• 3 Lessons Learned From One Dismal BI Failure
  All Analytics really has some awesome content for anyone interested in analytics, big data, and business intelligence.  (Perhaps you know someone interested in those topics!?)  
  This particular article was about a BI implementation that failed – hard.  So you may pick up a few tips you can use or at least what practices to avoid.  
   
• Watson is Going to Take My Job
  You may have seen Watson on Jeopardy.  IBM has built an INCREDIBLE computer that can understand language and provide an anwwer based on probability.  Watson is being “recruited” to help healthcare professionals diagnose patients based on symptoms.  Eeek … I thought.  How long before Watson takes my job!?!  But I identified some issues that Watson will have if he does take our jobs!  
   

Good Reference Books

I like to get other author’s take on dashboard, web design, and data visualization.  Here’s some books that I have read in the past month.  You might find a few jewels that  you want to add to your library.

• The Visual Miscellaneum, McCandless
  This book is pretty.  However, it also gives you some good ideas about the different ways you can explore and visualize data.  Check out the customer images at Amazon.  It was on my coffee table and I’ve noticed several visitors who have just enjoyed looking at the book.
  Author Website: Information is Beautiful.
   
• 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, Weinschenk
  This author discussing how people perceive information.  She has some really good examples of what our eye sees and our brain interprets.  I picked up a few tips.  
  Here’s the author’s website where she has some other examples: What Makes Them Click.
   
• Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics, Yau
  Some of this information I have seen before – however, I thought the author did a good job of making it fresh.  He has a lot of examples and practical advise.  The author really zeros in on the idea that your data has to tell a story.  
  Here’s his website: Flowing Data where you will find more of his great ideas.

It’s a Wrap

Do you have any recommended books that you thought were especially good – share the names and link in the Comments below.

The SAS BI web clients each have their own link (or URL).  When working across many customer sites or even just using my own demo sites –  there can be a lot of links to track (BI Dashboard, Portal, WRS, etc). Certainly I can add bookmarks to my browser –  but when moving to different systems I found it’s easier to just have a little .HTML file that I can edit as needed.

Set Your BI Toolset Quick Ref Bookmark

If you are not sure what I’m trying to describe –  the following page shows an example. It’s really just a simple web page that has the links to the SAS BI Web Clients listed.  In this example –  the customer had two different servers –   Development and Production. Using this quick reference, I can edit the HTML file to match the system I’m using, open the page in the browser, click on the link and it starts the client I want.

To make this web page easier to access – I set it as a default so it appears when I start Internet Explorer.  You can set your default home page in the Tools > Internet Options window.  [Other browsers have similar settings – just check the Help file.]

Make Your Quick Reference Web Page

There are many ways to create an HTML file – but to keep this lesson at its most simple and accessible – I’m using Windows Notepad.  In the following figure you can see the HTML code that I used to create the above web page.  The file name is sas_bi_web_clients.html.  On most systems, the HTML extension will cause the file to open in the default browser.

Here’s an example of how to update the file for your site.

1. The web link I follow to access Web Report Studio is http://DemoServerDev:8080/SASWebReportStudio. However, I only need to replace the “YourServer:PortNumber” with my own –  which is DemoServerDev:8080.  
   Hint: The yellow highlight is the code that you need to replace with your server information.
    
2. You can just do a search and replace to change the YourServer:PortNumber text with your server path own. [Download the sas_bi_web_clients.html file.]

   If you have two or more servers – just update the next section with the needed code. 

HTML 101 for SAS Programmers

If you want to learn more about this HTML file –  let’s go through a quick demo. [For a complete HTML tutorial –  try the W3Schools site.]  HTML code creates web pages. HTML is not a programming language –  it’s a markup language composed of tags, which describe the web page.  Most HTML tags come in pairs –  for instance the and tags.  The HTML tags indicate that a web page is beginning. 

In the figure below you can see a very simple web page with the HTML tags.  Notice all the tags have an opening tag and a matching closing tag.  The HTML and BODY tags are required to have a webpage. The Title tag is optional –  it controls what appears as the tab title.  A paragraph tag <P> encloses the text.

Save the file with the “.HTML” extension.  You can drag the file on to the browser or use the File > Open menu item to locate and then open the file.  You can also change the text within the tags to whatever you want it to say.

The Quick Ref web page uses some other tags –  heading  (< h2>, <h 3>) unordered list (<u l>), and anchor (< a >) tags.  These are called out in the following example.  The most difficult one to grasp at first is the anchor or hyperlink tag.  

Using an Anchor (Hyperlink) Tag

A hyperlink or anchor tag can go to another web page, open a link to an email, or even allow a user to download a file.  [Learn more at the W3Schools –  HTML Links page.] The main attribute used is HREF, which lists the URL or web address of where you want to send the user when the link is clicked.

Here’s the basic code.  The blue text is the URL and the green text is what you want the user to see.

        <a href=”put the link here”> put text here </a>

If you wanted a link to this blog, which is http://www.bi-notes.com –  this is how you would code it:

     <a href=”http://www.bi-notes.com”> Go to the BI Notes for SAS Users Blog! </a>

Here’s  how the code would look in the first example from above.     

Using HTML in Stored Processes

You can use HTML code in a SAS stored process to chain stored processes together or create form output.  In The 50 Keys to Learning SAS Stored Processes, you will find many example of how to use HTML and detailed explanations of the code.   Receive a 20% discount when you use the FFZPHEHM code at the CreaeSpace (an Amazon company) page.

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.com site]