• February 24, 2004
• January 20, 2004
• October 14, 2003
• September 23, 2003
• July 15, 2003
• April 29, 2003
• March 11, 2003

February 24, 2004: Go Top

• When:  February 24, 2004 (Tuesday) 8:30am - 11:00am
• Where:  SRP Building
• Presentations:
1. "You use SAS, Your Boss Uses Excel, Guess Where Your Results Are Going To Appear! Three Processes to Help Put Your SAS Data and Results Into Excel" by William E Benjamin from American Express
2. "Generating Spatially-Enabled Intelligence: Using SAS and ESRI" by John Bander from SAS Institute
   
• For more information on ESRI check out the following websites:

  New York City Web Site
  http://home.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/wnv/cluster1.html
  
  How the SAS Bridge to ESRI  Works
  http://support.sas.com/rnd/datavisualization/BridgeForESRI/V1/
  
  Information about SAS Bridge to ESRI
  http://www.sas.com/products/bridgeforesri/
  
  or
  
  http://www.sas.com/products/bridgeforesri/100599_1102[1].pdf
  
  ESRI Contact information: (303) 449-7779
  
  
  NASA Uses SAS and ESRI to Aide in Recovery of Space Shuttle
  http://www.sas.com/news/feature/26aug03/shuttle.html
  
  Census Uses SAS and ESRI for Demographics
  http://www.sas.com/success/census_esri.html

  Robin Curtice tracked down the following information.

  For those of you who asked about Enterprise Guide Availability with Version 9. I do not have a formal statement from SAS.  Following is  the way I understand it.  However,  customers should call and discuss with their Account Representatives to understand what is included in their license.  When our customers license SAS 9.1 for the PC (or migrate their existing licenses to it), they will now receive one copy of Enterprise Guide to use as an alternative user interface to that one copy of SAS (i.e. licensed for that PC).     Otherwise, I believe that it will continue to be a separately licensed product like it is today.

  For those of you who asked about web enabling with ESRI:
  The process for Web Enablement with ESRI requires, ESRI's ARCIMS product to web enable map (Other ESRI products are required depending on the type of mapping you want to do).
  SAS products required are: AppDev Studio (which includes SAS Intrnet), Base SAS and any other SAS modules to do the type of analysis you wish to do.
  Write the SAS program and save it as a stored process.  AppDev Studio is used to web enable the application and utilize the java connector in ARCIMS.   When users click on the stored process the web server tells the SAS server to run the code.  The results set also provides the parameters to ARC IMS to execute the map generation.  So, the users see a tabular listing and map.   The Bridge to ESRI is only required for use with ARCGIS  in a client server environment and is not required for web enabling stored processes.   If you have any questions about ESRI and SAS, the best person to contact is Dave.mcdermott@sas.com.

January 20, 2004: Go Top

• When:  January 20, 2004 (Tuesday) 8:00am - 11:00am
• Where:  SRP Building
• Presentations:
1. Overlapping Date Segments: How to Clean Up the Mess  by Doug Shannon, Mercer Health Resource Consulting, and Wade Bannister, Arizona State University
2. Proc Transpose: The Mystery Unveiled  by Doug Shannon Mercer Health Resource Consulting
3. Using %Window to Create Interactive and Completely Re-Usable Code with SAS/BASE  by Wade Bannister, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, and Doug Shannon, Mercer Health Resource Consulting


• Great Giveaways! Don't miss it!

