In a live global Webcast on 30th March, 1,800 people from across the world viewed the launch of SAS^®9. Dr. Jim Goodnight, SAS president and CEO; Jim Davis, senior vice president and chief marketing officer; and Art Cooke, president of SAS International, shared the SAS^®9 vision, its resources and innovative new features. This Webcast is now available for you to view.

Loyalty Management UK Selects SAS for Nectar Programme
Loyalty Management UK (LMUK), operators of Nectar, the UK's largest loyalty programme, has appointed SAS UK to support them in providing additional value to customers, sponsors and suppliers as part of the Nectar programme. CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT

The Open University: Flexible Training Saves Britain's Largest University Thousands of Pounds
A combination of public courses and Trainer's Kits from SAS Education helps the Open University optimise its growing usage of SAS^® software. "As a fast way to get us up-and-running and improve our skills, this has been a very positive experience. If you consider the overheads involved in offsite training, this approach has saved us thousands of pounds" - Eoin Diver, specialist support and information team manager, academic and administrative computing services. TECHNOLOGY & SOLUTIONS

Revolutionising the BI Industry: SAS®9
The highly anticipated SAS^®9 Intelligence Platform is now available to users worldwide. SAS^®9 marks the most significant release in the company's 28-year history. It offers a new platform, enhanced analytics and refined user interfaces that provide fresh insights for solving business problems and driving competitive advantage.

Take the SAS®9 Interactive Tour
The SAS^®9 multimedia interactive tour includes an overview of SAS^®9, customer Q&A video clips, a SAS^®9 sampler providing glimpses of the new interface and access to our white paper 'Beyond Business Intelligence: SAS^®9 redefines the possibilities'.

Completing the Picture - Enriching Your Data
In the final part of this series we "complete the picture" with data augmentation: enhancing and adding value to data through the intelligent use of other data sources and analytical functionality. SUPPORT & SERVICES

Explore SAS Education's New Look Web Site
Thanks to feedback from our site visitors and customers, we've completely redesigned our Web site to help you find the courses and information you need more quickly and easily. On the new site, you'll find a wealth of training courses, distance learning products and qualifications designed to give you the knowledge and expertise you need to make the most of SAS. You can also book your courses online and download our latest brochure.

Are You Ready to Advance Your Career by Becoming a SAS Certified Professional?
The SAS Certified Professional Program offers five globally recognised certifications and the chance to increase your career opportunities and marketability to employers, but are you ready? The SAS Certification: Base Programming Practice Exam is now available to test your skills!

Discover How Six Sigma Improves Performance
SAS Education has teamed up with Prism Training and Consultancy to offer free half-day workshops on the Six Sigma methodology. Six Sigma will help you make the most of investments in SAS and JMP^®, using your ability to discover relationships and outliers in your data to far greater effect.

We Want to Hear From You!
In the Know is now in its second year and we are interested to receive your thoughts about our newsletter. Please take a few minutes to complete this survey to help us better understand your expectations and enable us to develop the format and content. In appreciation, SAS will make a donation to your choice of several charitable organisations. See survey for more information. Thank you for your feedback! HINTS & TIPS

How Do I Search for All Occurrences of a Column?
If you don't know where a column exists or want to find all occurrences of a given column name then try this macro.

How Do I Transpose My SAS Data When Writing to Excel?
Find out how to populate an Excel Workbook using DDE when you need to write each SAS observation to a new column in an Excel spreadsheet.

Share Your Thoughts
Are there areas 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 together with any feedback about this or any other section of In the Know. EVENTS

SAS Irish User Forum - Dublin, 12 May
The annual SAS Irish 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.

The Intelligence Imperative Seminar Series

Focus on SAS® Enterprise Miner™ - Web Seminar, 19 May
Do you need a way to collect demographic data and customer buying patterns and pinpoint trends? Explain known outcomes? Predict future outcomes? And identify factors that secure a desired effect? Tune into this seminar to learn how SAS Enterprise Miner allows non-programmers to access data, perform modelling and publish results through an easy-to-use interface.

Focus on ETL - Web Seminar, 16 June
To turn new data into real intelligence, you have to integrate the data you already have - wherever its location, whatever its format. You need the industry's most powerful ETL tool with integrated data quality assessment and monitoring to ensure that your information is consistent and accurate. Tune into this seminar to learn how the SAS warehouse management environment makes it easy to extract data from different locations, transform raw data into consistent, high quality business data, and load the data into a data warehouse.

SAS Forum International - Copenhagen, 15-17 June
Join the thought-leaders at this year's premier international event for enterprise intelligence - when representatives of the world's most innovative and forward-thinking companies share their vision of how intelligence can transform decision-making, improve business processes, and deliver dramatic returns on investment. An entire day, Thursday 17th June, is devoted to SAS Expertise, featuring presentations of current and future technologies and solutions by SAS experts, including presentations from Early Adopters of SAS® 9.1. The day will also include in-depth technical insight into "how it's done" including direct access to SAS experts, implementers and consultants to answer your questions and share your ideas. Wednesday 16th June covers SAS in Practice, where you can hear about real solutions in industry described by SAS customers and partners. In addition, presentations by and for executives, senior managers and other decision-makers make up SAS in the Boardroom on Tuesday 15th. View the agenda and register online today.

A Manager's Guide to Getting More Out of SAS - Marlow, 30 June
This half-day briefing will provide managers of SAS users with the knowledge you need to efficiently deliver solutions to your business and get the most out of your investment in SAS technology. The session will cover topics such as increasing the efficiency of accessing accurate and strategic data; delivering timely, reliable and consistent information; utilising the full power of analytics; integrating information from multi sources; reacting quickly to business and IT needs; and meeting the demands of Regulatory Compliance. If you would like to find out how advances in SAS products and services can help you get more from SAS, register your details online today.

More SAS UK Events DID YOU KNOW?...

One SAS customer has agreed to plant a SAS^®9 flag on the summit of Mount Everest
Countries from all over the world are planning events over the next several months to launch SAS^®9, but one unique event is the planting of a SAS^®9 flag on Mount Everest this spring. Ed Bradley, the director of risk and compliance and of the Basel Program with BankWest, a SAS customer, is attempting the conquest of the world's highest peak during an expedition in April and May. Bradley will carry a SAS^®9 flag with him that he will plant when he reaches the summit.