Pre/Post-WUSS Half-Day Classes

Take this opportunity to further your SAS education by attending one or more of the following classes Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon. All of our instructors are recognized experts in the SAS community, including several Books by Users authors, Quality Partners, and past conference chairs.

To register use our online registration form. Classes are $125 each if you register before October 1st. Attendees will receive a book authored by the instructor or a bound copy of the class notes.

Note: The use of laptops and all recording devices is not permitted without the instructor's prior approval.

WUSS, Inc. reserves the right to cancel any pre/post conference class(es), and if said occurs, then WUSS' liability is limited to the
refund of any registration frees paid for the canceled class(es).



Wednesday Morning
Half-day Classes
October 13, 2004

8:30 - Noon

Come early to enjoy the complimentary
continental breakfast.


Friday Afternoon
Half-day Classes
October 15, 2004

1:30 - 5:00

Come early to enjoy the complimentary
 light lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Half-Day Class Descriptions
Advanced SAS Programming Techniques
SAS users who have acquired basic skills presented in a SAS Software Basics course and want to expand their knowledge of the DATA step will want to attend this course. Attendees will learn advanced programming topics and techniques in the areas of data access, data manipulation, data management, data presentation, and much more. Topics include accessing a variety of non-SAS file formats; using column and line pointers; specifying system and language options; coding loops, ranges, and arrays; using operators and modifiers; testing and debugging techniques; reshaping columns of data; techniques on managing data; custom report writing techniques; and integrating ODS for improved output. Students will receive course notes. While this course is suitable for all SAS users, a minimum of one year base SAS programming experience is required.
Data Reporting: Getting Started with the REPORT and TABULATE Procedures
The presentation of data is an essential part of virtually every study and there are a number of tools within SAS that allow the user to create a large variety of charts, reports, and data summaries. Two particularly powerful and valuable procedures that can be used in this process are REPORT and TABULATE. Both can be used to summarize and display data. Both are highly customizable, and both are highly flexible. Unfortunately for many of those just starting to learn these two procedures, the terms “customizable” and “flexible” often seem to be euphemisms for “hard to learn”. This workshop will introduce these procedures by showing you how they work and how they think. A progression of increasingly more complex examples will be used to highlight many features. Students will receive course notes.
Improve the Speed and Performance of Your SAS Programs
SAS Staff
This seminar is designed to help you improve the efficiency of your SAS programs. Specifically, we will identify steps to improve performance and determine techniques to optimize programs, as well as introduce students to multiprocessing and using the Scalable Performance Data Engine. Attendees will learn how to benchmark their applications, and to apply techniques to reduce CPU time and overall elapsed time. We will also provide resources for additional information. Highlights of specific V9 features will be briefly discussed. The course assumes students possess a solid foundation in DATA step processing; previous experience in SQL processing is desirable but not required.
Nonparametric Statistics Using SAS
Despite the evident popularity of non-parametric statistical methods in many subject areas, including medicine, SAS does not do as complete of a job covering the classical non-parametric methods documented in texts such as Lehman, Conover, or Hollander & Wolfe as it does more familiar parametric methods. In fact, the situation has deteriorated a little bit with the disappearance of PROC MRANK, a procedure that SAS no longer distributes. A few of the capabilities of that procedure have been incorporated into other procedures such as PROC FREQ. Conover and Iman popularized a general class of methods known collectively as the rank transform. In that approach, the data are ranked (in various ways) and the usual parametric methods are applied to the ranks. In this course we will explain what SAS does make available directly and what can be achieved using other SAS procedures either individually or in combination. Students will receive course notes.
Sharpening Your SAS Skills
Looking to advance your career by taking the SAS Base Programming Exam? This course will better prepare you for the exam by reviewing the key concepts and techniques required for understanding and passing the exam. All major topics are covered including accessing data, creating data structures, managing data, generating reports, handling errors, SQL, and ODS. Students will improve their proficiency in SAS syntax through simple task-oriented examples. The class also includes a review of sample test questions to reinforce your knowledge and understanding of the SAS programming language. Students will receive course notes.
Using SAS Enterprise Guide
SAS Enterprise Guide is a point-and-click interface to the SAS System and is used by business analysts, statisticians, researchers and programmers. This course shows how to use SAS Enterprise Guide to retrieve information from various sources, analyze the data and present the results. Topics include navigating the menus, managing and manipulating the data, performing exploratory data analysis, reviewing the generated code, creating graphs, and using the Document Builder. This course is appropriate for both new and experienced SAS users who want to learn to use Enterprise Guide. Students will receive course notes and Getting Started with SAS Enterprise Guide.

