The Applications Development section will present a wide array of papers on topics including SAS macro design, maximizing performance, and data cleaning. Presentations on the different ways that SAS can be customized, extended, and used in concert with other software packages to develop or improve a process will also be included. Other speakers will describe how to exploit SAS modules that can significantly improve performance and sustainability. Authors from different industries will give step-by-step instructions describing a process. This is an outstanding opportunity to see how a project or industry-specific solution is accomplished, including projects involving drug development, predictive modeling, customer retention, healthcare, insurance or other business applications.
Building Blocks is intended for SAS® programmers at all levels, from beginner to advanced, and includes SAS topics that are key to becoming an expert SAS user. Appropriate topics include fundamentals such as DATA step manipulations and simple SAS procedures (PROC REPORT, PROC FORMAT, etc.) as well as advanced topics in ODS, Macro programming, SQL, and programming efficiency. These presentations will provide beginners with a greater understanding of how to use SAS and will help more advanced programmers implement enhanced techniques to build on the power and flexibility afforded by SAS software. Programming topics across all fields and industries are encouraged and welcome.
Every SAS® programmer from the beginner to the expert has found new or unusual ways to solve problems with SAS. Coders' Corner is the place to share tips and tricks, useful nuggets of programming, or techniques that make jobs easier. Presentations are 10 minutes in length and can come from any of a broad range of topics. Come and learn what simple tricks can unlock a SAS mystery?
Since the beginning, data manipulation and integration have been mainstays of SAS® software. Over time SAS has grown to include a full suite of data management capabilities like Data Quality, Data Flux, Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Data Federation. This section intends to highlight the capabilities of traditional Base SAS and SAS Data Management as well as the various ways SAS leverages Big Data. These presentations will include case studies demonstrating various data management techniques and implementations, while providing helpful insights and lessons learned along the way.
The E-Poster Section covers any area including: SAS® fundamentals; statistics; business intelligence; medical research, data mining; survey/panel results; social networking; and industry applications for the pharmaceutical, finance, education, environmental and entertainment industries; and all other uses of SAS software. E-Posters will be displayed electronically on a wide screen monitor. In addition, a corresponding paper based upon the poster will be published in the conference proceedings. There will also be a time to meet authors to discuss their E-Posters with conference attendees (Meet the Presenter session). Attendees will have the opportunity to examine E-Posters at their own pace and revisit displays a number of times during the conference.
Papers in Education and Institutional Research section will focus on the use of SAS software to find solutions for reporting and analysis in the education community. This section will present techniques, best practices, and solutions for data needs in primary, secondary, and postsecondary education. Possible topics include:
Hands On Workshops (HOW) provide an engaging forum to share a variety of SAS skills in an interactive setting. These sessions are typically 1.5 to 2 hours in length. Presenters will demonstrate SAS code and procedures in real time with a specific task or goal in mind. The datasets and code should be made available for download prior to the session, enabling attendees to run the code on their personal computers, if desired. Any SAS topics that are better explained in an interactive setting are ideal for Hands On Workshops. These sessions are not reserved for complicated or elaborate SAS techniques only. Popular sessions in previous SESUG meetings have focused on a wide range of topics including SAS DATES/TIMES, proc sql, macros, formats, ODS and other unique or nonstandard features in SAS.
A power point presentation as well as sample code for the demonstration is needed for the workshop. The following platforms are available for these interactive and extended sessions:
Papers in the Life Sciences/Healthcare/Insurance section will focus on using the SAS® System to find solutions for analysis and reporting as it relates to drug/device discovery, disease prevention, patient care and satisfaction, insurance risk and operations. Possible topics include:
Discussions of the use of SAS® Drug Development, SAS® Clinical Data Integration and SAS Patient Safety.
Various aspects of implementing CDISC standards such as the Study Data Tabulation Model (SDTM) and the Analysis Data Model (ADaM).
Solutions to reporting and data processing requirements.
The use of healthcare data to evaluate quality of care, possible fraud and patient satisfaction.
If all or part of your SAS® time includes supporting users, whether through systems architecture and administration or through consulting, training, and hiring, this section is the place for you to share your experiences with other members of the SAS community. This section will include guidelines, best practices, techniques, and resources for working efficiently and effectively in the SAS support community. Possible topics are:
SAS Systems architecture and administration, including:
Installation, deployment, and migration
Virtualization
Performance monitoring and tuning
Other SAS systems support, including:
Recruiting, hiring and maintaining qualified staff
The Reporting and Information Visualization/JMP section invites presentations that demonstrate unique and innovative ways to visualize data and output. SAS provides many tools for visualizing and reporting data and results including Visual Analytics, SAS/Graph, SAS SG procedures, and DSGI. JMP was designed to explore and discover hidden stories and trends in data.
Presentation topics include but are not limited to:
SAS graphics procedures, styles, templates, Output Delivery System (ODS) and Graphics Template Language (GTL)
Customized reports, dashboards, scorecards, graphs, and maps
SAS Visual Analytics
JMP applications
SAS and/or JMP integration with Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, R, Python, and MATLAB
Presentations in the Statistics and Data Analysis section address ways of transforming raw data into useful
information that uncover important relationships and patterns in data to help gain insights for effective,
data-driven decision-making. This section will include topics that will interest a wide range of SAS users,
including statistical analysts, statistical programmers, statisticians, and DATA step programmers.
Papers do not need to present new statistical methods, although such topics are always welcome.
Presentations are sought that involve the application of methods that many users of SAS statistics may not
commonly see, such as methods for categorical, longitudinal, or censored data. Methods to facilitate analysis
of very large data arrays, such as those that result from genetic studies or national surveys, are also sought
for this section. Topics in this section should be of interest to a broad spectrum of SAS practitioners, including
analysts, developers, statisticians, and DATA step programmer.