Overview Before you can do anything in SAS Enterprise Guide, you need to add the data that you want to analyze to your project. In addition to SAS data files, SAS Enterprise Guide can read most PC data files such as HTML, Microsoft Access, dBASE, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus 1-2-3, and Paradox files. You can open data that is located on your own computer or on any server that you are authorized to access. When you open data, a shortcut to the data is automatically added to the current project and the data opens in a data grid. By default, the data opens in read-only mode. In the Process Flow window that is shown below there are shortcuts to a SAS data set, an Excel data file, and a text file. The text file has been imported to create a SAS data set.

In addition to opening existing data and using it, you can also work with your data in the following ways: use the Import Data wizard to create SAS data sets from raw data files and Excel files use the New Data wizard to create a new SAS data file use the Query Builder to manipulate your data (for example, filter, join, add columns, and sort) change your data to update mode and make changes directly to data in the data grid run tasks from the Data menu Next you learn about data properties.