May 2008

Getting Started with SAS Enterprise Guide

Table of Contents
Overview of the User Interface .................................................................................................. 1
Useful Pull-down Menus ............................................................................................................ 3
Working with Data ..................................................................................................................... 4
SAS data files ...........................................................................................................................................................4
Other data files .........................................................................................................................................................5
Working with Tasks ................................................................................................................... 5
Choosing a Task .......................................................................................................................................................5
Performing a Task ....................................................................................................................................................6
Exploring a Typical SAS Task Window .......................................................................................................................7
Example: Creating a Simple Report............................................................................................................................7
Working with Results ................................................................................................................. 8
Changing the Result Format and Style ........................................................................................................................8
Working with Process Flow...................................................................................................... 10
For More Information and Assistance ...................................................................................... 12
SAS Enterprise Guide Help ..................................................................................................................................... 12
SAS Enterprise Guide Tutorials............................................................................................................................... 12
Books .................................................................................................................................................................... 12
SSDS at Stanford ................................................................................................................................................... 13

Overview of the User Interface

SAS Enterprise Guide is a Windows client application with an easy-to-use interface. It has a graphical
interface consisting of pull-down menus, dialog boxes, and windows that display and organize data, and
perform numerical and graphical tasks. You can perform all tasks in SAS Enterprise Guide by pointing
and clicking the mouse. This section describes the basic features of the SAS Enterprise Guide pull-down
menus and windows. SAS Enterprise Guide is a stand-alone application that requires a SAS server,
which can be either a local server or a remote server on any major computer platform. To use SAS
Enterprise Guide with a remote server, SAS Integration Technologies is also required.

A basic familiarity with the Windows operating system is all you need to get started with SAS
Enterprise Guide. You can access SAS Enterprise Guide on a PC from the Start menu, or by double-
clicking on the Enterprise Guide icon (shown below) on the desktop if applicable.

When you start SAS Enterprise Guide, a screen like the one below will appear:

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This area is the workspace, and the Project Designer is the only window that is open in the workspace.
New windows open in the workspace when you generate reports or open data. When there is more than
one window open in the workspace, you can use the tabs at the top of windows to navigate between
them.

The Project Explorer window displays a hierarchical view of the active project. When you create a new
project, the Project Explorer window is empty. As you add data, run tasks, and generate results, an icon
for each object is added to the Project Explorer window.
The Project Designer window is a container for one or more process flows for the project. A process
flow is a relational view of the objects in the project. As you add data, run tasks, and generate results, an
icon for each object is added to the process flow and any relationship between the objects is shown with
an arrow.
You can create new process flows and you can copy or move objects between process flows. You can
also run a portion of the process flow or the entire process flow.
The Task Status window displays messages about the status of tasks as they are processing.

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The Task List is hidden by default, but you can display it by clicking or moving your mouse pointer
over the Task List button. Task List allows you to perform various kinds of tasks (e.g. statistical
analysis, graphs, etc.) by a simple click.
Comprehensive help is available from the Help menu. By using the tabs in the Help window, you can
browse the contents or index, perform a search, or bookmark pages for future reference.

Useful Pull-down Menus

Like most Windows programs, SAS Enterprise Guide has a toolbar and menu bar with pull-down menus
that you can use to access many of the features of the program. The toolbar contains buttons for more
commonly used procedures. To see what each button does, hold the mouse over the button for a moment
and a description of what the button does will appear. The following is a summary of the main pull-
down menus and their functions:

Menu Functions
Open and save project, data, code, report, and process flow.
File
Import and export data. Print process flow.
Modify or copy text, search and replace data. Expand or collapse
Edit
data.
Customize the look of the SAS Enterprise Guide window by
View selecting to view the tool bars, project designer, project flow,
task list, task status, and what is window.
Code Edit and run SAS codes and macros.
Edit data, add or delete rows and columns. Transpose and sort
Data data. Append and split data. Generate a random sample from the
data.
List data. Generate summarize statistics of the data. Distribution
Describe analysis. One-way frequencies. Wizards for summary statistics
available.
Create charts and graphs such as scatterplots, bar charts, line
Graph graphs, and pie charts, donut charts, and box plot. Wizard for bar
charts, pie charts, and line plot available.
Perform statistical procedures to produce descriptive and
Analyze
inferential statistics.
The Addin Manager menu enables you to add and remove add-in
Add-in
tasks.
Combine multiple reports into one. Set style of report. Schedule
Tools
and order tasks.
Window Bring a different window to the foreground.
Get help on SAS Enterprise Guide procedures. Getting Started
Help
tutorial. Connect to the online SAS Enterprise Guide resources.

