Wiley SAS For Dummies, 2nd Edition 978-0-470-53968-2 Manuel D’Utilisation
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978-0-470-53968-2
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Part I: Welcome to SAS!
SAS can get to the data, but that’s only the beginning. SAS also has excellent
tools to enable centralized management of your data. Applications such as
SAS Enterprise Guide have a wide array of data access, query, and manage-
ment capabilities that enable you to slay your data-management dragons in a
flexible and effective manner.
tools to enable centralized management of your data. Applications such as
SAS Enterprise Guide have a wide array of data access, query, and manage-
ment capabilities that enable you to slay your data-management dragons in a
flexible and effective manner.
SAS also offers applications for power users to effectively access, manage,
and aggregate your data. SAS Data Integration Server, in addition to other
software products from DataFlux (a SAS company), focuses on the types
of problems commonly connected to data warehousing and data quality.
These tools allow you to have one integrated view of your data that is built
on common rules and assumptions. The value here is in avoiding different
answers to the same question by ensuring that everyone has access to a
user-friendly, consistent data store. You find out more about this topic in
Chapter 4.
and aggregate your data. SAS Data Integration Server, in addition to other
software products from DataFlux (a SAS company), focuses on the types
of problems commonly connected to data warehousing and data quality.
These tools allow you to have one integrated view of your data that is built
on common rules and assumptions. The value here is in avoiding different
answers to the same question by ensuring that everyone has access to a
user-friendly, consistent data store. You find out more about this topic in
Chapter 4.
Data Summaries and Reporting
If you’ve worked with traditional business intelligence tools from other soft-
ware vendors, you might be familiar with data summarization and report-
ing. These tasks are critical to your ability to pull value from the data and
knowledge inherent in your organization. Unfortunately, this immediate need
for data is often the only area that people focus on when they ask for infor-
mation to answer a particular question. If you can take a broader, long-term
approach to your data management, reporting, and analysis needs, you can
save money and time while yielding superior results.
ware vendors, you might be familiar with data summarization and report-
ing. These tasks are critical to your ability to pull value from the data and
knowledge inherent in your organization. Unfortunately, this immediate need
for data is often the only area that people focus on when they ask for infor-
mation to answer a particular question. If you can take a broader, long-term
approach to your data management, reporting, and analysis needs, you can
save money and time while yielding superior results.
One example to illustrate this point is a report of accounts past due. You
could generate this information in Microsoft Excel and copy and paste sub-
sets of the data to send to various sales teams. This is a very manual process.
Or, you could design a report that can be easily updated with the latest data.
This report can use subsets for accounts for each sales team and link to
order details for each overdue account to show exactly what was in the over-
due order. Imagine if this report could be delivered automatically over the
Web, by e-mail, or directly into Microsoft Office. Now it is a much more flex-
ible and powerful asset — all available from one SAS report!
could generate this information in Microsoft Excel and copy and paste sub-
sets of the data to send to various sales teams. This is a very manual process.
Or, you could design a report that can be easily updated with the latest data.
This report can use subsets for accounts for each sales team and link to
order details for each overdue account to show exactly what was in the over-
due order. Imagine if this report could be delivered automatically over the
Web, by e-mail, or directly into Microsoft Office. Now it is a much more flex-
ible and powerful asset — all available from one SAS report!
Some simple forms of data summaries include sums, averages, medians,
ranges, counts (sometimes called frequencies), and percentages. If you’re
interested in determining total sales by region, for example, the data source
you have with this information might be a 50-million–row table. By using the
summary functions of SAS, you can collapse this data to a small number of
rows — one row per region, for example. Many functions in SAS automati-
cally summarize the data for you. A pie chart of the sales by region would
also automatically collapse the data to just a few rows before charting it.
ranges, counts (sometimes called frequencies), and percentages. If you’re
interested in determining total sales by region, for example, the data source
you have with this information might be a 50-million–row table. By using the
summary functions of SAS, you can collapse this data to a small number of
rows — one row per region, for example. Many functions in SAS automati-
cally summarize the data for you. A pie chart of the sales by region would
also automatically collapse the data to just a few rows before charting it.
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