Exception and Exception Condition Tables :: SAS(R) IT Resource Management 3.7: Administrator's Guide

About the Exception and Exception Condition Tables

The exception and exception condition tables are target tables that are written by the Exception transformation. You are required to have an exception table as output. The exception condition table is optional.

The exception and exception condition tables are created (or replaced) with every successful execution of the Exception transformation.

Note: The exception and exception condition tables are treated as any other physical tables in an IT data mart, with respect to functions such as Delete, and so on.

CAUTION:

Do not modify, delete, or add columns to the exception table. Do not modify or delete columns from the exception condition tables. The Exception transformation requires many of these columns for accurate exception processing.

Adding new columns to the exception condition table is not advised except when you are adding Obs or Order columns. For more information, see Including the Obs and the Order Columns in the Exception Condition Table.

Properties of the Exception and Exception Condition Tables

The metadata about an exception or exception condition table is available from the Properties dialog box of the table.

To view the properties of the table, complete the following steps:

Navigate to the folder in the IT Data Marts tree that contains the exception job and the table that you want to view.
Open the job that includes the table.
Right-click the table in the process flow diagram and select Properties.

The following list includes all of the table properties. It also indicates whether a property is available only from the table in the Tree view or in the process flow diagram:

The General tab displays information that identifies the table name, description, location, and associated responsibilities.
The Columns tab displays the metadata for each column in the table.
- For more information about the properties that are available from the Columns tab of an exception table, see Contents of the Exception Table.
- For more information about the properties that are available from the Columns tab of an exception condition table, see Contents of the Exception Condition Table.
The Indexes tab displays any indexes that have been created for this table. For each column, the name, description, length, and type are stored.
The Keys tab displays any keys that have been created for this table. However, the values displayed on this tab are ignored by SAS IT Resource Management.
The Parameters tab displays any prompts or groups that have been created for this table. This tab is available from the Tree view only.
The Physical Storage tab displays information about the physical name of the table and the library and DBMS where it is located.
The Options tab displays table options such as compressing observations in a SAS data set, providing additional security options, and overwriting data sets.
The Notes tab displays any notes or documents that are associated with this table.
The Extended Attributes tab displays information about any custom property that is not part of the standard metadata for this table. This tab includes any external names for a table, if available.
The Authorization tab defines access to the current object. For more information, see the Help for this tab.

For more information about the contents of these tabs, click Help in the dialog box.

Contents of the Exception Table

The exception table contains a record of every exception that is found during the execution of the Exception transformation. One observation is written to the exception table for each exception found. If an exception is not found, no observation is written.

The table contains these fields.

Contents of the Exception Table
Column	Description	Type	Length	Format
Datetime	Exception Datetime	Numeric	8	DATETIME21.2
DefinitionName	Definition Name	Character	60	(None)
DefinitionPath	Definition Path	Character	255	(None)
Expression	Expression	Character	1024	(None)
Group	Group	Character	1024	(None)
GroupWhere	Group in WHERE clause form	Character	1024	(None)
OccurrenceType	Occurrence Type	Character	32	(None)
OccurrenceLimit	Occurrence Limit	Numeric	8	(None)
OccurrenceValue	Occurrence Value	Numeric	8	(None)
SourceName	Source Name	Character	60	(None)
SourcePath	Source Path	Character	255	(None)
TotalObs	Total Observations	Numeric	8	(None)

Note: The Group column contains the column label, not the column name. This substitution improves the matching of the exception reports with performance reports in ITRM Report Center.

Contents of the Exception Condition Table

If requested, the exception condition table consists of each observation from the input table that satisfies both the filter criteria and the exception condition criteria. The table contains these fields.

