Google and SAS Join Forces
Since our last edition, the SAS press office announced the fantastic news that the popular Google search engine will be aligning with SAS intelligence to form new search technology. Beginning this summer joint clients of SAS and Google will be able to perform contextually relevant searches in the same way that visitors to the Google website will perform searches for information about items such as local news, weather or restaurants.

Google OneBox for Enterprise combined with SAS business intelligence will deliver relevant search results for business users. This will give users more information than ordinary keyword searches, enabling them to think and act more strategically.

SAS Dispels EMM Myths
What exactly is EMM (other than an abbreviation for Enterprise Marketing Management)? As a term its usage is on the increase within the marketing technology arena, with many vendors claiming to provide EMM solutions. Yet, EMM is still elusive in its definition: there is an obvious confusion over exactly what it is supposed to be or entail. This press release gives SAS's view on the otherwise foggy matter and tries to rid the market of the myths surrounding EMM.

Further Links
Relevant information for the above news stories can be found at these links:
FSN Newswire
Techworld UK
Info World Review
Business Week


Customers Join Together for SAS Forum International, Geneva
SFI saw the coming together of many of SAS customers and was a time for SAS to show their appreciation of some of the great alliances they have. Watch this space to keep in touch with what is going on with SAS and other customers - Don't miss out!  

Couldn't make it to SFI?
If you want to find all the latest information from SFI regarding customers, speakers and things that were said then follow this link! Read about each day's events in detail.

For More SAS® Customer Success Stories in the UK Market Place, Click Here

Breakfast Briefing - How to Stop Drowning in Data, featuring Norwich Union
There is a constant pressure within Information Management departments. They are continuously dealing with vast amounts of data and requests for varied reports. Consequently, a concern has arisen regarding the potential for appearing to give inconsistent information.

SAS's Enterprise Intelligence Platform (EIP) Breakfast Briefing in association with Norwich Union Healthcare will discuss this matter and how they are attempting to overcome this problem with SAS. This approach is enabling them to evolve their information management to work smarter instead of harder. If you would like to do the same then you cannot miss this event- find out more here.

Introducing the SAS IT Resource Management (ITRM) Tile Chart Applet
If you are dealing with a mass of data, Tile Charts can quickly and effectively visualise trends. They can display vast amounts of information at a glance, allowing you to proactively manage information to identify performance problems or workload balancing and consolidation opportunities.

The Tile Chart Applet provides the ability to extend the value of your ITRM investment. It allows you to use the wealth of data already in your ITRM PDBs in a new way.
To find out more, click here.

Special Interest Groups - come and join us!
If you would like the opportunity to become a SAS certified professional by taking a free SAS Certification Exam and attending one of our Special Interest Groups then read on.

On the 11 July, 8 SIGs (Special Interest Groups) in the areas of Data Management & Storage, Business Intelligence, Analytic Intelligence, and Architecture will be take place at the SAS UK headquarters in Buckinghamshire. For further information on the individual SIGs; registration; and an agenda for the day, click here.

Information and Intelligence - the Evolution!
SAS Professional Services are launching their new end-to-end suite of services at the Natural History Museum in July. This seminar will also be promoting:

• Information Evolution Model (IEM) and how to use it to assess an organisation's exploitation of information
• How to use the above assessment to lay out a 'roadmap' of optimizations and improvements
• Driving these plans through by implementation of Business Intelligence Competency Centre (BICC)

Sun Yourself with SAS
The summer sun has finally arrived! The new SAS Beach Towels might encourage the sun to stay out! We're giving away free beach towels for anyone who books and attends a course with us until the end of July.
So, to claim your Beach Towel and to gain excellent SAS knowledge and professional training register now!

Winners of the Ski to Win Competition!
Earlier in the year SAS gave those of you attending SAS courses at our Marlow site the opportunity to play on a Playstation2® whilst taking your coffee breaks! However, not only did we offer you that element of fun, but we gave you a further incentive to do so - we offered you prizes for your participation! Star prizes were trips to Milton Keynes Snow Dome and a Playstation2® complete with game (SSX™ on Tour).

Thank you to everyone who entered our competition - sorry to all those of you have been unlucky this time. Keep in touch with SAS to hear about more upcoming events and competitions with giveaways and prizes! The winners of the PS2® are as follows:

• Mr Alan Jackson from Sainsbury Bank
• Mr Tom Brown from CitiFinancial Europe PLC
• Mr Jonathon Crump from HBOS Plc.

An Overview of the XML Engine within the LIBNAME Statement
Starting with SAS Version 8.1 the SAS XML LIBNAME Engine (SXLE) enabled us to successfully import and export an XML document. However SAS required a specific XML physical structure in order to identify columns of data from collections of rows. To overcome this, SAS introduced an add-on to SAS Version 8.2 to install an enhanced SAS XML LIBNAME engine, which provided additional options such as XMLMap, XMLDouble and the CDISC procedure.

The new option XMLMap allowed us to specify a file that contained specific map syntax. This syntax told SAS how to map the XML markup into SAS data sets, variables, and observations.

To view XML tag names, and see examples of how to use the map file click here.

New Date Informats Introduced in SAS Version 9.1
Amongst the various new features of SAS Version 9.1 there are a number of new date informats, one of which is the ANYDTDTEw. informat. In the past you would need to know exactly what form your raw data was in before selecting an informat. The great thing about this new informat is that it can handle date values that are in a number of different forms.

To read more and see examples of how to read dates which have been stored in different formats click here.

Enhancements Made to the Base Compress Function
You might be familiar with the COMPRESS function as it has been around for quite a while. It allows you to remove selected characters from a character value. If you execute this function with only one argument (a character value), the default action is to remove blanks from the string. By specifying a second argument, you can specify which characters you want to remove from the string.

Share Your Thoughts and Receive a Calculator Clock
Are there topics that you would like to see covered in Hints & Tips or do you have a hint & tip of your own that you would like to share with other readers? Please contact us with your ideas and if we publish your hint & tip, we will send you a calculator-clock!

SAS Forum UK 2006, Birmingham Metropole - 1-2 November
As previously, and exclusively announced in the last edition of In the Know SAS Forum UK are welcoming keynote speaker Professor Thomas Davenport to share his immense knowledge on how to compete on analytics with us at SFUK. Please come and join us - mark these dates on your calendar and register your interest now, so that we can send you an invitation and keep you informed about agenda updates.

More SAS UK Events

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