Training
Pre-Conference
Plan to come to Analytics 2013 a day early and participate in one of the pre-conference workshops or take a SAS Certification exam.Business Analytics Consulting Workshops
This workshop is designed for the analyst, statistician, or executive who wants to discuss best-practice approaches to solving specific business problems, in the context of analytics. The two-hour workshop will be customized to discuss your specific analytical needs and will be designed as a one-on-one session for you, including up to five individuals within your company sharing your analytical goal. This workshop is specifically geared for an expert tasked with solving a critical business problem who needs consultation for developing the analytical approach required. The workshop can be customized to meet your needs, from a deep-dive into modeling methods to a strategic plan for analytic initiatives. In addition to the two hours at the conference location, this workshop includes some advanced consulting time over the phone, making it a valuable investment at a bargain price.View outline
Sunday, Oct 20; 1-3 pm or 3:30-5:30 pm – $200
Pre-Conference Workshops
Note: Prices for the following workshops are included in Conference Packages 1-4, which include the price of the conference plus one, two, three, or four days of training. When registering, select your desired conference package and then select the training classes you'd like to attend.All Day Workshop
Analytics: Putting It All to Work
Many companies are flooded with huge amounts of data available in corporate databases and/or data warehouses. A key challenge is how to optimally manage this data overload and use analytics to better understand, manage, and strategically exploit the complex dynamics of customer behavior. This class starts by giving an overview of the steps involved when working out an analytics project in a practical business setting. After discussing the key data preprocessing activities, this course elaborates on how you can efficiently use and deploy both predictive and descriptive state-of-the-art analytics to optimize and streamline your strategic business processes such as marketing campaigns and/or risk management. Examples of business applications that are covered include credit scoring and risk modeling, customer retention and response modeling, market basket analysis and cross-selling, customer lifetime value modeling, and Web intelligence and social network analytics. You receive extensive practical advice and guidelines on how to put all the analytical tools and concepts to work in a real-life setting. The class focuses on analytical concepts, techniques, and methodologies and their applications. Software demonstrations illustrate and clarify the concepts, but no hands-on use of software is included. The class includes self-study sections with additional real-life case studies.View outline
Sunday, Oct 20, 8:30am - 5pm
Sunday Afternoon Workshops
Demand-Driven Forecasting: Sensing Demand Signals, Shaping and Predicting Demand
This half-day lecture teaches students how to integrate demand-driven forecasting into the consensus forecasting process and how to make the current demand forecasting process more demand-driven. All workshop attendees will receive a free copy of Charlie Chase's new book, Demand-Driven Forecasting: A Structured Approach to Forecasting, Second Edition!View outline
Sunday, Oct 20; 1-5 pm
Forecast Value Added Analysis
Forecast Value Added (FVA) is the change in a forecasting performance metric (such as MAPE or bias) that can be attributed to a particular step or participant in the forecasting process. FVA analysis is used to identify those process activities that are failing to make the forecast any better (or that might even be making it worse). This course provides step-by-step guidelines for conducting FVA analysis – to identify and eliminate the waste, inefficiency, and worst practices from your forecasting process. The result can be better forecasts, with fewer resources and less management time spent on forecasting.View outline
Sunday, Oct 20; 1-5 pm
Introduction to Data Mining and SAS Enterprise Miner
This course serves as an introduction to data mining and SAS Enterprise Miner for Desktop software. It is designed for data analysts and qualitative experts as well as those with less of a technical background who want a general understanding of data mining.View outline
Sunday, Oct 20, 1-5 pm
Introduction to the Text Analytics Suite
This half-day course provides an introduction to the SAS Text Analytics Suite. In this course you will learn how to explore topics in SAS Text Miner, write category rules and contextual extraction definitions in SAS Content Categorization Studio and build rule-based models in SAS Sentiment Analysis Studio.View outline
Sunday, Oct 20, 1-5 pm
Modeling Trend, Cycles, and Seasonality in Time Series Data Using PROC UCM
This half-day lecture teaches students how to model, interpret, and predict time series data using UCMs. The UCM procedure analyzes and forecasts equally spaced univariate time series data using the unobserved components models (UCM). This course is designed for business analysts who want to analyze time series data to uncover patterns such as trend, seasonal effects, and cycles using the latest techniques.View outline
Sunday, Oct 20, 1-5 pm
SAS Rapid Predictive Modeler
This seminar will provide a brief introduction to the use of SAS Enterprise Guide for graphical and data analysis. However, the focus will be on using SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Enterprise Miner along with the Rapid Predictive Modeling component to build predictive models. Predictive modeling will be introduced using the SEMMA process developed with the introduction of SAS Enterprise Miner. Several examples will be used to illustrate the use of the Rapid Predictive Modeling component, and interpretations of the model results will be provided.View outline
Sunday, Oct 20, 1-5 pm
Note: No food or drink is allowed in the computer lab. Badges must be worn at all times during class and labs.
