Building Dynamic Programs and Applications Using the SAS® Macro Language

This seminar shows you how to take advantage of SAS Macro Language capabilities that enable you to write dynamic programs and applications. By mastering the concepts and techniques presented in this class your programs will become free of hard-coded data dependencies, thus eliminating the need to re-write the code every time a data set name, variable name, or other data attribute, changes. Let “them” change the project's  specifications as often as “they” want…your code is ready!

The dynamic programming techniques that you will learn about during this seminar:

• Are flexible and are easily adaptable to changing data structures, data table names, and variable (field) attributes
• Reduce maintenance requirements by removing data dependencies from within the programs
• Provide significant resource savings during program/application development cycles
• Give the end-user extensive control over program execution by using tables such as SAS data dictionaries, SAS data sets, and Excel tables
• Reduce program validation efforts by providing reusable and generalized code that can be applied to many different applications
• Establish controlled data environments, thus insuring data integrity throughout your organization

This course makes extensive use of example macros that have been gathered from real world applications, and it concentrates on the techniques necessary to make effective use of these tools.

Intended Audience Level:  Strong understanding of the macro language 
Delivery Method:  Seminar style 

Building Business Intelligence Dashboards Using SAS® Base Software

Organizations around the world develop business intelligence dashboards, sometimes referred to as enterprise dashboards, to display the current status of “point-in-time” metrics and key performance indicators. Effectively designed dashboards extract real-time data from multiple sources for the purpose of highlighting important information, numbers, tables, statistics, metrics, performance scorecards and other essential content on a single screen. This course explores best practice programming techniques in the design of highly interactive, filterable, and drill-down dashboards using Base-SAS® software. Attendees learn how to create effective dashboards with a purpose not in weeks or months, but in hours, using Base-SAS® programming techniques including DATA step, PROC FORMAT, PROC PRINT, PROC MEANS, PROC SQL, Enterprise Guide, ODS, ODS Statistical Graphics, PROC SGRENDER, PROC SGPLOT, PROC SGSCATTER, PROC SGPANEL, PROC TEMPLATE, PROC DOCUMENT, HTML and JavaScript.

Materials: Course notes will be provided
Intended Audience: SAS programmers with at least 1 year experience

Advanced PROC REPORT: Understanding the Compute Block and the Report Process

One of the unique features of the REPORT procedure is the Compute Block. This PROC step tool allows the use of most DATA step statements, logic, and functions. Through the use of the compute block you can modify existing columns, create new columns, write text, and more!

As is so often the case, this power and flexibility comes at a price. The compute block can be complicated. There are a number of column identification and timing issues that can confound the PROC REPORT user. Of course to make matters even more interesting, there can be multiple compute blocks that can interact with each other and that can execute for different portions of the report table.

What is one to do?

This Seminar will discuss the essential elements of the compute block, its relationship to the Computed Summary Information, and how it interacts with temporary variables and report items. We will discuss timing issues and naming conventions through a series of example tables.

The Seminar participant should have a working knowledge of the REPORT procedure and should have at least attempted the occasional compute block.

Intended Audience Level: Familiar with basic PROC REPORT

ODS Graphics I: Creating Quick and Easy Graphs with the Statistical Graphics (SG) Procedures

The ODS Statistical Graphics (SG) Procedures represents a complete paradigm shift for the creation of high-quality graphics using the SAS system. Legacy SAS/GRAPH functions produce crude graphics that frequently do not meet today’s standards of presentation. While customization is possible, it can require extensive coding and a number of tricks to achieve desirable results. With the introduction of the SG procedures, all of that changed. This course will provide an overview of the major procedures such as SGPLOT, SGPANEL, and SGSCATTER as well as related statements and common options through the use of numerous examples. Upon completion of the course, students will have the tools they need to start producing high-quality graphics and performing basic customization using the options available. While the Graph Template Language (GTL) is outside the scope of this course, it will provide the foundation necessary for using GTL.

Materials: Course notes will be provided
Intended Audience: Beginning to intermediate SAS programmers

About the Author

Josh Horstman is an independent statistical programmer based in Indianapolis with 20 years experience in the life sciences industry. He is a SAS® Certified Advanced Programmer specializing in the analysis of clinical trial data. His clients have included major pharmaceutical corporations, biotech companies, and research organizations.

Josh loves coding and has enjoyed presenting numerous times at SAS® Global Forum, PharmaSUG, and various regional and local SAS® User Group meetings. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science, and a master's degree in statistics from Colorado State University.