What’s New in SAS Visual Analytics 7.1

General Enhancements to SAS Visual Analytics

The enhancements to importing data include:
  • This release adds support for importing data from Pivotal HD and Cloudera Impala.
  • You can specify a schema when you import data from an ODBC or PostgreSQL data source.
  • You can import a Microsoft Excel macro-enabled workbook that has an XLSM filename suffix and a non-XML binary workbook that has an XLSB filename suffix.
  • The list of server data sources from which you can import data is simplified. The list includes only the data sources for which SAS/ACCESS software is licensed and that your administrator has granted you the capability to use.
  • When you import from Twitter, the doclatitude and doclongitude data items are set to missing values for tweets that do not include geographic coordinates. This enhancement simplifies using tweets with geo maps. (Information about the data structure of imported tweets is provided in an appendix.)

SAS Visual Analytics Home Page

The enhanced feature on the home page is that you can change the number of recent items that are shown. The Show this number of recent items preference has a minimum of zero items and a maximum of 25 items. The default setting is 10 items.

SAS Visual Data Builder

New and enhanced features for the data builder include:
  • Information on the Properties tab for data queries is simplified. New tabs for input tables and output tables enable you to specify information easily.
  • It is easier to add tables and subqueries to a data query. A add button in the toolbar enables you to navigate through libraries and tables or to use a data query as a subquery.
  • Data queries have enhanced support for special characters in column names and table names.
  • When you work with SAS LASR Analytic Server or SASHDAT libraries, most tasks allow you to select a Compress data check box to conserve memory.

SAS Visual Analytics Explorer

Enhancements for Visualizations

  • A new Sankey diagram visualization enables you to perform path analytics. Path analytics displays flows of data from one event (value) to another as a series of paths.
  • Forecasting in a line chart visualization enables you to perform goal seeking. With goal seeking, you can specify a target value for the forecast measure, and then determine the values of the underlying factors that would be required to achieve the target value.
  • Text analytics in a word cloud visualization enables you to analyze the sentiment of documents in your document collection.
  • Text analytics in a word cloud visualization supports the analysis of German language documents.
  • Text analytics in a word cloud visualization enables you to explore a selection of specific documents as a new visualization.
  • The geo map visualization supports dynamic Esri map providers.
  • Correlation values are displayed as positive and negative values rather than as absolute values.

General Enhancements to SAS Visual Analytics Explorer

  • You can add multiple data sources to a single exploration.
  • On the Filters tab, local filters are identified as visualization filters. Global filters are labeled using the name of the data source for the current visualization.
  • You can copy a filter from one visualization to another.
  • You can create linked filters to subset multiple data sources at once.
  • New aggregation types are available for measures.
  • New aggregated operators are available for data expressions.
  • You can create new types of derived data items for categories.
  • Global parameters enable you to specify a variable whose value can be changed globally at any time. A new Parameters tab in the right pane enables you to change the values for any global parameters that affect the current visualization.
  • Custom categories enable you to specify labels for groups of discrete values or for intervals of continuous numeric values. Custom categories are stored as calculated category data items.
  • The Measure Details window displays additional statistics for the measures in your data.
  • The tabs in the right pane can display icons instead of labels.

SAS Visual Analytics Designer

Enhanced User Interface for the Designer

  • You can distribute reports to other users based on a schedule.
  • Printing has been enhanced. New options for printing to PDF are available.
  • Report prompts are available.
  • You can re-order section prompts in a report.
  • You can create post-aggregate filters for measure data items. For example, you can create a filter based on the sum of sales.
  • You can add info windows to provide additional information about a report object for a user who is viewing the report on the web or on a mobile device.
  • You can specify a preference for receiving alert notifications via e-mail or text message.
  • The Show or Hide Objects window has been enhanced with additional graph objects.
  • You can edit data source mapping for report prompts or section prompts after they have been created.
  • You can localize (or translate) the labels, tooltips, and other descriptive text that are part of your reports.

Enhanced Report Objects

  • You can associate parameters with report controls so that report consumers can set the values of the parameters.
  • A word cloud report object is available.
  • A prompt container report object is available.
  • All report objects have Border and Fill options on the Styles tab.
  • Geo map report objects support dynamic Esri map providers.
  • The gauge report object is displayed under the Other heading on the Objects tab. All gauges are represented by one object type. You can use the new Type property to specify that you want a bullet, dial, slider, speedometer, or thermometer gauge.
  • The bar chart has a new Grouping scale property, which enables you to create a 100% stacked bar chart.
  • You can use the new Rotate value label property to rotate the X axis category labels on graphs by 45 degrees. This property is available for the bar chart, targeted bar chart, waterfall chart, line chart, dual axis bar chart, dual axis line chart, and the dual axis bar-line chart.
  • Animation is available for the targeted bar chart, line chart, pie chart, dual axis bar chart, dual axis line chart, and dual axis bar-line chart.
  • For list tables, you can turn off or turn on the aggregation labels for totals.
  • For crosstabs, you can specify that you want to show missing labels as blanks.
  • For tables and graphs, you can define a filter for a measure data item where the filter is applied after the measure data is aggregated to limit the resulting data that report consumers see in the summarized report object.
  • For slider controls, you can select the Set fixed range property to specify the Minimum and Maximum values for the slider end points.
  • The Enable selection in the viewers check box on the Properties tab for a stored process is selected by default.
  • There is a new Combine excluded rows into “All Other” property for list tables and crosstabs. And, there is a new Combine excluded cells into “All Other” property for graphs. This property applies to both filters and ranks.
  • You can create a slider control with a single value, which can be used with parameters and interactions.
  • Schedule charts can have display rules.

Enhanced Data Items

  • Parameters are available for calculations, filters, display rules, and ranks.
  • New aggregation types are available for measure data items.
  • You can specify a custom sort so that category data items in a table or graph can sort to the top or to the bottom.
  • In the New Custom Category window, the new Based on label identifies the type and the name of the data item that the new custom category is based on.

SAS Visual Analytics Graph Builder

New and enhanced features in SAS Visual Analytics Graph Builder include:
  • There are two new plot types:
    • A series plot displays a series of line segments that connect observations of input data. A series plot can use numeric or character data on the X axis.
    • A vector plot shows the change in value of a measure using directed line segments, or vectors, to represent both direction and magnitude at each point.
  • The graph builder includes a gallery of predefined graph objects. Using these predefined graph objects as templates, you can build custom graph objects.
  • The Target role has been added to bar charts.
  • New properties have been added to various graph elements.

SAS Visual Analytics Viewer

New and enhanced features in SAS Visual Analytics Viewer include:
  • You can print to PDF.
  • You can specify a preference for receiving alert notifications via e-mail or text message.

SAS Visual Analytics Administration

For information about changes and enhancements in administration of SAS Visual Analytics, see the SAS Visual Analytics: Administration Guide.
Note: Administrative and deployment documentation for SAS Visual Analytics is available to only licensed customers. To request access, see the instructions on the SAS Visual Analytics page on the SAS support site.
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