 

Wednesday Half-Day Class Descriptions
Customized Reports with SAS Output Delivery System
This course is for SAS users who would like to take advantage of the Output Delivery System (ODS) to customize reports. Students will be introduced to the basics of ODS, and will then learn how to enhance reports with and without PROC TEMPLATE. This course will unlock the mysteries associated with identifying which style elements should be modified in order to improve the formatting of customized reports. A variety of output destinations (file types) will be explored, including rich text format (RTF), portable document file (PDF) and HTML. Students will receive the course notes along with Quick Results with the Output Delivery System and decision tree processes for using style definitions and table templates.
Data Analysis for Non-statisticians
This session provides an introduction to the core data analysis procedures in both base SAS and SAS/STAT modules used to analyze and interpret data. The course does not assume students have statistical knowledge; rather general concepts, applications, and ramifications are discussed without presenting the underlying theory of the statistics themselves. The materials presented do assume that attendees are familiar with basic SAS software concepts such as variable, observation, data set, label and format. You will be introduced to the jargon and concepts needed by the programmers and analysts who frequently have to communicate with statisticians, principal investigators, and other “clients” when conducting data analysis projects. After completing this session you will have an understanding of which base SAS and SAS/STAT procedures are used to perform statistical analyses of data, and how to select the appropriate PROC to conduct the desired analysis. You will also be able to interpret the output generated by the procedure applied to the data and provide a basic explanation of the results to others. Students will receive course notes.
Ins and Outs of PROC FORMAT
An understanding of SAS-supplied formats and informats as well as the ability to create user-defined formats and informats is invaluable to programmers who use SAS to manage or display data. This course provides an overview on the application of SAS formats and informats and then delves into the many features of PROC FORMAT. Students will learn how to create their own formats with PROC FORMAT and learn many tricks and tips for making use of them. Covered topics include nested formats, multi-level formats and controlling the sort order of formatted values. We also uncover the mystery of the ever-dreaded PICTURE statement and new format features in Version 9 of SAS. Students will receive annotated course notes.
Pattern Discovery and Predictive Modeling Using Enterprise Miner
This seminar applies data mining techniques to business problems using Enterprise Miner 5.1 and SAS Text Miner. You will learn how to combine structured data with unstructured text data to develop predictive models for an insurance claim loss recovery solution. You will see how unsupervised learning techniques can be applied to a Web log analysis problem to identify categories of Web surfers. Enterprise Miner SEMMA methodology for data preparation, exploration, analysis, and predictive modeling will be illustrated throughout. Attendees should be comfortable with SAS programming concepts and should have a basic understanding of statistical modeling, for example, working with linear regression or logistic regression models.
SAS Tips and Techniques
Do you know that you can access SAS OnlineDoc from the SAS Web site? Information on SAS features, timesaving techniques and the many SAS resources will help kick your SAS skills up a notch. In this fast-paced, fact-filled, and fun seminar, the focus will be on the topics defined by the acrostic EMPOWER—Elementary tips, Major new V9 features, Programming and procedures, Output, Work habits, Efficiency, Resources. Upon completion of this course, students will be able to apply these tips in their daily work. Showing simple and timesaving methods will encourage you to learn about and use macros, the Output Delivery System, the SQL procedure, the Enterprise Guide, and the windowing environment. Most tips are illustrated with SAS code. Students will receive course notes and supporting material.
XML for SAS Programmers
XML is fast becoming the industry standard for data dissemination. SAS began supporting XML in version 8.1 and has added many enhancements in version 9.1. This course is intended to answer questions like: What is XML? What is the difference between XML and HTML? What does XML do? What SAS tools are available for XML processing? What do the tools do, and why would you want to use them? This course has been updated to cover new features in SAS 9.1 such as using XMLMapper to parse arbitrary XML documents, and using templates to create XML and XHTML. The only prerequisites are a basic understanding of SAS DATA and PROC steps and a burning interest in XML. Students will receive course notes and XML Learning by Example.