Initializing and Configuring SAS Software

Support for SAS Software

Support for SAS software is shared by SAS and your installation or site. SAS provides maintenance for the software; the SAS Installation Representative, the on-site SAS support personnel, and the SAS Training Coordinator for your site are responsible for giving you direct user support.

The SAS Installation Representative receives all shipments and correspondence and distributes them to the appropriate personnel at your site.
The on-site SAS support personnel are knowledgeable SAS users who support the other SAS users at your site. The SAS Technical Support Division is available to assist your on-site SAS support personnel with problems that you encounter.
The SAS Training Coordinator works with the SAS Education Division to arrange training classes for SAS users.

Working with Your On-Site SAS Support Personnel

At your site, one or more on-site SAS support personnel have been designated as the first point of contact for SAS users who need help resolving problems.

If the on-site SAS support personnel are unable to resolve your problem, then the on-site SAS support personnel contact the SAS Technical Support Division for you. In order to provide the most efficient service possible, the company asks that you do not contact SAS Technical Support directly.

SAS Technical Support

The SAS Technical Support Division can assist with suspected internal errors in SAS software and with possible system incompatibilities. It can also help answer questions about SAS statement syntax, general logic problems, and procedures and their output. However, the SAS Technical Support Division cannot assist with special-interest applications, with writing user programs, or with teaching new users. It is also unable to provide support for general statistical methodology or for the design of experiments.

Generating a System Dump for SAS Technical Support

Follow these steps to generate a system dump that can be interpreted by SAS Technical Support:

Disable ABEND-AID or any other dump formatting system software before generating the dump.
Create a sequential data set with the DCB attributes DSORG=PS RECFM=FB LRECL=256 and the following contents:
```
reset              
set tkopt_dumpprol=
set tkopt_nostae=
set tkopt_nostaex=
```
In the batch job or TSO session in which SAS is started, allocate the following ddname's:
- Allocate the ddname TKMVSENV to the sequential data set that is described above.
- If an unformatted dump is desired, which is normally the case unless otherwise advised by SAS Technical Support, allocate the ddname SYSMDUMP to a disk data set. Specifying SPACE=(CYL,(50,50)) is usually sufficient. In batch, it is usually convenient to allocate the dump data set DISP=(,DELETE,CATLG) so that it will be created only if the job abends.
- If a formatted dump is desired or requested, instead of an unformatted dump, allocate the ddname SYSUDUMP to a disk data set or an appropriate SYSOUT class. In most cases, this would be a SYSOUT class that is not automatically printed.
- Specify the following options at SAS invocation: NOSTAE, DUMPPROL, SOURCE, SOURCE2, NOTES, MPRINT, and SYMBOLGEN.

To deliver the dump to SAS, use one of the following methods:

FTP: Send unformatted dumps in BINARY mode and inform SAS Technical Support of the DCB attributes of the original dump data set. Send formatted dumps in ASCII mode.
Tape: Use IEBGENER to copy the dump data set to a magnetic tape cartridge using IBM standard labels.

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