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Message
from Customer Value Manager – Wally Thiessen
This year, SAS Canada is giving our first Customer Value Award to an individual
who has made outstanding efforts in supporting other SAS users.
There are many individuals who play a crucial role in helping SAS practitioners
make
the most of the resources available to them, and we want to
recognize these contributions. Our first Customer Value Award winner is
..... Bruce Densmore,
Technical Specialist at IBM Global Services!
Bruce will receive a complimentary trip to SUGI30 (including airfare,
hotel and registration fees) and will be honoured with an award
at a dinner at SUGI. Watch for our special profile on Bruce
in the spring issue of
INSIGHTS! There were many worthy nominees for this award and
we’d
like to make a special honours mention of other top contenders:
Howard Hurley, Igor Rubets and Terry Eastman all contribute
significantly to the SAS community. Many thanks to them and
to all of our nominees!
More than 500 Canadians attended SUGI29 in Montreal this past April — breaking
all previous records for Canadian attendance by a significant margin. As
many of you know, no other forum in the world gives you access to so many
SAS specialists, workshops and presentations. At SUGI30 in Philadelphia
this April, you’ll see how other organizations have started implementing
exciting new SAS®9 technologies, such as the SAS Add-In for Microsoft
Office, grid computing, multithreaded procedures, stored processes
and more! To start planning your SUGI30 experience, click
here.
 Closer
to home, we’ve had lots of users group activities and events.
In 2004, more than 1,000 attendees participated in users
group meetings in 12 Canadian cities. We continue to add more and more
local users group
executive teams to ensure that your interests are being reflected
at these meetings. And to keep the momentum going, we would like to introduce
Rupinder
Dhillon. Rupinder will be filling in for Christy Hobley this
year as Christy tends to her new baby daughter, Paige.
Your feedback on the first five issues of this newsletter
has confirmed that profiles and stories on SAS users, instructors
and consultants,
as well as their valuable tips and tricks, are what you
enjoy most. Starting this issue, we’ll beef up this content, as well
as encourage all of you to let us know how we can highlight
you and your innovative use
of SAS!
Win Free Movie Passes!
Last issue we asked our readers how INSIGHTS rated
on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest). We are pleased
to report that the responses averaged 4.5. Thank you
for your feedback and kind comments!
This time around, please let us know what additional information you would
like to see in INSIGHTS. Submit your ideas to cvp@can.sas.com before Feb.
8, and you’ll be entered in a drawing for one of five pairs of movie
passes.
Please
let us know if the Customer Value Team can help you with
any of your SAS needs. Martha Casanova, Rupinder
Dhillon or Wally Thiessen can be reached at: cvp@can.sas.com.
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Implementing Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence at McMaster University
McMaster University’s mission statement
reflects the institution’s commitment to communication, innovation,
excellence and quality. To support these values, the university needs flexible
and innovative information technology that will ensure the transfer and
sharing of knowledge to inform and enhance all levels of decision making
at the institution.
 Currently McMaster has several disparate systems on segregated platforms.
As a result, an inordinate amount of time is spent manually linking, extracting
and reconciling information between systems. Serious system limitations
and accessibility barriers are so prevalent that “work-arounds” have
become the norm, along with the creation and maintenance of shadow systems.
Even in other universities that use integrated systems, data warehouses
are required to extract information for decision making.
To rectify this situation, we’re in the process of developing an
Enterprise-wide data warehouse to be deployed incrementally
along with end-user, Web-based query and reporting tools using
the SAS®9
Intelligence Value Chain.
A goal of the initial data mart is to integrate reporting between the
research funding and research financial databases. This integrated data
is essential for managing, analysing, reporting, assessing and projecting
performance to allow benchmarking at institutional, provincial, national
and international levels.
In developing the research data mart, we’ve built a portable foundation
that uses standard industry protocol. This will allow us to be flexible
and cope with changes in both hardware environments and business information
requirements.
Successful data warehousing projects are designed to answer business questions
posed by business users. We have designed our conceptual data model to
encompass all current and anticipated information needs across the enterprise.
Using SAS ETL Studio (an extraction, transformation and loading tool),
we have mapped the logical data model into a research data mart.
We have created a number of parameterized stored processes using SAS Enterprise
Guide, which our stakeholders will access as both static (HTML as well
as PDF documents) and interactive reports (drill-down) through SAS Web
Report Studio and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. A “stored
process” is a SAS program that is hosted on a server and can be executed
by many of the new clients in the SAS®9 Intelligence Architecture.
All canned reports, along with a Web-based query and reporting tool, will
be accessed through the SAS Information Delivery Portal, thereby enabling
us to deliver a one-stop information solution. The business value includes
an authoritative and secure environment for data management, as well as
enhanced business agility through timely, accessible and meaningful information
to support effective decision making.
After creating our research financial data mart, we’ll begin delivering
standardized reporting to external funding sources, as well
as a user-friendly, Web-based monthly financial statement with interactive
drill-down capability
for our 3,000-plus research account holders. In addition to
creating measurable data quality standards for the data warehouse, we have
established university-wide
reporting and access to information standards. Granular security
will be implemented as required through a combination of information maps
and stored
processes.
