Archived Newsletter: Since the information within this newsletter was time-sensitive, hyperlinks have been removed.

Our main news item covers the SAS User Forum, which took place in London on October 15th and we are carrying a special report including user feedback on the event. As you may be aware, this year's second SAS User Forum takes place in Penrith on October 28th - and there's still time to register.

Elsewhere in this issue, Technology & Solutions discusses Data Profiling, the first in a series on the building blocks for data quality. Upcoming articles will cover Data Quality, Data Integration and Data Augmentation. Our second technology article takes a look at grid computing, also known as 'metacomputing', which industry pundits say is the next stage in the evolution of high performance distributed systems.

We also bring you two customer briefings on Data Quality and Data Mining plus news of the revamped SAS UK website and a new Advanced Macro programming course from SAS^® Education. Finally, you’ll find more of the highly popular Hints & Tips that aim to ensure you get the most from your SAS software.

The first of this year's SAS User Forums took place in London on the 15th October and attracted more than 200 customers. The main theme of the forum was the SAS^® Intelligence Value Chain, which was covered from different angles through a packed agenda. Read a roundup of the day's highlights.

SAS^® Customers Access Data - Anywhere, Anytime for One Source of True Intelligence
The recent spate of corporate consolidations has led many businesses to seek more efficient and effective ways of retrieving data from multiple locations to populate their data warehouses. SAS has earned a reputation for making it easy for customers to access data from virtually any database or platform, including enterprise applications. From SAP to Siebel to Oracle to PeopleSoft, users can pull the data they need to gain a single version of the truth so decision makers can lead with confidence. CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

Sainsbury's: SAS Drives Increased Profit From Direct Marketing
SAS analytics, including SAS Enterprise Miner^TM, has helped Sainsbury's increase profits, lower costs, improve efficiency and build better customer relationships. "SAS has helped Sainsbury's direct marketing activity bring in five times more sales than was achieved two years ago. That's a good percentage of our overall sales," Richard Zanetti, customer segmentation manager. TECHNOLOGY & SOLUTIONS

SAS Looks Ahead to Grid Computing
'Grid computing' is seen by many as the next evolutionary step in the development of distributed computing on the Internet. SAS has become the first enterprise business intelligence vendor to join the Global Grid Forum, which brings a number of benefits for SAS customers.

Company Data: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You!
Manual correction of inaccurate source and target data can be a huge drain on a company's IT resources. That's why many companies are turning to automated data profiling in SAS. In this first article in a series on the building blocks of data quality, we explain how data profiling gives you a comprehensive picture of your data. SUPPORT & SERVICES

SAS UK Web Site - Redesigned for You!
SAS' UK Web site has changed - and it's not merely a new look. The new site has been developed and redesigned in response to feedback from our site visitors and customers. In this issue, we will introduce these new features and enhancements and their benefits to you.

Tell us what you think… SAS Customer Survey
Your opinions and experiences with SAS are important to us and as such we would like to hear your thoughts. Your input provides valuable information that will be used to develop and improve our products, solutions and services. As a token of our appreciation once you have completed the online survey, SAS will make a donation to your choice of several charitable organisations.

Advanced SAS Macro Language Course
SAS Education has launched a new two-day course that emphasises advanced techniques that will enable you to take advantage of macro functionality. After completing the course you will be able to apply advanced macro techniques to write dynamic code and interface with data sets and other files. HINTS & TIPS

How can I get special Greek characters into my tabular output?
Find out how to insert special characters into your title statement, variable labels and data values in your tabular output generated by Proc Report and Proc Tabulate.

How can I read a text file from a remote host into a local SAS session using the FTP protocol?
Find out how to read and write a text file from a local SAS session to a remote Unix host with no SAS installation using the FTP protocol. EVENTS

Cumbria, 28 October
The SAS User Forum presents a great opportunity to hear about and see the latest technology from the world of SAS, as well as network and exchange best practices and experiences with other SAS users. If you use SAS software regularly, are a SAS expert or specialist, work in IT and support the delivery of intelligence to the business or have a responsibility for discovering, creating and sharing information - then the SAS User Forum is for you.

Data Quality Briefing
Marlow, 4 November
This half-day briefing is designed for SAS users - particularly data stewards, data warehousing specialists, developers, business analysts and business intelligence specialists, working within a business or IT environment. It will introduce you to the latest data quality techniques and provide practical guidance for implementing data quality in your organisation. The programme will include software demonstrations that will allow you to appreciate the strengths of SAS Data Quality.

Data Mining Briefing
Marlow, 19 November
This half-day seminar explains how you can use advanced analytical software in your organisation to spot opportunities, target your best customers, forecast quality trends, optimise production resources, model organisational changes, and much more. Designed for IT and data management specialists, business analysts, data analysts working in research and development, and statisticians, you will learn about basic data mining and analytical concepts and see how data mining software can be used in both business and development scenarios. The seminar will conclude with a brief introduction to the financial impacts that mining and analytical software could have in your organisation.

More SAS UK Events DID YOU KNOW?...

ESRI & SAS Aid Shuttle Recovery Effort
Software developed by ESRI, the leader in geographic information system (GIS) and SAS have helped guide the search for debris from the space shuttle Columbia after it broke apart on 1 February 2003 over the western United States. The software: ArcGIS, SAS Bridge for ESRI, and SAS Enterprise Guide^®, helped the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) define and map the shuttle debris path that emergency management teams searched after the disaster.