About This Book

Audience

This book covers the basics of how to prepare data in SAS Visual Analytics. The emphasis is on introductory instructions, how-to hints, and quick reference information.

Requirements

Prerequisites

If you choose to perform the tasks in this book, you need the following software, information, and privileges:

access to SAS Visual Analytics 7.3
a supported web browser (see the SAS support site for supported browsers and versions)
a supported version of the Adobe Flash Player (see the SAS support site for supported versions)
an account that can log on to SAS Visual Analytics
access to the data source that you want to use (for example, a SAS data set, a Microsoft Excel file, an Oracle database, and so on)
Write permission to at least one library (without the necessary permission, you cannot save tables, data queries, and so on)
data preparation capabilities (without the necessary capabilities, you cannot see certain user interface elements)

System Requirements

Detailed system requirements and additional web browsers that are supported are documented on the SAS support site.

Key Terms

This book makes specialized use of the following terms:

delimited file	a text file that contains data that is separated by commas, tabs, or custom delimiters.
LASR	the SAS in-memory analytic and data functionality that SAS Visual Analytics uses. LASR is an adjective, not an acronym.
SAS data set	a table that is in the SAS7BDAT file format.
spreadsheet	Microsoft Excel workbook (XLSX, XLSM, and XLSB) file or Microsoft Excel 97 to 2003 workbook (XLS) file.
data query	the primary method for preparing data in SAS Visual Analytics.
LASR star schema	similar to a typical star schema in a relational database. Usually includes a fact table that is surrounded by dimension tables.