SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 :: SAS(R) 9.3 Guide to Software Updates

New Features in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3

Here are some of the new features in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3:

a new program editor with autocompletion for hundreds of SAS statements, procedures, and options. The program editor also provides parenthesis matching, built-in syntax and function help, and automatic code formatting.
new views and charts for the OLAP Analyzer. You can now view scatter plots, bubble plots, and tile charts from the OLAP Analyzer. Also, when you open an OLAP cube, the OLAP Analyzer can automatically create the best graph based on the data.
code analysis to quickly identify the different parts of the program and convert the program to a process flow. You can also use code analysis to take advantage of grid computing.
explicit pass-through mode for queries that use data from an external database.
the ability to open reports that were created with SAS Web Report Studio.
several new and enhanced tasks that you can use to analyze your data.

For more information about the new features and enhancements, see the “What’s New in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3” topic at http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/guide.

About Running on SAS 9.3

SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 and SAS Enterprise Guide 4.305 run on SAS 9.2. If you install SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 or 4.305 from a SAS 9.2 depot, then to run these releases on a SAS 9.3 server you must apply hot fix 10 or later. However, if you install SAS Enterprise Guide 4.305 from a SAS 9.3 depot, then hot fix 10 is included. The functionality is identical in both releases.

When you install SAS 9.3 on the client tier, any existing installation of SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 is moved to the SAS 9.3 home directory. By default, this directory is PROGRAMFILES\SASHome.
You are not required to install SAS 9.3 on your client tier. Any existing installation of SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 can connect to a SAS 9.3 environment.
The 4.3 release that ships with SAS 9.3 includes any hot fixes that have been released since SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 first shipped in August 2010 and the initial release of SAS 9.3.

If you do not install SAS 9.3 on your client machine (and therefore you are still running the 4.3 release that was delivered with SAS 9.2), you must download and apply hot fix C46010 (or later) to your 4.3 installation. For more information, see http://ftp.sas.com/techsup/download/hotfix/hotfix.html.

Upgrading from SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1

The following considerations apply to SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 customers who have used an earlier release of SAS Enterprise Guide:

Support for SAS Enterprise Guide repositories has been discontinued; all metadata must be stored in a SAS Metadata Repository.
Servers are no longer administered through SAS Enterprise Guide Explorer and must now be administered using SAS Management Console.
Users and user groups are no longer administered through SAS Enterprise Guide Explorer and must now be administered using SAS Management Console.
Tasks are no longer enabled or disabled for user groups, so any task assignments for SAS Enterprise Guide users are not maintained. Any restrictions on SAS Enterprise Guide tasks must be made through roles and administered though SAS Management Console. For more information, see the SAS Enterprise Guide chapter in the SAS Intelligence Platform: Desktop Application Administration Guide.
The project format has changed from earlier releases. To change the format, you must either open each project in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 or use the migration wizard for SAS Enterprise Guide. You must use the migration wizard to import metadata changes that occurred. For more information, see SAS Intelligence Platform: Desktop Application Administration Guide.
The new Map Chart task creates a two-dimensional (choropleth) or three-dimensional (block and prism) color map that shows the variation in the value of a response variable for different geographical areas, such as counties, states, and countries.

The Create Map Chart task no longer requires specially prepared data (called “feature tables”) to create useful maps. Now, it is easier to create map charts that use only a map data set and your response values.

The Create Map Feature Table task, provided with earlier versions of SAS Enterprise Guide, is no longer needed. Your existing projects that use this task will still run. However, you will not be able to create new steps that use the Create Map Feature Table task.
In previous releases of SAS Enterprise Guide, the project file stored external file references as absolute paths. In SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3, these external file references are stored as relative paths, which makes it easier for you to move the project file, data, and programs to a different folder or a different machine. In SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3, use pathnames that are relative to the current location of the project file instead of using a full path.

In SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3, you can open reports that were generated by SAS Web Report Studio 4.3. You must have SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 installed to open prompted reports in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3. For more information, see http://support.sas.com/kb/40/386.html.
If the input data source for a task is from a DBMS engine, then SAS uses the sort functionality on the database to sort the data before running the task. Using the database functionality rather than the SORT procedure, which is used for files that are not saved to a database, optimizes the performance of the SAS task.

Upgrading from SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2

The following considerations apply to SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 customers who have used an earlier release of SAS Enterprise Guide:

The new Map Chart task creates a two-dimensional (choropleth) or three-dimensional (block and prism) color map that shows the variation in the value of a response variable for different geographical areas, such as counties, states, and countries.

The Create Map Chart task no longer requires specially prepared data (called “feature tables”) to create useful maps. Now, it is easier to create map charts that use only a map data set and your response values.

The Create Map Feature Table task, provided with earlier versions of SAS Enterprise Guide, is no longer needed. Your existing projects that use this task will still run. However, you will not be able to create new steps that use the Create Map Feature Table task.
In previous releases of SAS Enterprise Guide, the project file stored external file references as absolute paths. In SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3, these external file references are stored as relative paths, which makes it easier for you to move the project file, data, and programs to a different folder or a different machine. In SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3, use pathnames that are relative to the current location of the project file instead of using a full path.
In the Import Data task, there are two new performance options that enable you to specify the level of data cleansing to perform on the imported data. To perform data cleansing, SAS Enterprise Guide downloads data from the server to the client. You can specify how much data is downloaded to optimize performance.
In SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3, you can open reports that were generated by SAS Web Report Studio 4.3. You must have SAS Web Report Studio 4.3 installed to open prompted reports in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3. For more information, see http://support.sas.com/kb/40/386.html.
If the input data source for a task is from a DBMS engine, then SAS uses the sort functionality on the database to sort the data before running the task. Using the database functionality rather than the SORT procedure, which is used for files that are not saved to a database, optimizes the performance of the SAS task.