Working with SAS Folders

Best Practices for Managing SAS Folders

To ensure the integrity of your system, follow these best practices when interacting with SAS folders in SAS Management Console:

Use personal folders for personal content and use shared folders for content that multiple users need to view.

By default, users cannot view other users' personal folders. Therefore, personal folders should be used for content that needs to be viewed and used only by the owning user. If the content needs to be viewed or used by other users, then it should be placed under the Shared Data folder or in a new folder structure that you create under SAS Folders.

To ensure secure and efficient sharing of content, the system administrator should create a folder structure for shared data that meets the needs of the organization. The appropriate permissions can then be assigned to each folder. For guidance, see Customizing Your Folder Structure.

Use folders, instead of custom repositories, to organize content.

In most cases, folders are the preferred method for organizing content. Custom repositories should be created only when there is an overriding reason to physically segregate repository data sets. For more information, see Creating, Registering, Moving, Copying, Renaming, and Deleting SAS Metadata Repositories.

It is recommended that you not delete or rename the Users folder, even if you have permission to do so.

If you have a reason to delete or rename the Users folder, then you must change the metadata repository configuration to reflect the change (see Change the Properties of a Metadata Repository).

Do not delete or rename the home folder or personal folder (My Folder) of an active user, even if you have permission to do so.

As a best practice, do not rename an active user's home folder or personal folder. If you do so, a new (empty) personal folder will be created the next time the user refreshes or logs on to an application that requires the folder. In addition, the contents of the renamed folder will not be visible to the user.

If you delete an active user's home folder or personal folder, the user will lose any existing personal content, and a new (empty) personal folder will be created the next time the user refreshes or logs on to an application that requires the folder.

Do not delete or rename the Products or System folders or their subfolders, even if you have permission to do so.

Deleting or renaming the Products or System folders or their subfolders could cause erroneous or unexpected behavior in client applications or solutions.

Use caution when renaming the Shared Data folder.

Renaming the Shared Data folder can affect associations and references to objects that are stored in this folder or its subfolders. For details, see Best Practices for Maintaining Associations Among Objects in SAS Folders.

When you create new folders, the security administrator should set permissions to ensure appropriate access.

For details, see Permissions on Folders in the SAS Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide.

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