SASUniversityEdition\myfolders directory
you will need to create other shared folders. To help understand how shared folders work, suppose you have an Excel file called Grades.xlsx and you want to have access to it inside University Edition. On a Windows platform, you would place the file in the following location:
c:\SASUniversityEdition\myfolders\Grades.xlsx
On a Mac, you would use:
/Users/$USER/SASUniversityEdition/myfolders/Grades.xlsx
You are almost finished. A screen shot of step 4 is shown next.
Figure 3.11: Beginning Step 4
The instructions below show you how to start your virtual computer and run SAS University Edition.
Figure 3.12: Instructions for Running SAS University Edition
You will want to create bookmarks for VirtualBox and SAS University Edition so that you don’t have to type the URLs every time you want to use SAS.
Conclusion
Yes, there is a bit of work (some of it scary) to set up and run SAS University Edition on your computer. However, there are many sources of help if you have trouble.
The next few chapters discuss some of the built-in data sets that you can use to perfect your skills, as well as instructions for using your own data, either on Excel spreadsheets (a very common data source) or CSV (comma-separated values files).
Chapter 4: SAS Studio Tasks
Taking a Tour of the Navigation Pane
Introduction
Hopefully, you have installed your visualization software and SAS University Edition (or you are running SAS Studio with a standard version of SAS or SAS on Demand for Academics). Now, it’s time to get started. If you are using SAS University Edition, start your virtual computer by double-clicking on the appropriate icon on your desktop (the installation process should have placed this icon there). If you don’t see an icon for VirtualBox or one of the versions of VMware, you need to browse through your program list and create a shortcut on your desktop.
For example, here is what you will see if you open VirtualBox:
Figure 4.1: Opening VirtualBox
Your screen might look a bit different. Double-click SAS University Edition. A window will pop up that looks like this:
Figure 4.2: Opening SAS University Edition (VirtualBox)
The URL in Figure 4.2 is
Your URL might be different from this. Once you enter it into your browser, you will want to bookmark it so that you don’t have to type it every time you want to run the SAS University Edition. If you use a version of VMware, the URL will look something like an IP address such as
http://192.168.117.129
Regardless of which virtualization software you use, you will be directed to the SAS University Edition: Information Center screen. It looks like this:
Figure 4.3: Opening Screen of SAS University Edition: Information Center
If you see a message telling you that updates are available, you can click the Update icon or click the Start SAS Studio button and update at some other time. The Resources link is also very valuable—you can access help files, videos, books (even some of mine), and the always popular FAQs (frequently asked questions).
Using the Built-in Tasks
To open SAS Studio, click “Start SAS Studio.”
Figure 4.4: Opening Screen for SAS Studio
As you can see in Figure 4.4, the rectangle on the left is called the navigation pane, and the larger rectangular area on the right is called the work area. The navigation pane, as the name implies, enables you to select tasks, browse files and folders, import data from a variety of sources such as Excel workbooks, and do other useful tasks that you will see a bit later.
The work area consists of three sub-areas called CODE, LOG, and RESULTS. You can switch to any one of these areas by clicking on the appropriate tab. This is what you see if you are in SAS Programmer mode. You see different tabs when you are in Visual Programmer mode. We will stick to SAS Programmer Mode for all the examples in this book.
The Code section is where you can write SAS programs (also the place where SAS Studio writes programs for you). The Log area displays information about data being read or written, syntax errors in your SAS code, and information about how much CPU time and total time were used to run your program. The Results area is where SAS Studio displays the tables, graphs, and statistics that you programmed yourself or had one of the built-in SAS Studio tasks produce for you.
Taking a Tour of the Navigation Pane
Figure 4.5 is an enlargement of the navigation pane.
Figure 4.5: Enlarged View of the Navigation Pane
When you click on any of the choices in the navigation pane, it expands and moves higher in the list. You can also expand or contract any of the sub-lists by clicking on the triangles to the left of the choices.
Exploring the LIBRARIES Tab
Let’s start your exploration of SAS Studio by clicking the Libraries tab. Your Navigation pane will now look something like this:
Figure 4.6: SAS Libraries
