Working with Life Cycles

Overview of a Life Cycle

What Is a Life Cycle?

A SAS Model Manager life cycle defines the milestones and tasks that your organization uses to monitor the progress of a modeling project. The life cycle template controls the milestone tasks and the sequence of activities that are required to implement and deploy scoring models. SAS Model Manager provides example life cycle templates that you can use to create your own life cycle templates that are based on your business requirements.
The milestones in life cycle template track the progress of developing, implementing, and retiring your scoring models. Authorized users indicate when milestone tasks are started, completed, or approved.  The properties of a life cycle template determine who is authorized to update the status of a milestone task. Precedence rules for successive milestones ensure that life cycle tasks are completed in the correct order. SAS Model Manager automatically records the dates, times, and users who are associated with individual life cycle milestones.

How Life Cycle Milestones Are Organized

The Life Cycle node contains the milestone phases and tasks for a modeling project. SAS Model Manager applies life cycle milestones to each version. Typical life cycle milestones for a modeling process might include the following:
Organization of a Life Cycle Template
The life cycle for a version always starts with the first milestone. A milestone is completed after all of its component tasks are completed. Milestones are normally completed sequentially, but the ordering sequence is defined at the task level. A task might be configured to depend on one or more other tasks. If a task has dependent tasks, then you cannot change the status for a task to Completed until all dependent tasks are also completed. Task dependencies control the milestone sequences.
Note: You can start another task when it depends on the preceding task even if the preceding task is not yet completed.

Life Cycle Tasks

About Life Cycle Tasks

Life cycle templates define the milestones that you use to track the modeling and deployment processes for a project version. Each milestone consists of one or more life cycle tasks. Milestones for the simple life cycle template might include Development, Test, Production, and Retire. The milestone tasks for this template describe the sequential steps to develop, assess, deploy, and retire scoring models that are based on time requirements and model performance. As a practical minimum, the life cycle template that you use should include at least two milestones: Development and Production.
You select the life cycle template when you create a version. Authorized users update the life cycle to indicate whether milestone tasks have been started, completed, or approved. The configuration of a life cycle template determines who can update the status of a life cycle milestone. Precedence rules among successive milestones ensure that milestone tasks are not completed out of sequence. SAS Model Manager documents the dates, times, and individuals who are associated with individual life cycle tasks and milestone status changes.
These are some tasks that you might perform to monitor the life cycle of a model:
For information about users and groups who can update the Status property of a task, see Participant Roles.

View Life Cycle Templates

To view the life cycle templates that are available in SAS Model Manager, follow these steps:
  1. Click the Life Cycles category view button Life Cycles category view icon in the SAS Model Manager window.
  2. Expand the Templates folder to display the available life cycle templates. The Templates folder contains your custom the life cycle templates and the SAS Model Manager example life cycle templates. The following example templates are provided by SAS Model Manager:
    • Basic
    • Standard
    • Extended
    • User Lifecycle Template
    These life cycle templates are example templates that you can use as a model to create life cycle templates that meet your organization’s needs. Life cycle templates other than the SAS Model Manager example templates are customized templates that have been specially created by SAS Model Manager administrators and advanced users.
  3. Expand the life cycle template node to explore the structure of the milestones. Examine the milestone requirements in the Life Cycle Properties pane. The approximate sequential ordering of the milestone phases is determined by the Milestone ID property. At the task level, sequential ordering is determined by the Action ID property.
    Life Cycles Category View
  4. Expand the milestone phase to view the milestone tasks. Examine the task requirements in the Life Cycle Properties pane.
    • Action ID determines the order for completing milestones and tasks.
    • Dependencies determines whether the task depends on one or more other tasks. If a task has dependent tasks, then you cannot change the status for a task to Completed until all dependent tasks are also completed. Task dependencies control milestone sequences.
    • Weight specifies the percentage of work effort the task is assigned to complete the milestone. The sum of the weighted values for a milestone does not have to equal 100.
    For information about users and groups who can update the Status property of a task, see Participant Roles.

Update Milestone Status

To modify the status for a life cycle milestone, follow these steps:
  1. Right-click the version Life Cycle node in the Project Tree and select Expand All Items.
  2. Select the task that you want to update under the milestone phase. For example, if your template is modeled after the Standard or Extended life cycle template, then you can monitor the status of registering models under the Development milestone.
    Note: Milestones are normally completed sequentially, but the ordering sequence is defined at the task level. If a task has dependent tasks, then you cannot change the status for a task to Completed until all dependent tasks are also completed. Task dependencies control the milestone sequence. Date requirements are benchmarks for the start and completion of life cycle milestone and tasks.
  3. On the Properties tab, select a value for Status that indicates the progress of completing this milestone. Possible values are Not Started, Started, Completed, or Approved.
    Note: You must be authorized to set properties for a milestone. Task properties in the life cycle template determine which users or user groups are responsible for completing and approving a milestone task.
  4. Select the Life Cycle node to examine its properties. The value for Date Modified is today's date. Under Life Cycle Properties, the bar charts display the percentage of completed tasks for each milestone.

Life Cycle Properties

About Life Cycle Properties

Life cycle properties are metadata that describe the life cycle milestones and user roles. Life cycle metadata includes information such as the name of the milestone phase or task, the owner, unique identifiers, the name and path of the SAS Model Manager repository, and the status of milestones.
Milestone and task properties are organized into several types:
You cannot modify the General Properties or System Properties except to specify a description for the folder. The milestone Specific Properties contains information about start and end dates. The task Specific Properties contains information about status, dates, and process participants. You use User-Defined Properties to add your own life cycle properties. The background color of a property signifies whether you can modify a property value. You modify only the boxes that are white. When you click in a box, you either enter a value or select a value from the list box.

Specific Properties for Milestones and Tasks

Here is a list of the milestone properties.
Property Name
Description
Actual Start Date
Specifies the actual date that the first task for the milestone is started. This property is Read-only.
Actual End Date
Specifies the actual date when all tasks for the milestone are finished. This property is Read-only. SAS Model Manager assigns the value when the status of every milestone task is set to Completed.
Planned Start Date
Specifies the expected date to start the first task for milestone.
Planned End Date
Specifies the expected date to complete all tasks for the milestone.
Here is a list of task properties:
Property Name
Description
Status
Specifies the status of task. Possible values are Not Started, Started, Completed, or Approved.
Date Completed
Specifies the date when the task is finished. This property is Read-only. SAS Model Manager assigns the value when the status of the milestone task was changed to Completed.
Completed By
Specifies the name of the user who completed the task. This property is Read-only.
Date Approved
Specifies the date when completion of the task is approved. This property is Read-only.
Approved By
Specifies the name of the user who approved completion of the task. This property is Read-only.
Planned Completion Date
Specifies the expected date to complete the task.
To Be Completed By
Specifies the user who is responsible for completing the task.
To Be Approved By
Specifies the user who can approve that the task is completed.