Future stages of the project will include implementing SAS Strategic Performance
Management software (balanced scorecards) to measure performance
indicators. This will be delivered to our senior management group through
the SAS Information
Delivery Portal as well. For further information on our project,
please feel free to contact me at weisens@mcmaster.ca.
Spring User Session schedule now available.
The following is a list of events and locations.
If you are interested in attending, please register at this
link. (Events
will be added to this Web site approximately four weeks prior to date.)
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| –That Microcell uses SAS® to connect with high-margin customers
and products?
In an industry marked by intense competition and rapid expansion, Microcell has been at the forefront of the development of wireless telecommunications and fast mobile data connectivity in Canada. The only telecommunications operator in Canada devoted exclusively to wireless activities, the company has made wireless services an integral part of most Canadians’ daily lives. Full story
–That the Customer Value Team now has a
dedicated Web page?
Visit the new site to find out how the Customer Value team
can help you.
–You can easily find out
what’s new in SAS 9.1 from new products to updates and enhancements.
Go to the SAS 9 link from our support.sas.com website.
–For details on all of SAS' products and solutions, click here
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| –New in 2005
The SAS®9 Business Intelligence curriculum covers new topics, including
accessing Microsoft Office data, creating and using information maps, and using
SAS Web Report Studio. SAS®9 sets a new standard in integrated software offerings,
eliminating the complexity of sharing data and applications across any organization
with a single, scalable platform that delivers accurate, in-depth enterprise
intelligence.
John Amrhein, featured in
this month’s INSIGHTS Instructor profile, has written a course specifically for
survey practitioners who design and implement business or household surveys.
Statisticians, biostatisticians, epidemiologists and social scientists who analyze
survey data also will find this course useful. Design and Analysis
of Probability Surveys will be offered for the first time in Canada in early 2005 and, of course,
John will be the instructor.
To check the online schedule, click
here.
–SAS Certification
SAS offers five globally recognized certifications. These certificates are designed to validate a candidate’s knowledge at the job role level. Designed in tracks, each certification requires the successful completion of one or more exams to earn a credential. Each exam challenges candidates to apply specific knowledge they have acquired through SAS software training and/or job experience. Computer-based in format, SAS certification exams include approximately 50 to 70 multiple-choice questions. Candidates are allotted two hours to complete exams.
SAS offers a broad curriculum of instructor-based, computer-based
and Web-based training to assist you with exam preparation. In the
United States and Canada, the cost associated with an exam is US$150.
SAS Certified Professional exams are administered by Prometric, a
global leader in testing services for the IT industry. Candidates
can register online for certification exams through Prometric at www.2test.com.
For more details about certification, please visit http://support.sas.com/certify/ |
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–Survey: CFOs need new
technology to inspire confidence in numbers -- Disconnect
between strategic expectations of CFOs and ability to
reap financial intelligence LAS VEGAS – Although
81 percent of respondents believe their CFOs are a trusted
adviser within their
organizations, only 25 percent believe their organizations’ current
business intelligence technology supports the strategic
demands of this key role, according to results of a recent
survey unveiled by
BetterManagement.com and SAS, the leader in business
intelligence.
For full story, click
here.
–CIBC acquires SAS®9 data management software Find
out how this leading North American bank will boost advanced analytics,
regulatory compliance and risk management processes with the SAS®9
version of SAS Enterprise ETL Server. Read More
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–Name That Photo contest - Congratulations
to Alan Gilman, who was the first person to submit the correct response
to the “Name That Photo” contest.
The photo at the top of the last newsletter was the
BC Government Parliament building in Victoria, B.C.
The BC Government Parliament buildings overlook
the marina and boardwalk of the inner harbour in downtown
Victoria. During the nighttime hours, the Parliament buildings light
up the skyline with
more than 3,300 lights casting a magical spell over the city.
The Parliament buildings were constructed in 1893 in honour of Queen
Victoria's Diamond
Jubilee. The architect, Francis Rattenbury, was only 25 years
old.
Be the first to tell us where the picture at the
top of this
newsletter is and win a prize!!! E-mail your guess to cvp@can.sas.com.
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Suggestions/Comments
If you have any comments or suggestions for future editions of
this newsletter, please let the
Customer Value team
know!
–
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David McKenzie joined SAS in March 2004 as a project manager.
He has worked primarily with SAS ETL Studio, SAS Enterprise Guide, Base
SAS, SAS Marketing Optimization. Prior to joining SAS, David worked as
a project manager at the global consulting company Capgemini, and before
that as a project manager at Cyberplex, the Toronto-based Internet solutions
company.
Reviewed by: Bill Fehlner, principal technical training specialist, SAS (Canada)
Register to attend SUGI 30 and join more than 3,000 fellow SAS software users. Save $50 on your registration fees by taking advantage of the early registration discount. To qualify for the discount, all forms and fees must be postmarked by February 28. 
SAS Canada is pleased to offer a two-day seminar, "Relationship Marketing
Strategies: What Works and What Doesn't."