Introducing the Applications Development Environment

What Is SAS/EIS Software?

An enterprise information system, or EIS, is an integrated series of applications that enable decision makers to access critical information with ease. An EIS summarizes, integrates, and displays information in easily understood reports. In addition to delivering summarized information quickly, an EIS can display the details from which the summaries are derived, if needed. When you create SAS/EIS applications, you provide users with data-driven, up-to-the-minute tables, graphs, and reports to ensure timely access to current information.

SAS/EIS software is a graphical user interface for developing and running enterprise information systems in a point-and-click environment. SAS/EIS provides you with the tools to build applications quickly and easily. Without knowing any programming code, you can use many features of SAS software products in your application.

The Report Gallery in SAS/EIS contains templates for a variety of sample reports. You can choose the type of report that you want, drop data onto the template for that report, and then create a new report that is based on your data. Once the report appears, you can customize it and save it as a new report.

To streamline the development process, SAS/EIS provides objects that you use to build the components that make up your graphical user interface. In SAS/EIS, an object is a package of data and routines that performs specific tasks. You define which data the objects access, and you provide details about the execution of the applications.

Many SAS/EIS objects support the use of a multidimensional database (MDDB), enabling you to integrate online analytical (OLAP) technology into your SAS/EIS applications. See About the SAS/EIS Development Environment for more information.

Note: In Version 9 and beyond, SAS/EIS supports only MDDBs that you create with the SAS/EIS MDDB object or the MDDB procedure. SAS/EIS does not support the new Version 9 cube structure that is created by the OLAP procedure. [cautionend]

SAS/EIS also gives you the ability to print multidimensional reports and enables an administrator to control access to data (including MDDBs) and applications.

SAS Software Requirements for Building and Running SAS/EIS Applications

The products that are required in order to build and to run SAS/EIS applications differ slightly. To build SAS/EIS applications, you need the following SAS software products, plus any additional products that are required for the EIS:

	Base SAS software
	SAS/AF software
	SAS/EIS software
	SAS/FSP software
	SAS/GRAPH software

Note: In order to create an MDDB as data input for multidimensional applications in Version 8, you must have SAS/MDDB Server software licensed and installed. However, you can create reports using MDDBs as input without having SAS/MDDB Server installed on your machine. [cautionend]

Note: For Version 9 and beyond, you must have SAS OLAP Server software licensed and installed in order to create an MDDB as data input for multidimensional applications. This is because SAS/MDDB Server is now included as part of SAS OLAP Server software. SAS/EIS supports only MDDBs that you create with the SAS/EIS MDDB object or the MDDB procedure. SAS/EIS does not support the new Version 9 cube structure that is created by the OLAP procedure. [cautionend]

To run SAS/EIS applications, you need the following SAS software products, plus any additional products that are required for the EIS:

	Base SAS software
	SAS/EIS software
	SAS/FSP software
	SAS/GRAPH software

The following table lists the additional products that may be needed for some applications, as well as the SAS/EIS object or window in which they are required:

Product	Object or window	Mode
SAS/ASSIST software	EIS Main Menu	Run
SAS/CONNECT software	Remote Connect object, Setup window	Build, Run
SAS/ETS software	Multidimensional Business Trends object, Simple Forecasting object, Univariate Forecasting object, What-If Forecasting object	Build, Run
SAS/QC software	Pareto object, Control object (experimental)	Run
SAS/SHARE software	Setup window	Build, Run

Note: For detailed requirements and the most current information, see the system requirements sheet that is shipped with SAS/EIS software. [cautionend]

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