Certification
The following certification exams will be offered at Analytics 2013. All exams will be offered on Saturday, Oct 19 at 1:00 pm and on Sunday, Oct 20 at 9:00 am. You can select your exam date when you register for the conference. Please note that the Saturday, Oct 19 exam session begins at 1:00 pm. Registration will open at 12:30 pm and there will be no admittance to the testing room after 1:30 pm. The Sunday, Oct 20 exam session begins at 9:00 am. Registration will open at 8:30 am and there will be no admittance to the testing room after 9:30 am.Learn more about SAS certification and how to prepare for the exams on the SAS Certification Web site.
SAS Certified Predictive Modeler using SAS Enterprise Miner
In today's global economy businesses depend on advanced analytics to give them a competitive advantage. The development and implementation of models to predict targeted outcomes are quickly becoming a staple of today's most successful companies, causing this performance-based credential to be one of the fastest growing certifications available from SAS. This is a three-hour exam utilizing SAS Enterprise Miner.Price: $250 or 0.6 EPTO units
Additional Exams Available:
SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9
The SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9 credential is the ideal certification for those relatively new to SAS programming or new to SAS certification. It is also the principle certification for other advanced certifications available from SAS. Candidates should be familiar with the enhancements and new functionality that are available in SAS 9.2.Price: $180 or 0.4 EPTO units
SAS Certified Advanced Programmer for SAS 9
The SAS Certified Advanced Programmer for SAS 9 credential represents the upper echelon of SAS programmers. Those who earn the advanced programming credential have demonstrated a high level of proficiency in SAS programming expertise and are a much sought-after commodity in the global job market.Price: $180 or 0.4 EPTO units
SAS Certified Clinical Trials Programmer Using SAS 9
This credential is appropriate for programmers who use SAS software to analyze clinical trials data to produce reports for submission to regulatory authorities.There are two methods to earn this credential. If you have not yet earned the SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9 credential, take the full Clinical Trials Programming Using SAS 9 exam. Alternatively, candidates who currently hold the SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9 credential may take the Accelerated Version of the exam.
