What's New in the SAS Add-In 5.1 for Microsoft Office

Overview

The SAS Add-In 5.1 for Microsoft Office is available in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Outlook. Although some functionality is unique to a specific Microsoft Office application, most functionality is similar in each Microsoft application.
The SAS Add-In 5.1 for Microsoft Office has the following changes and enhancements:
  • a new 64-bit application
  • enhancements in Microsoft Outlook, which includes integration with Microsoft Office Communicator and the ability to add comments to reports
  • new Quick Start tools that you can use to automatically analyze your data
  • a more robust automation interface
  • changes when working with OLAP cubes
  • enhanced SAS tasks, which includes the ability to create Microsoft Excel charts
  • general enhancements, which includes a new default output format for graphs
You can run the SAS Add-In 5.1 for Microsoft Office on either a SAS 9.2 or SAS 9.3 server.

New 64-bit Application

The SAS Add-In 5.1 for Microsoft Office is now available as either a 32-bit or a 64-bit application. If you are using a 32-bit Microsoft Windows operating system, then you must use the 32-bit version of the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. If you are using a 64-bit Windows operating system, then you can run either the 32-bit or the 64-bit version of the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office.

Enhancements in Microsoft Outlook

These new features and enhancements are available when you use the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office in Microsoft Outlook.
  • role-based settings. An administrator for the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office can use SAS Management Console to manage the availability of features in Microsoft Outlook.
  • integration with instant messaging tools, so you can use the functionality of Microsoft Office Communicator or Microsoft Lync while viewing the results from a report. For example, you can now check the status of the report author, add the report author to your list of contacts in Office Communicator or Microsoft Outlook, send a link to a report in an instant message, schedule a meeting, and initiate a phone call.
  • the ability to add and view comments for a specific report. These comments are saved with the report, so they are visible to anyone who can review report comments. These comments are also visible when you open the report in SAS Web Report Studio 4.31 M1.

New Quick Start Tools

The new Quick Start interface has these tools:
  • The Task Gallery shows a sample of the results that are generated by each SAS task.
  • In the Automatic Chart panel, the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office creates bar charts, bubble plots, line plots, pie charts, or scatter plots based on your role assignments.
  • In the Quick Stats panel, the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office can quickly calculate the basic statistics and create basic graphs based on your input data source.

Enhancements to the Automation Interface

  • The SASDataView object now includes the DisplayAllRecords property, so you can view all of the records in a data view. You specify this parameter by using the InsertDataFromLibrary, InsertDataFromSasFolder, and InsertDataFromLocalMachine methods.
  • The new CreateSASPrompts method enables you to create a new SASPrompts object. This method is available for the SASExcelAddIn, SASPowerPointAddIn, and SASWordAddIn objects.
  • The new CreateSASRanges method enables you to create a new SASRanges object. This method is available for the SASExcelAddIn object.
  • The new GetParameter method returns the value for the specified prompt. This method is available for the SASStoredProcess Object.

Working with OLAP Cubes

  • The OLAP Viewer is now called the OLAP Analyzer.
  • When you open an OLAP cube in a PivotTable, the layout of the PivotTable is not specified by default. Instead, an empty PivotTable is created. For the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office to automatically select the fields for the PivotTable, you must select the Automatically select fields for OLAP PivotTables check box on the Data tab in the SAS Options dialog box.

Enhancements to SAS Tasks

  • In Microsoft Excel, you can specify whether to display the results from the Bar Chart, Bubble Plot, Line Plot, or Pie Chart task as a Microsoft Excel chart. To use Microsoft Excel charts, select the Create Microsoft Excel chart when possible option on the Graph tab in the SAS Options dialog box.
  • The new Show an ODS Statistical Graph task is available in both SAS Enterprise Guide and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. In this task, you select the graph definition (SGD file) to use for a selected data source. The graph definition can be created in SAS Enterprise Guide.
  • In the Tile Chart task, you can now create a separate chart for each unique value of the specified BY variable.

General Enhancements

  • The SAS Add-In 5.1 for Microsoft Office runs on Microsoft Office 2010 and 2007. The 5.1 release is not supported on Microsoft Office 2003.
  • You can specify the maximum number of rows to process when determining the number of distinct values in the data source.
  • You can reset the SAS add-in to display all warning messages, including those that you have selected not to be shown.
  • You can use values from Excel cells as the input for stored processes.
  • In the SAS Options dialog box, the new Use grid when available option on the Tasks tab replaces the Generate ODS macros instead of ODS statement option that used to be on the Results tab.

Specifying Input Streams and Output Parameters for a SAS Stored Process

SAS stored processes are created in SAS applications such as SAS Enterprise Guide or SAS Management Console. If a stored process allows input streams, then you are prompted to select a range of Excel data that will be used as the input data for a stored process. If a stored process contains output parameters, then you are prompted to select which output parameters to include in the results.

New and Enhanced SAS Tasks

New Tasks

  • Map Chart 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.
  • Scatter Plot Matrix creates a paneled graph of scatter plots for multiple combinations of variables. You can use options to overlay fit plots and ellipses on your scatter plots.
  • Tile Chart enables you to create a tile chart. A tile chart is a rectangular tree map that enables you to view a large quantity of hierarchical data in a limited space. Each unique category combination is represented by a rectangular tile whose size and color are determined by response variables. These tiles are placed in a hierarchical arrangement.

Task Enhancements

  • If the input data source for a SAS 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.
  • To enable the SAS add-in to run tasks in a SAS grid computing environment, select the new Generate ODS macros option instead of the ODS statement option on the Results tab in the SAS Options dialog box. By generating ODS macro variables, the SAS add-in can set the value of these macro variables each time a SAS job is submitted. No ODS statements are generated because the ODS results are generated on the grid node and do not need to be generated again when the SAS add-in returns the results to the Microsoft application.
  • The following tasks now support the DTQTR, DTMONTH, and DTDAY datetime intervals:
    • ARIMA Modeling and Forecasting
    • Basic Forecasting
    • Prepare Time Series Data
    • Regression Analysis with Autoregressive Errors
  • In the Principal Component task, you can create these new plots:
    • a pattern profile plot. The value on the Y-axis is the correlation between the variable and the principal component.
    • pattern component plots. Each observation on the plot is the correlation between the variable and the two corresponding components on the plot. You can choose whether to plot the patterns in a vector.
  • The interface for the Random Sample task has been redesigned.
Copyright © SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.