Welcome to the

SAS FANS User Event
SAS office, London
19 March | 4.00-7.00 p.m.

Join us for an inspiring afternoon at the SAS London office, where SAS users and experts come together to dive into practical techniques, share real-world experiences, and connect with peers—followed by pizza, refreshments, and networking.

This afternoon, you'll learn:

  • How SAS functions, PRX (regex), and arrays can be combined to streamline data manipulation, improve code readability, and boost performance through practical programming examples.
  • How SAS Viya enables multilingual, hybrid analytics workflows—combining SAS, open source tools, custom Model Studio nodes, and scalable CAS execution across IDEs.

More on these topics in the agenda below.

Register and meet up to exchange ideas with like-minded professionals, learn from SAS experts, and strengthen your professional network.

Date & Time: Thursday, 19 March, 4 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Venue: SAS Office, 10 Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4xy

This event is exclusive to SAS customers, SAS associates, and approved partners.


Agenda

3:30 p.m. – 3:55 p.m.

Arrivals

4:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.

Welcome and Opening Remarks
Pia Rønnevik, SAS

4:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m


Power Techniques in SAS: Functions, Regex, and Arrays
Pia Rønnevik, User Engagement Manager, SAS

Power Techniques in SAS: Functions, Regex, and Arrays explores some of the most efficient and versatile tools available to SAS programmers. This session demonstrates how advanced SAS functions streamline data manipulation, how Perl Regular Expressions (PRX) unlock powerful pattern-matching capabilities and how arrays enable fast and elegant processing of repetitive tasks.

Through practical examples, attendees will learn how combining these techniques can significantly improve code efficiency, readability, and performance - making everyday programming tasks smarter, faster, and more flexible.

4:45 p.m. – 5:00 p.m

Break

5:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m

The Open Shop: How I Learned to Stop Exporting CSVs and Love the Viya Ecosystem
Alina Dudnyuk, Data Scientist, SAS

In this session, we’ll shatter the myth that SAS is a closed system and demonstrate how SAS Viya acts as the ultimate multilingual engine. You’ll see a live "day-in-the-life" workflow: from coding in SAS Studio to building hybrid pipelines in Model Studio using custom nodes. We’ll also show how to stay in your favorite IDE while leveraging the massive scale of the Viya CAS engine. Finally, we’ll look at Viya Workbench, the future of developer flexibility.

5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Pizza, refreshments and networking

Attendance is free but limited. Secure your spot now to ensure you don't miss out on this unique opportunity to elevate your SAS proficiency and skills.


Our Experts

Pia Rønnevik

Pia Rønnevik
User Engagement Manager, SAS

With extensive experience across analytics, statistics, and user engagement, Pia Rønnveik currently serves as User Engagement Manager at SAS, where she leads the Norwegian SAS FANS Users Group. She facilitates network meetings, plans technical content and delivers presentations for FANS.

Before joining SAS, Pia worked at NHO (Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise), contributing to national wage statistics and analyses for the Technical Calculation Committee (including inputs to the NOU reports (Official Norwegian Reports)). She also spent nearly a decade at Statistics Norway (SSB), focusing on the Consumer Price Index, large-scale data challenges, and the development of the harmonized CPI for Norway. Earlier in her career, Pia worked with scanner‑data methodology at ACNielsen and conducted research-based projects at the Norwegian National Insurance Administration.

Alina Budnyuk

Alina Budnyuk
Associate Data Scientist, SAS

Alina Budnyuk is an Associate Data Scientist at SAS. She has a background in mathematics and a passion for uncovering patterns in data through a quantitative lens. She enjoys exploring how complex systems can be understood, modelled, and improved using data-driven insights. A strong advocate for AI-assisted productivity, Alina believes that tools like co-pilots can free analysts from routine tasks and create space for deeper thinking, creativity, and innovation.


Location

SAS Office London
10 Chiswell Street
London EC1Y 4xy
United Kingdom

Contact Us:

For inquiries and assistance, please email bettina.stibolt@sas.com

We welcome you to an evening of discovery, learning, and networking!

Register

This event is no longer available for registration.

 
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