Customizing Your Folder Structure

Guidelines for Creating Custom Folders

When you install SAS, a default folder structure is provided. This structure segregates system information from business information, provides personal folders for individual users, and provides an area for shared data. Within this overall structure, you can create a customized folder hierarchy that meets the information management, data sharing, and security requirements of your organization.

You can set up your folder structure under the Shared Data folder that is provided, or you can create additional folders under

SAS
                     Folders

in which to store shared content.

The following are some guidelines for setting up a folder structure:

Keep the folder structure as simple as possible.

A simple folder structure makes your system easier to navigate and easier to administer. You should create new folders or levels of folders only if they provide a specific benefit for your organization.

Develop a folder structure that reflects the organization of your work.

Folders should be organized the way your work is organized. For example, your folder structure could reflect the following:

your company's internal organization. For example, each division or department could have its own high-level folder.
types of business activities. For example, you could have a separate folders for human resources, sales, research and development, and marketing.
geography. For example, each country, sales region, or regional office could have its own folder.
categories of products. For example, each product line or product group could have its own folder.
time periods. For example, you could have a folder for each year, quarter, or month.
categories of users. Generally, this type of folder structure is necessary only in large organizations that have a clear separation of responsibilities (for example, separate teams for data preparation, map creation, and report creation).
change-control status. If you have just one deployment of the SAS Intelligence Platform (instead of separate deployments for development, test, and production), then you might want to use folders to separate production-status content from content that is in the development or testing stage. To do so, you can set up separate sets of folders for development, test, and production. Then, you can use the promotion tools to move content from development to test and from test to production. See Example 3: Separate Folder Structures for Development, Test, and Production.

Do not set up folders based on SAS client applications.

It is not necessary or desirable to organize objects based on which SAS client applications were used to create them. Organizing folders on this basis can complicate administration tasks such as the assignment of permissions.

Do not set up folders based on object types unless it is necessary for access control.

Organizing folders based on object types can complicate administration tasks such as the assignment of permissions. As a general rule, you should avoid setting up folders on this basis.

Different types of objects such as libraries, information maps, reports, OLAP cubes, and stored processes can be stored together in the same folders without causing any problems. Because client applications such as SAS Information Map Studio and SAS Web Report Studio display only the object types that are used in that application, users will see only the object types that they need to see.

An additional advantage of mixing object types is that associations are easier to maintain. For example, if a folder contains objects that are associated with one another, you can rename the folder without breaking the associations.

However, in some large organizations, you might need to use folders to restrict access to certain types of objects. For details, see the next guideline.

Develop a folder organization that reflects the access rules that you want to enforce.

Folders enable you to easily restrict access to content. For example:

If you want to prevent departments from accessing each other's content, then you can create a high-level folder for each department and apply different permissions to each of the folders.
If you want to restrict access to sensitive content (for example, content related to a sensitive product line or a business activity such as human resources), then you can create a separate folder for that content and apply a restrictive access control template (ACT).
If your organization requires a clear separation of content among different categories of SAS users, then you can create separate folders for each group. Generally, this type of folder structure is necessary only in large organizations that have separate teams of SAS users with different job responsibilities.

For example, suppose you have one group of users that works on data preparation tasks (such as creating libraries, tables, and cubes) and another group creates information maps, stored processes, and reports). To ensure that the groups do not interfere with one another's work, you can create a separate folder for each group and apply different permissions to each of the folders.

See Baseline ACTs in SAS Intelligence Platform: Security Administration Guide for detailed information about creating Access Control Templates (ACTs) for folders and applying the appropriate permissions at each level.

If you have separate environments for development, test, and production, then use the same folder structure across environments.

Using a uniform folder structure will make it easier to promote objects from one environment to another.

Examples of Custom Folder Structures

Example 1: Multiple Lines of Business across Multiple Regions

Here is an example folder structure for an organization that has multiple lines of business across multiple regions, each with its own set of data definitions, information maps, stored processes, and reports. Each region and line of business has a single user or team of users that performs all data integration and business intelligence tasks.

Example of a custom folder structure by line of business and region

In this scenario, each low-level folder would have permissions that enable WriteMemberMetadata (WMM) access for the SAS users in that specific line of business and region.

Example 2: Multiple Lines of Business with Separate Data Integration and Business Intelligence Users

Here is an example of a folder structure for an organization that has multiple divisions. Within each division, a specific group of SAS users performs data preparation tasks (including the creation of tables and cubes) and another group of users creates information maps, reports, and stored processes. The table and cube definitions are division-wide and are organized by time period. Separate information maps, reports, and stored processes are created for each department.

Example of folder structure for separate data integration and BI teams

In this scenario, the following permissions would be granted for a division's data folder (for example, the Division A Data folder):

only Read (R) and ReadMetadata (RM) access for users who create maps, reports, and stored processes. These would include users of SAS Enterprise Guide, SAS Information Map Studio, and SAS Web Report Studio.
WriteMemberMetadata (WMM) access for the users who perform data integration tasks for the division (including users of SAS Data Integration Studio and SAS OLAP Cube Studio).

Example 3: Separate Folder Structures for Development, Test, and Production

As an alternative to creating separate deployments of the SAS Intelligence Platform for development, test, and production, you can use SAS folders to create a change control environment within a single metadata server. The following example demonstrates how to set up folder structures for test and development that mirror your production folders:

Example of folder structure with separate folders for development, test, and production

In this scenario, you would give development and testing personnel the appropriate access to the Development and Test subfolders, and you would give business users the appropriate access to the Production subfolders.

You can then use the Export SAS Package and Import SAS Package wizards to move metadata and associated content from Development to Test and from Test to Production. For details, see Promotion Tools Overview. To facilitate promotion, use the same folder structure within each of the three folders.