October 14, 2003: Go Top

• When:  October 14, 2003(Tuesday) 8:00am - 11:00am
• Where:  ASU downtown campus which is located at Fifth and Monroe streets in downtown Phoenix at 502 Monroe Street. Parking at the ASU downtown center is readily accessible and conveniently located. Free parking is available in the Heritage and Science Park Garage, located at NW corner of Fifth and Monroe streets. Bring you ticket with you to the meeting for validation.
• Presentation Abstracts
• Using MULTILABEL Formats,  Andrew Karp, Sierra Information Services, Inc.
  This presentation shows you how to create and apply MULTILABEL Formats, a new feature added to PROC FORMAT in Version 8 of the SAS System. These new formats allow you to specify overlapping ranges of values for variables, and are very useful for creating subtotals and other, overlapping, groupings of variable values, which was not available in prior to Version 8. You will learn the PROC FORMAT syntax and options needed to create this type of format, and how to structure your PROC FORMAT coding to both simple and complex MULTILABEL formats. You will also see how to then implement them in PROCs MEANS, SUMMARY and TABULATE. Also discussed are several key limitations to the MULTILABEL Format facility in Version 8, and an easily implemented work-around to overcome them. We will also discuss the enhancements to multilabel formats to be available in SAS 9 Software.
• A Peek at PROC DOCUMENT, Andrew Karp, Sierra Information Services, Inc.
  This talk provides an advance look at three important new features in SAS 9 Software: the DOCUMENT ODS destination, the DOCUMENT window, and the DOCUMENT procedure. These three interrelated enhancements provide unparalleled control over the tables generated by ODS-compliant SAS procedures and therefore will save both programming and processing time to generate your output. You will learn the  core functionalities of the DOCUMENT ODS destination, and how the new DOCUMENT "itemstore" allows you to save and reuse ODS objects repeatedly without having to re-run the procedure that generated them. You will see how to work with the DOCUMENTs you create using both the new DOCUMENT window, which provides a pointand- click interface to your DOCUMENTs and by using PROC DOCUMENT syntax, a new, interactive, BASE SAS procedure with which you can manipulate your DOCUMENTs. During this presentation you will see how to save and "replay" your ODSgenerated objects, reorganize the structure of your output, and perform other tasks with your DOCUMENTS.
• Speaker Biographies
  
  • Andrew Karp is President of Sierra Information Services, Inc., a SAS Software consulting and training firm located in the California Wine Country. A 20-year SAS Software user, Andrew is a SAS Certified Professional™ who has given dozens of papers, and many training seminars, to SAS users in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Belgium and the Netherlands

September 23, 2003: Go Top

• When:   Septempber 23, 2003(Tuesday) 8:00am - 11:00am
• Where:  ISB Main Lobby at Salt River Project, see local map and parking information..
• Presentation Abstracts
• Generating Custom Excel™ Spreadsheets Using ODS, Chevell Parker, SAS Institute, Inc.
  This paper demonstrates techniques that you can easily implement to convert SAS Output Delivery System-generated files to Microsoft Excel™ files. Although using SAS to create Excel-readable files is often very easy, some additional steps are required  to customize the output to your exact requirements. Among the topics discussed are: creating files with ODS that can be read by Excel, general appearance issues and common tasks, advanced techniques using XML and the ODS MARKUP Destination, and how to use Excel Macros with the SAS Output Delivery System. Most of the capabilities you will see in this presentation are already available in Version 8.2 of the SAS System and you will also see some new functionalities implemented in the forthcoming release of SAS 9 Software.
• De-Mystifying PROC TEMPLATE, Chevell Parker, SAS Institute, Inc.
  SAS Templates and PROC TEMPLATE, the BASE SAS Procedure used to create and modify ODS Templates, are two topics even advanced SAS programmers often find difficult to master. This presentation, given by the senior SAS Institute Technical Support representative responsible for supporting this aspect of the SAS System, gives you the tools you need to start making ODS Templates work for you. By attending this presentation you will learn about both TABLE and STYLE templates, how to determine which templates SAS is using to portray your output, how to modify the structure of your procedure-generated output by using PROC TEMPLATE syntax to create your own Table Templates, as well as how to create your own Style Templates that you can use when rendering your SAS output to to the HTML, PDF, RTF and other presentation-quality ODS destinations.
• Speaker Biographies
  
  • Chevell Parker is a Consultant in the BASE, Macro and ODS group within the Institute’s Technical Support Division at SAS Worldwide Headquarters in Cary, NC. His group supports BASE SAS Procedures, the Macro facility, and the Output Delivery System. Chevell received the SAS Internet Consultant of the Year (SICY) Award in 2000 by SAS-L newsgroup readers. He joined SAS Institute in 1993 and has been using SAS Software for over 10 years. Prior to joining SAS he was with FirstHealth in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia.

