About the SAS Folder Structure

Purpose of the SAS Folder Structure

SAS Intelligence Platform clients use a hierarchy of SAS folders to store metadata for the following:
  • content such as channels, cubes, data explorations, generated transformations, information maps, jobs, libraries, mining results, OLAP schemas, prompts, reports, stored processes, subscribers, and tables
  • SAS system content that is not directly accessed by business users
When you install SAS, a set of default SAS folders is created. The folders are arranged in a structure that 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 structure that meets the information management, data sharing, and security requirements of your organization.
If you have installed Web applications such as SAS Web Report Studio, then some SAS folders (for example, folders that contain metadata for reports) have associated physical content that resides on the SAS Content Server. In these instances, a procedure called content mapping maps the metadata folder structure to corresponding physical folders that have the same organization. Content mapping is automatically configured when you install your system.
The Folders tab of SAS Management Console displays all SAS folders that the user has permission to view. Most other client applications display SAS folders only if they contain content that is relevant to the application, subject to the user's permissions.
Note: In SAS Data Integration Studio, metadata objects that are created in project repositories are not displayed in the Folders tab until they are checked in.

About the Initial Folder Structure for New Installations

For a newly installed SAS 9.3 system, effective with the second maintenance release, the initial folder structure is similar to the following:
SAS Folders structure for a newly installed system
CAUTION:
Renaming, moving, or deleting SAS folders and the objects that they contain can cause unpredictable results.
Before renaming, moving, or deleting an object or a folder, see the guidelines in Best Practices for Managing SAS Folders and Best Practices for Maintaining Associations among Objects in SAS Folders.
The initial folder structure includes the following main components:
SAS Folders
is the root folder for the folder structure. This folder cannot be renamed, moved, or deleted. It can contain other folders, but it cannot contain individual objects.
My Folder ( Icon for personal folder )
is a shortcut to the personal folder of the user who is currently logged on. For details, see the other instance of My Folder in this list.
BILineage
is the root folder for the BILineage metadata repository. This repository stores results from scans that have been run using the BI Lineage plug-in. This folder should not be renamed, moved, or deleted. The repository and folder should not be used for any purpose other than storing scan results. For more information about the BI Lineage plug-in, see Using the BI Lineage Plug-in.
Products
contains folders for individual SAS products. These folders contain content that is installed along with the product. For example, some products have a set of initial jobs, transformations, stored processes, or reports which users can modify for their own purposes. Other products include sample content (for example, sample stored processes) to demonstrate product capabilities.
Where applicable, the content is stored under the product's folder in subfolders that indicate the release number for the product.
Note: During installation, the SAS Deployment Wizard allows the installer to assign a different name to this folder. Therefore, your Products folder might have a different name.
Shared Data
is provided for you to store user-created content that is shared among multiple users. Under this folder, you can create any number of subfolders, each with the appropriate permissions, to further organize this content.
Note: You can also create additional folders under SAS Folders in which to store shared content.
System
contains SAS system objects that are not directly accessed by business users. This folder contains the following folders:
Administration
contains objects for backup jobs and restore jobs that are created by using the Backup Wizard.
Applications
contains folders for individual SAS applications that have system objects. Under these folders, the objects are stored in subfolders that correspond to individual release numbers.
Publishing
contains channel and subscriber objects that are used by the Publishing Framework.
Secured Libraries
contains secured data folders, secured library objects, and secured table objects that have been created to support metadata-bound libraries. This folder is new with the second maintenance release for SAS 9.3. See the SAS Guide to Metadata-Bound Libraries.
Security and Servers
contain references to security objects (users, user groups, roles, access control templates, and authentication domains) and server objects. The white folder icons (Virtual folder icon (white folder)) indicate that these are virtual folders. The folders are displayed only in SAS Management Console to support operations such as promotion. See Promoting Security Objects and Server Objects.
Services
is used by SAS BI Web Services to store metadata for generated Web services.
Types
contains type definitions for public objects that exist on this metadata server.
User Folders
contains folders that belong to individual users. These folders are referred to as the users' home folders. The name of each home folder is based on the value of the user's Name field in User Manager.
The first time a user logs on to an application that requires a home folder, the user's home folder is automatically created. That same folder is then used by other applications that the user logs on to.
As a default, users do not have Write access to their home folders. However, each home folder contains a folder called My Folder (referred to as the user's personal folder) to which the user has full access.
Note: The following details apply to the creation of users’ home folders:
  • When home folder names are created, any slash (/) or back-slash (\) characters in the user's name are converted to hyphens. For example, if the user's Name field contains Jane/Doe, then Jane-Doe is used as the folder name. Leading and trailing spaces, as well as unprintable characters, are also removed.
  • In a custom installation, the SAS Deployment Wizard allows the installer to choose whether to create a User Folders folder. Therefore, your site might not have a User Folders folder. If you do not have a User Folders folder, but you would like to create one, see Change the Properties of a Metadata Repository.
  • In SAS 9.2, the folder that contains users’ home folders is called Users. If you use the SAS Migration Utility to upgrade from SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.3, then the folder name Users is retained in SAS 9.3. If you choose to use promotion instead of the SAS Migration Utility to move your content to SAS 9.3, see Promoting Personal Folders from SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.3.
Each home folder contains the following folders:
Application Data
is a standard location in which applications can store user preferences and other user-specific configuration information. The folder is created under the user's home folder the first time an application needs to use it. The folder is to be accessed only by applications and is not accessed directly by the user.
My Folder
is the user's personal folder. This folder exists under each user's home folder. It is the standard location for storing content (for example, information maps and reports) that the user creates, similar to the My Documents folder in Microsoft Windows.
The default security settings for My Folder are as follows:
  • The folder is visible only to the owning user and to unrestricted users.
  • The owning user has WriteMemberMetadata (WMM) permission on this folder. This means that only the owning user and unrestricted users have permission to add content to or remove content from the folder.
  • The owning user cannot rename, move, delete, or change permissions on this folder. However, the owning user can create additional subfolders under this folder to organize content.
When the owning user is logged on, a pointer to the user's personal folder (My Folder) appears at the top of the folder hierarchy.
If you have defined one or more custom repositories, then the folder structure also includes a top-level folder that corresponds to each custom repository. For more information about custom repositories, see Create a Custom Repository.
Project repositories do not appear in the Folders tab of SAS Management Console. They appear only in SAS Data Integration Studio.

About the Initial Folder Structure for Systems That Are Migrated from SAS 9.1.3

If you migrate your system from SAS 9.1.3 to SAS 9.3, folders are created as follows:
  • Products, User Folders, Shared Data, and System folders are created just as they are for newly installed system.
  • The SAS 9.1.3 Shared Data folder structure is moved in its entirety to SAS 9.3. The folder structure and folder contents remain intact.
  • SAS 9.1.3 objects that were not contained in folders (for example, OLAP schemas and cubes) are moved to the SAS 9.3 Shared Data folder.
  • For each user who had objects (for example, report objects) in SAS 9.1.3 personal folders, a home folder and a personal folder are created in the SAS 9.3 User Folders folder. Users' objects are moved from the SAS 9.1.3 personal folders to the SAS 9.3 personal folders.
  • The SAS 9.1.3 BIP tree folder structure is moved in its entirety to SAS 9.3 under a folder called BIP Tree. (This folder appears only in migrated systems.)
    The folder structure and folder contents under BIP Tree remain intact, except for the contents of users' personal folders (as described in the previous bullet).
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