Price: $180
- Clinical Trials Programming Using SAS 9 – Exam Time: 3 hours
- Clinical Trials Programming Using SAS 9 - Accelerated Version – Exam Time: 2 hours
SAS Certified Platform Administrator for SAS 9
The SAS Certified Platform Administrator for SAS 9 credential is designed for those IT administrators responsible for installing, configuring, administering and maintaining the platform for SAS Business Analytics.Price: $180 or 0.4 EPTO units
SAS Certified Data Integration Developer for SAS 9
The SAS Certified Data Integration Developer for SAS 9 credential will test the candidate's ability to apply the skills and knowledge necessary for data integration development in the SAS environment.Price: $180 or 0.4 EPTO units
SAS Certified Business Intelligence Content Developer for SAS 9
The SAS Certified Business Intelligence Content Developer for SAS 9 exam will test the candidate's ability to apply the skills and knowledge necessary for business intelligence content development in the SAS environment.Price: $180 or 0.4 EPTO units
SAS Certified Statistical Business Analyst Using SAS 9: Regression and Modeling
The SAS Certified Statistical Business Analyst Using SAS 9: Regression and Modeling credential will test the candidate's ability to apply the skills and knowledge necessary to analyze business problems (marketing, credit risk, liability) using SAS statistical software (Base SAS and SAS/STAT).Price: $180 or 0.4 EPTO units
Post-Conference
In addition to the two-day conference, Analytics 2013 offers the latest hands-on technical training in the industry. Post-conference training prices are included in Conference Packages 1-4, which include the price of the conference plus one, two, three, or four days of training. When registering, select your desired conference package, and then select the training classes you'd like to attend.Three-Day Courses
Advanced Analytics for Customer Intelligence Using SAS
Many companies have gathered huge amounts of customer data about marketing success, use of financial services, online usage and even fraud behavior. Given recent trends and needs such as mass customization, personalization, Web 2.0, one-to-one marketing, risk management and fraud detection, it has become increasingly important to extract, understand and exploit analytical patterns of customer behavior and strategic intelligence. This course helps clarify how to successfully adopt recently proposed, state-of-the art analytical and data mining techniques for advanced customer intelligence applications. This highly interactive course provides a sound mix of both theoretical and technical insights as well as practical implementation details and is illustrated by several real-life cases. Background materials are provided, including selected papers, tutorials and guidelines.View outline
Wednesday-Friday, Oct 23-25, 8:30am - 5pm
Advanced Topics in Applied Econometrics
This sequel to Introduction to Applied Econometrics focuses on intermediate/advanced topics in working with econometric models. This course will enable analysts to better understand their economic/business landscape and to improve their ability to make sound forecasts. Through applications, participants gain knowledge of the practical elements of applied econometric analysis. The overall aims are to sharpen the quantitative, statistical, and analytical skills of participants in dealing with problems and issues related to business and economics as well as to improve communication skills in reporting findings to decision-makers.View outline
Wednesday-Friday, Oct 23-25, 8:30am - 5pm
Applied Analytics Using SAS Enterprise Miner
This course covers the skills required to assemble analysis flow diagrams using the rich tool set of SAS Enterprise Miner for both pattern discovery (segmentation, association, and sequence analyses) and predictive modeling (decision tree, regression, and neural network models).View outline
Wednesday-Friday, Oct 23-25, 8:30am - 5pm
Building and Solving Optimization Models with SAS/OR
This course focuses on formulating and solving mathematical optimization using the OPTMODEL procedure, from inputting data to interpreting output and generating reports. The course covers linear, integer, mixed-integer and nonlinear programming problems, with an emphasis on model formulation and construction.View outline
Wednesday-Friday, Oct 23-25, 8:30am - 5pm
Customer Segmentation Using SAS Enterprise Miner
No marketing or customer contact strategy can be effective without segmentation. While the concept of segmentation is deceptively simple, in practice it is extremely difficult to execute. Emphasizing practical skills as well as providing theoretical knowledge, this hands-on, comprehensive course covers segmentation analysis in the context of business data mining. Topics include the theory and concepts of segmentation, as well as the main analytic tools for segmentation: hierarchical clustering, k-means clustering, normal mixtures, RFM cell method, text-based clustering, time-series clustering, and SOM/Kohonen method. The course focuses more on practical business solutions rather than statistical rigor. Therefore, business analysts, managers, marketers, customer intelligence analyst, programmers, and others can benefit from this course.View outline