July 15, 2003: Go Top

• When:   July 15, 2003(Tuesday)  8:00am - 11:00am
• Where:  ISB Main Lobby at Salt River Project, see local map and parking information..
• Overview: 

  Andrew Karp, an internationally-recognized SAS Software consultant and trainer,
  will give two presentations on the Output Delivery System (ODS). These
  50-minute presentations are designed to de-mystify how the Output Delivery
  System works and how you can take advantage of using it to manage, analyze and
  portray your data. Both presentations will focus on SAS 8.2 ODS capabilities
  that you can apply right away, but will also include insights in to ODS
  enhancements you can expect in SAS 9 and 9.1

• Agenda:
  

  8:00am - 8:40am	Meet and Greet - Refreshments sponsored by Sierra Information Services, Inc.
  8:40am - 9:30am	Presentation I ODS 101: Essential Concepts of the SAS Output Delivery System for Data Analysts, Statisticians and All Other SAS Users This 50-minute presentation introduces the essential concepts and tools everyone needs to know in order to apply Output Delivery System (ODS) capabilities to their SAS programs. Starting from the ground up, you will learn how the ODS interfaces with other aspects of the SAS System, and how your Procedure-generated output is "rendered" by the ODS to "destinations," such as the Output Window, SAS data sets,RTF, HTML or PDF files. With these essential concepts in hand you then learn how to select which parts of your SAS output you want generated and delivered to the destinations you specify, and then how to work with the output. The final section of this presentation shows you how to apply ODS "Styles" to enhance the visual appeal of output rendered to the PDF, RTF and HTML destinations.
  9:30am - 9:40am	Break
  9:40am - 10:30am	Presentation II ODS 201: Making Your Life Easier with the Output Delivery System Building on the concepts and techniques presented in the previous presentation, this 50 minute talk shows you how to take advantage of ODS capabilities that will simplify your work with SAS generated output. We will look at ways to render output from multiple SAS procedures in to SAS data sets and then combine that output in to one data set to facilitate identification of "optimal" or "best" statistical model from among many potential models. Another example shows how to combine ODS and Data Step capabilities to obtain a test statistic that is not available from a SAS/STAT module procedure and then use the results of that statistic in a model-building exercise. Once we have the required output, we will look at how other ODS capabilities are applied to create a visually compelling report of the results, including how to dynamically assign colors (i.e., "traffic light") to parts of the output depending on user-defined "decision rules." While several of the examples are drawn from output generated by PROCs REG and LOGISTIC in SAS/STAT® Software, the concepts and techniques shown are applicable to all users of SAS Software, especially those using PROC REPORT.
  10:30am -10:40am	Break
  10:40am - 10:55am	Gifts and Questions/Comments

April 29, 2003: Go Top

Overview: 

We have a lot of exciting information to share at the next Valley of the Sun SAS User Group (VALSUG) meeting, scheduled on Tuesday, April 29th from 8:30am -11:00am at the SRP building.

Some of you got to attend SUGI 28, and already know that the number of great papers and presentations is overwhelming  - there are so many SAS users willing to share their knowledge and expertise!  I'll be presenting/reviewing some of the papers that were selected as "favorites" of our users, in addition some of  the "Coders Corners" papers that were of interest.  We also have a great presentation (possibly a future SUGI paper...) on "Accessing ORACLE data through SAS" by Susanne Young.

Agenda:

8:30am	Meet and Greet - refreshments sponsored by SAS
9:00am	"Creating Drill-Down Graphs Using SAS/Graph and the Output Delivery System" , code(4.7k), ppt (95k),  bin(92k), html result files, by Curtis A Smith, Awarded "Honorable Mention" in Data Presentation category, SUGI28, presented/reviewed by Jennifer Sinodis, Metris Companies
9:25am	Break
9:35am	"Accessing ORACLE data through SAS" ,  ppt file (383k), bin file(380k), Susanne Young, Bank One.
10:00am	Break
10:10am	Coders Corners - Quick SAS Tips and Techniques - presented/reviewed by Jennifer Sinodis.  "The BEST. Message in the SAS Log" by Andrew T. Kuligowski, Awarded "Best Contributed Paper"  in Coders Corners category, SUGI28. "Top 10 System Options" by Rick Aster. "Make Your Life Easier: A Collection of SAS Macro Utilities"  by Peter Lund.
10:45am	Gifts and Questions/Comments

March 11, 2003: Go Top

PRESENTATIONS:

• Topic #1:  The Complexities and Options of Merging/Lookups with Base/SAS 
• By Jennifer Sinodis, Metris Companies.
• Related Slides (269 KB), Code (7 KB).
  
• Topic #2:  CPU Savings and MS Access Integration 
• By Hermes Villalobos,  American Express.
• Related Slides (6.6 MB), Docs (380 KB).

CODER'S CORNER TIPS:

• Tip #1:  Create a Macro for Month End,  By Trish Davis, Bank One. 
• Tip #2:  Count Number of records in a SAS Data Set without reading the entire data set,  By
  Trish Davis, Bank One.