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Working with Data
Before you can do anything in SAS Enterprise Guide, you need to add the data that you want to analyze
to your project. In addition to SAS data files, SAS Enterprise Guide can read most PC data files such as
HTML, Microsoft Access, dBASE, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus 1-2-3, and
Paradox files. You can open data that is located on your own computer or on SAS server that you are
authorized to access.
SAS data files
Data on a server can either be opened from the Libraries or Files folder. SAS libraries are pointers to
locations that store SAS data sets. The Files folder enables you to browse the directory structure of the
server and open any data file that SAS Enterprise Guide can read.
If you choose to look for data on your local computer, you can browse the file structure of your
computer. There is a large collection of sample data that is installed with SAS Enterprise Guide in the
Sample directory.
Here is an example to open a SAS data set on the local computer:
From the File menu, select Open Data. Select Local Computer, find the folder where the data is
located, and double-click the data.
When you open data, it opens in a data grid that is located in the workspace area. The tab at the top of
the data grid shows the data filename. At the same time, a shortcut to the data is automatically added to
the current project and the data opens in a data grid. By default, the data opens in read-only mode. In the
Process Flow window there are shortcuts to a SAS data set.

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Other data files
If you select an Excel file to open, you must decide if you want to open the file as it is or if you want to
import the data to create a SAS data set. If you choose to create a SAS data set from the data, the Import
Data task opens automatically.
If you have data in a text file that you want to use in a task, you must import the data or create a SAS
data set first. You can open the Import Data task from the File menu.
After having added data to your project, you can explore the data by viewing it in the data grid. You can
also view the properties of data by right-clicking the data object in the Project Explorer or Process
Flow window and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu. The Columns page of the Properties
window lists all the columns, or variables, in the data as well as the properties of each column.
You can also set options for your task results by going to Tools, select Options and make changes in the
pop-up menu. There are options you can set that affect the way that data is opened and displayed in SAS
enterprise guide.
SAS reads the data in each column as either character data or numeric data. Numeric data is grouped
into four different types of data depending on how it is displayed. These icons appear in the column
headings of the data grid.

In addition to opening existing data and using it, you can also work with your data in the following
ways:
• use the Import Data wizard to create SAS data sets from raw data files and Excel files
• use the New Data wizard to create a new SAS data file
• use the Query Builder to manipulate your data (for example, filter, join, add columns, and sort)
• make changes directly to data in the Data Grid

Working with Tasks

Choosing a Task
After you have data in your project, you generally want to work with it in some way. In SAS Enterprise
Guide, you use tasks to do everything from manipulating data, to running specific analytical procedures,
to creating reports.
To help you decide which task to use, descriptions and business examples for each SAS task are
available in the What is window. You can open this window by selecting View > What is. As you
move your mouse pointer over a task in the Task List, a description of that task appears in the What is
window. The image below shows a description for the Summary Tables task in the What is window.
After you have opened a task window, you can view help for the entire task by pressing F1 to open the
help window for that task. In addition, you can view a short description of each option that you can
select in a task by moving your mouse pointer over the option and reading the description in the help
pane at the bottom of the task window.
Getting Started with SAS Enterprise Guide - 5
Performing a Task
One way to select tasks is by using the Task List. The Task List is hidden by default, but you can
display it by clicking or moving your mouse pointer over the Task List button.

If a task has a wizard version and you want to use it, you can click Use Wizard.
As you scroll down in the Task List, you see tasks in the Graph category. As you scroll down further,
you see tasks for Statistical Analysis.
The Task by Name tab lists individual tasks alphabetically. This tab also lists the SAS procedure or
procedures that are used in the task.
The same tasks that you can select from the Task List are also available from the Data, Describe,
Graph, and Analyze menus. Tasks on the Analyze menu are grouped by type of statistical analysis.
In each task window, there are certain steps that you must complete before you can run the task. For
example, you must specify which variables you want to analyze and how you want to analyze them.
After that, you can select from a variety of options that pertain to the particular task. The most common
options for each task are selected for you, so after you've specified the information that is necessary to
run the task, the Run button becomes available and you can run the task and get the default results.

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Exploring a Typical SAS Task Window
All tasks have a Task Roles page where you assign variable to roles in the task. This is how you tell
SAS enterprise guide how you want to analyze your data. The Task Roles list displays all the ways that
variable can be used in the task.
The Variables to Assign list displays all the variable from the data that you have selected.
Note: The data icon next to each variable shows the variable’s type, and the icon next to each task role
show the type of variable that the role will accept.

To assign a variable to a task role, you select the variable and drag it to the role. You can also select the
variable, click the right arrow, and select the role from the menu. Most tasks enable you to set a title and
footnote for the task.
Note: As you assign variables to roles and select options, SAS Enterprise Guide generates code that it
will send to SAS to process. You can see this code by clicking the Preview code button in the lower-
left of each task window.

Example: Creating a Simple Report

The most basic report that you can create is a List Report. This type of report has one line for each row
(or observation) in your data. You can select the columns that you want in your report, group the data,
and add totals and subtotals. The task that creates this report is the List Data task.