Wednesday-Friday, Oct 23-25, 8:30am - 5pm
Data Mining Techniques: Theory and Practice
This course introduces a data mining methodology that is a superset to the SAS SEMMA methodology around which SAS Enterprise Miner is organized. The course also introduces a wide range of data mining algorithms, as well as theoretical knowledge and practical skills. In this class, you work through all the steps of a data mining project, beginning with problem definition and data selection, and continuing through data exploration, data transformation, sampling, portioning, modeling, and assessment.View outline
Wednesday-Friday, Oct 23-25, 8:30am - 5pm
Forecasting Using SAS Software: A Programming Approach
This course teaches analysts how to use SAS/ETS software to diagnose systematic variation in data collected over time, create forecast models to capture the systematic variation, evaluate a given forecast model for goodness-of-fit and accuracy, and forecast future values using the model. Topics include Box-Jenkins ARIMA models, dynamic regression models, and exponential smoothing models.View outline
Wednesday-Friday, Oct 23-25, 8:30am - 5pm
Predictive Modeling Using SAS High-Performance Analytics Procedures
This course relates the new functionality in the SAS High-Performance Statistics and Data Mining procedures to classic SAS procedures with similar functionality. The course also addresses high-performance procedures that have no classic counterpart. This course is intended for experienced statisticians, predictive modelers, econometricians and operations researchers who need to learn the functionality and use of SAS High-Performance Analytics procedures to build and assess predictive models.View outline
Wednesday-Thursday, Oct 23-24, 8:30am - 5pm
Two-Day Courses
Forecasting Using SAS Forecast Server Software
This course prepares you to generate large volumes of forecasts automatically using the SAS Forecast Studio interactive interface. You learn to manage default settings to improve forecast accuracy, produce forecasts and reconcile them across hierarchies, and produce forecasts in an appropriate form for integration with a business intelligence solution. The course is designed for business analysts and others who want to create business forecasts using SAS Forecast Server. It is appropriate for analysts in any industry, including retail, financial services, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals.View outline
Wednesday-Thursday, Oct 23-24, 8:30am - 5pm
Net Lift Models: Optimizing the Impact of Your Marketing Efforts
The true effectiveness of a marketing campaign is not the response rate; it is the incremental impact. That is, true effectiveness is additional revenue - directly attributable to the campaign - that would not otherwise have been generated. The problem is that targeting strategies often are not designed to maximize the incremental impact. Typical targeting models are successful at finding clients who are interested in the product, but too often these clients would have bought the product regardless of whether they received a promotion. In such cases, the incremental impact is insignificant, and marketing dollars could have been spent elsewhere. Incremental lift models are designed to maximize incremental impact (that is, the incremental lift over the control group) by targeting the undecided clients who can be motivated by marketing.View outline
Wednesday-Thursday, Oct 23-24, 8:30am - 5pm
Text Analytics with SAS Text Miner
This course covers the functionality of SAS Text Miner software, which is a separately licensed component available for SAS Enterprise Miner. In this course, you will learn to use SAS Text Miner to uncover underlying themes or concepts contained in large document collections, automatically group documents into topical clusters, classify documents into predefined categories, and integrate text data with structured data to enrich predictive modeling endeavors.View outline
Wednesday-Thursday, Oct 23-24, 8:30am - 5pm
One-Day Courses
SAS Enterprise Miner High-Performance Data Mining Nodes
This course highlights the similarities and differences between the High Performance nodes in SAS Enterprise Miner 12.2, and the classical nodes. The course is intended for experienced users of SAS Enterprise Miner 5.3 or higher.View outline
Wednesday, Oct 23, 8:30am - 5pm
Thursday, Oct 24, 8:30am - 5pm
Friday, Oct 25, 8:30am - 5pm
Visual Analytics: Getting Started
This course teaches the basics on how to explore data and build reports using SAS Visual Analytics. This course is intended for Business Analysts who need to learn the basics of how to use the functionality provided by SAS Visual Analytics.View outline
Wednesday, Oct 23, 8:30am - 5pm
Thursday, Oct 24, 8:30am - 5pm
Friday, Oct 25, 8:30am - 5pm
Note: No food or drink is allowed in the computer lab. Badges must be worn at all times during class and labs.