Contents of the Exception Condition Table
Column	Description	Type	Length	Format
ConditionVariables	Condition Variables	Character	1024	(None)
Datetime	Exception Datetime	Numeric	8	DATETIME21.2
DefinitionName	Definition Name	Character	60	(None)
DefinitionPath	Definition Path	Character	255	(None)
Expression	Expression	Character	1024	(None)
Group	Group	Character	1024	(None)
Group[Where	Group in WHERE clause form	Character	1024	(None)
Obs	Original row of the input table in which this condition was found	Numeric	8	(None)
OccurrenceLimit	Occurrence Limit	Numeric	8	(None)
OccurrenceType	Occurrence Type	Character	32	(None)
OccurrenceValue	Occurrence Value	Numeric	8	(None)
Order	The value of the OrderBy column in the original input table for the row in which this condition was found Note: If the original OrderBy column is not numeric, the value for Order is a missing value.	Numeric	8	(None)
SourceName	Source Name	Character	60	(None)
SourcePath	Source Path	Character	255	(None)

Note: The Group column contains the column label, not the column name. This substitution improves the matching of the exception reports with performance reports in ITRM Report Center.

Including the Obs and the Order Columns in the Exception Condition Table

Starting with SAS IT Resource Management 3.6, the Obs column and the Order column are automatically supplied when the user chooses the Add New Exception Tables action in the Properties dialog box of the Exception transformation. If a user has existing exception tables from previous versions of SAS IT Resource Management, these columns are not automatically added. However, the columns can be added manually by using the Properties dialog box of the Exception Condition table. Alternatively, you can remove the output exception tables and use the Add New Exception Tables action to create new ones.

How to Specify an Exception Table

To specify an exception table, perform the following steps:

In the exception analysis job, right-click the Exception transformation to display the Properties dialog box. From the list of properties, select Add New Exception Tables. The New Exception Tables wizard appears.

First Page of the New Exception Tables Wizard

You can view, but not change, the name of the IT data mart. You can change the location from the default location shown, but you should specify a folder within the same IT data mart folder.
On the Select exception tables page, check the box that corresponds to the table that you want to create. The exception table is required. However, the creation of the exception condition table is optional.

Select Exception Tables Page of the New Exception Tables Wizard
If you are creating exception tables for this transformation for the first time, the Specify SAS library page of the wizard appears.

Specify the SAS Library Page of the Wizard
1. Specify the Name and Description for the SAS library. The wizard uses the naming convention Exception <unique number> to name SAS libraries for the exception feature. You can accept the default name or enter a new name for the library. However, library names must be unique within the application server.
2. Confirm that the Server field shows the server that is associated with the selected IT data mart where this library will be stored. This field does not enable modifications.
3. Specify the Libref that is associated with the library. The wizard uses the naming convention EXP + <the same number generated for the library> to name the libref. You can accept the default name or enter a new libref name.
  
  Note: The following naming rules apply to the libref:
  
  The libref can consist of no more than eight characters.
  
  The libref must begin with a letter (A through Z) or an underscore (_).
  
  The remaining characters of the libref must be letters (A through Z), numerals (0 through 9), or an underscore (_). The libref cannot contain spaces.
4. Specify the Path Specification for the location of the library and thus where the tables for this library are stored. The default value is based on the combination of the default path that is specified for the IT data mart and the operating system of the server. The characters exp<unique number> are also appended to the path, where the unique number is the same as that generated for the preceding library.
  
  You can accept the default path, enter a new path, or click Browse to select a path.
  
  Browse is disabled when the selected application server is running on a machine using the z/OS operating system. When entering a z/OS path manually, you can use either a prefix for a traditional z/OS file system path (MY.DATAMART) or a root directory in the zFS hierarchical file system (/u/myname/datamart).
  
  Note: On UNIX and z/OS using zFS locations, you can use paths that contain symbolic links. Using symbolic links is useful if you want to retain flexibility for changing the real physical location of libraries. See the UNIX ‘ln’ command for additional details.
The final page of the wizard displays your specifications for the tables to be created by the Exception transformation.

Click Finish to create the tables.

Note: The completed New Exception Tables wizard creates one SAS library that stores all of the target tables from the Exception transformation.

The following display shows the completed Exception transformation with its two target tables, circled in red.

Exception Transformation

How to Delete an Exception Table or an Exception Condition Table

To delete a target table from an Exception transformation, perform the following steps:

Open the job that contains the Exception transformation.
Right-click the table that you want to delete.
Save the job.

Note: The Exception transformation must have an Exception table as a target table. If you delete it, the transformation is in an error state. Click the red error flag to view this message: “Create the Exception Table by using the ' New Exception Tables' action.” That action is available by right-clicking the Exception transformation.