In the Project Explorer window, select the data set. Then in the Describe menu, select List Data.
Select variables of interest, by pressing CTRL and clicking them, and drag them to the List Variables
category on the right, or click the right arrow and select List variables. After that, assign the grouping

Getting Started with SAS Enterprise Guide - 7

variable (if applicable) by dragging it to the Group analysis by role, and the Identifying label role.
You can now set Options if needed and click Run. When the report is displayed, click Maximize
Workspace so that you can see all the columns in the report. The following graph is an example of List
variable reports.

Working with Results

Changing the Result Format and Style
The default report format of SAS Enterprise Guide is HTML report that uses a default style. To create
an HTML report in a different style or to create a report in a different format (e.g. PDF), you don't have
to start over to do this. You can do this for all the tasks that you run by using the Options window, or
you can override the defaults that you set in the Options window by changing options in the Properties
window for the specific task.
Suppose you want to change the preferences for the List Data task so that results are generated in PDF
as well as HTML format. Then set the default style for HTML results to sasweb.
In the Project Explorer window, click List Data and select Properties from the pop-up menu. In the
selection pane, select Results. Select the Override the preferences set in Tools -> Options check box.
Click the style drop-down list for HTML. Click once to scroll down, and then select sasweb. Under
Result Formats, select PDF, and click OK.

Now rerun the List Data task to generate PDF results and HTML results in the new style.

Getting Started with SAS Enterprise Guide - 8

In the Project Explorer window, click List Data and select Run List Data from the pop-up menu. In
the message window, click Yes. The PDF results open because they are the list results to be generated.

Now suppose you would like to export the HTML List Data as a step in the project, so each time you run
the project an updated HTML file is exported to a specified location. First, in the Project Explorer
window, click HTML - List Data and select Export -> Export HTML - List Data As A Step In
Project from the pop-up menu.
The first page of the Export wizard enables you to select the file that you want to export. Click Next.
The second page of the Export wizard enables you to specify a location for the exported file. If you
would like to change the name of the file, so click Edit, and click in the File name box to change the
name. Click Save. Click Next.
The third page of the Export wizard enables you to review the selections that you have made. Click
Finish.
The Export task runs and creates the HTML file. You have changed the result format and style, and you
have learned to export an HTML file as a step in a project.

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Working with Process Flow
In practice you will probably have multiple data sets and tasks in one project. Sometimes it is helpful to
create a new process flow and move some of the objects from the default process flow to a separate
process flow. This makes it easy to run a process flow to refresh your results. You can even use Tools in
SAS Enterprise Guide to schedule the task to run automatically.
Here is an example how you can run the same task repeatedly, on different data sets without doing
everything from the beginning. The Project Designer window that is shown below contains two
Process Flow windows. The process flow named “Candy Nutritional Report” contains the objects that
you want to run repeatedly (e.g. each month) to refresh your results.

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First, you need to create a new process flow for the project and rename it. Click the Project Designer
tab. Click in a blank area of the Process Flow window and select New -> Process Flow from the pop-up
menu. Click Process Flow 1 and select Rename from the pop-up menu. Fill in the name box “Candy
Nutrition Report” and then click OK.

Then, you need to move the List Data task and associated results from the default process flow to the
new one. Click the Process Flow tab. Click List Data and select Move List Data to “Candy Nutrition
Report”. Click the “Candy Nutrition Report” tab. Click in a blank area of the Process Flow window
and select Run Candy Nutrition Report from the pop-up menu. Note: You can look at the Task
Status window to see the messages about processing. Also notice the background color around the tasks
that indicates the status. Click anywhere in the window to continue. Now, you have created a process
flow for a particular report so that you can run it to refresh your reports.

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For More Information and Assistance
SAS Enterprise Guide Help
SAS Enterprise Guide has an extensive help system that provides information about using it and
understanding the results. To access the Help system, go to the Help menu and select an option.
The Explore SAS Enterprise Guide lists a table of contents from which you can link to the topics
listed, the Getting Started Tutorial walks you through the most frequently used features of SAS
Enterprise Guide. You are also only a click away from online resources of SAS enterprise guide. This
resource contains much up-to-date information about this product.
SAS Enterprise Guide Tutorials
For information on SAS Enterprise Guide tutorials and resources, see
http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/guide/.
Books

SAS for Dummies, by Stephen McDaniel and Chris Hemedinger

The Little SAS Book for Enterprise Guide 4.1, by Susan Slaughter and Lora Delwiche, SAS
Corporation

Statistics Using SAS Enterprise Guide, by James Davis, SAS Corporation

Getting Started with SAS Enterprise Guide - 12

SSDS at Stanford
The software consultants at Social Science Data and Software (SSDS) provide technical support for SAS
Enterprise Guide users at Stanford. Users can view documents, access information about our drop-in
hours, and submit questions from our web page at:
http://ssds.stanford.edu/

Copyright © 2008, by The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Permission granted to copy for non-
commercial purposes, provided we receive acknowledgment and a copy of the document in which our material appears. No
right is granted to quote from or use any material in this document for purposes of promoting any product or service.
Software Support, Social Science Data and Software
Document revised: May 7, 2008

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