Connecting to Common Data Sources

Establishing Connectivity to a SAS Information Map

Overview of Establishing Connectivity to a SAS Information Map

A SAS Information Map is a business metadata layer on top of another data source. When an information map is registered as a table in a SAS Information Map library, it can also be used as the data source for other information maps. For more information about creating information maps, see either the SAS Information Map Studio Help or Base SAS Guide to Information Maps. Information map tables are expected to be used primarily by SAS Information Map Studio and SAS Enterprise Guide.

Establishing Connectivity to an Information Map

[Establishing Connectivity to an Information Map]

To register a SAS Information Map library, perform the following steps:

In SAS Management Console, expand Data Library Manager. Right-click Libraries. Then, select the New Library option to access the New Library wizard.
Select SAS Information Map Library from the SAS Data list. Click Next.
Enter an appropriate library name in the Name field (for example, InfoMapLib). Click Next.
Select a SAS server from the list and use the right arrow to assign the SAS server. This step makes the library available to the server and makes the library visible to users of the server. Click Next.

Enter information about the library, such as the following:

Library Properties
Field	Sample Value
Libref	maplib
Engine	SASIOIME
Metadata server	select a metadata server from the list
Default login	(None)
Information map location	/Shared Data/SASInfoMaps

Click Next.

Examine the final page of the wizard to ensure that the proper values have been entered. Click Finish to save the library settings. At this point, you can register tables, as explained in Registering and Verifying Tables.

Special Considerations for Information Map Tables

When registering the tables with SAS Management Console, ensure that the check box for the option Enable special characters within DBMS object names option is selected. The New Library wizard uses data item IDs from the source information map as column names for the table. These data item IDs sometimes contain special characters.
The data item IDs of a source information map are used as column names when the information map is registered as an information map table. If you change the data item ID or table column name after the table is registered, then you will not be able to run queries on the table.
By default, the values retrieved from an information map table are the detail values from the source information map. If you want to retrieve aggregated values, then you must set an aggregation option. You can set the AGGREGATE= options for tables and libraries in Data Library Manager in SAS Management Console. After you add a table as a data source for an information map, you can also set the aggregation option for the data source in the Table Properties dialog box in SAS Information Map Studio. Selecting the Use the detail values from the data source radio button is equivalent to setting the AGGREGATE= option to NO, and selecting the Use the aggregated values from the data source radio button is equivalent to setting the AGGREGATE= option to YES. This setting overrides the aggregation settings on the library or the table.
When referenced by an information map table, measure data items that reference other measure data items or that use aggregate functions in their expressions can produce aggregated values only. If a source information map contains one of these data items, then set the AGGREGATE= option to YES on the library. Otherwise, these data items will not be registered as columns when you register the information map as a table.
If the source information map for an information map table has measure data items that reference other measure data items or that use aggregate functions in their expressions, then the combination of setting the AGGREGATE= option to YES on the library and setting the AGGREGATE= option to NO on the table or on the data source (within SAS Information Map Studio) causes the table data to be inaccessible.
Normally, when an information map table is registered, its columns get their formats from the associated source data items. But when a source data item is a measure data item and has a data type of character, then if the AGGREGATE= option is set to NO on the library, the format is not set to the format of the source data item. The format is set to the format of the column that the source data item is based on.
Because an information map acts as a reference to underlying data, ReadMetadata permission must be granted to a user for the information map table, the source information map, and the table used by the source information map. Read permission is also needed on the source information map.
Stored processes and prefilters associated with a source information map are applied to the information map table. (Filters that are not used as prefilters are not applied.)
If a stored process is associated with a source information map and the stored process uses prompts with default values, the stored process is applied to the information map table. If the prompts do not have default values, the stored process does not affect the information map table.
Information maps created from OLAP cubes cannot be registered as information map tables.
The source information map name must be 32 bytes or less.

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