In SAS Enterprise Guide and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office, the order in which data items appear when you open an information map depends on which version of the software you are using.

Note: For information about how to use PROC CONTENTS to verify the order in which the data items will be displayed, see SAS Note 43285.

Version 6.1 and SAS^® 9.4 and later

The data items appear in the same order as they appear in SAS^® Information Map Studio.

Version 5.1 and SAS 9.3_M2 and earlier

The data items are presented in the order in which they were originally added to the information map. This is the order in which the SAS Information Maps LIBNAME Engine reads in the data. This means that the data items might not appear in the same order as they appear when you open the information map in SAS Information Map Studio.

For relational information maps, there are a couple of options for changing the order in which the data items appear in the Available items lists.

• You can create a new information map, selecting the data items in the order in which you want them to appear in SAS Enterprise Guide and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office.
• You can modify the XML for the information map (not recommended).

CAUTION: Modifying the XML is a high-risk task, and, therefore, is not supported or recommended by SAS Technical Support. If you choose to use this option, then you should make a backup copy of the original XML and save the modified XML under the original name. However, when you save the new copy, then you will not be able to refresh existing SAS Content based on the information map in, for example, a spreadsheet. To use the modified XML, you would have to recreate the SAS Content.

1. Open SAS Information Map Studio.
2. Select Tools ► XML to open a screen that displays the XML for the information map.

Note: If you do not see the XML option, see SAS Note 35843.

3. Click Edit.
4. In the Edit Information Map XML dialog box, click Find and search for the <BusinessItemList> tag (3.1) or the <ContainedItems> tag (4.2 and later).
5. Within that tag, you will see a set of <DataItem> and </DataItem> tags for each data item in the information map. Carefully select each set of <DataItem> tags and rearrange them in the order in which you want them to appear in the client application.
6. Click OK, and then click OK in message box, which says that the changes will not be saved until you save the information map.
7. Click the Presentation tab. The data items are still listed in the order in which you last saved them. This is expected behavior.
8. When you edited the XML, SAS Information Map Studio created a new information map. So, at this point, in order to overwrite your original information map, you must select File ► Save and then enter the same name as the original information map. Again, make sure that you have a backup of the original information map so that you can restore the previous state if necessary.
9. To verify that the data items now appear in your preferred order, open the information map in SAS Enterprise Guide. The Available items list box should now display the data items in the order in which you saved them in the information map XML.

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