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Connecting Tableau to SAS Datasets via the SAS OLE DB Provider

November 19, 2013 | By | 4 Comments

One of the topics which generated a lot of interest during my presentation on SAS/Tableau Integration at the recent ‘TCC13’ Tableau Conference, was the idea of connecting to SAS datasets via the SAS OLE-DB Provider. While SAS themselves refused to allow such a presentation at their own customer conference…, it was unexpected as much as rewarding to find an audience of around 150 people at a Tableau conference interested in SAS connectivity!

Currently, Tibco Spotfire is the only 3rd party Data Discovery tool I’m aware of, which natively supports OLE-DB connectivity to SAS datasets. The benefit of OLE-DB is that it does not require access to SAS Server in order to connect to a SAS dataset. This is important, because often SAS datasets are stored locally or on a network share. SAS ODBC requires SAS Server connectivity, which in turn requires SAS client/server connectivity (eg SAS Integration Technologies)

A workaround is to connect to SAS datasets via OLE-DB using Excel as a ‘gateway’. Since the OLE-DB connection definition dialog is fully exposed within Excel, the connection details to the SAS dataset can be set up and tested. Then Tableau can be pointed to the Excel file, through which the SAS data can be retrieved.

Since the OLE-DB connection provides a way to automate the refresh of the SAS data from within Excel, this method can help ensure that the Tableau workbook is kept up-to-date as the underlying SAS data changes.

To follow are the steps to set up the Ole-DB connectivity.

Step 1: Define OLE-DB connection within Excel
Open up a blank Excel workbook. Under the ‘Data’ menu, select the option ‘From Other Sources’ then select ‘From Data Connection Wizard’:
Excel_to_SAS_1
Step 2: Select the Base SAS Data Provider
In the Data Connection Wizard, select ‘Other/Advanced’ then click Next:
Excel_to_SAS_2
Select the SAS OLE-DB Provider (9.2 or 9.3 as appropriate): Excel_to_SAS_3
Step 3: Define Connection Properties
The next step is perhaps the least intuitive. The ‘Data Link Properties’ dialog requires a connection to be defined to the SAS data set. For this to work correctly, all that is needed is the path to the folder where the SAS datasets reside. This is entered into the ‘Data Source’ property. The other options such as ‘Location’ and ‘User name’ can be ignored.
Test the connection, then click OK.
Excel_to_SAS_4
Step 4: Select the desired SAS dataset to connect to Excel_to_SAS_5

Step 5: Save the Data Connection Excel_to_SAS_6
Step 6: Import the data Verify that the OLE-DB is working as expected by importing the SAS dataset into Excel via the OLE-DB Provider connection which has just been defined:
Excel_to_SAS_7
Step 7: Save the Excel spreadsheet containing the SAS OLE-DB Connection Excel_to_SAS_8
Step 8: In Tableau, Connect to the Excel File Select ‘Connect to Data’, then select ‘Microsoft Excel’. Select ‘ Live Connection’.
Excel_to_SAS_9

When the Tableau workbook is saved, the SAS data can be refreshed by periodic refresh of the Excel connection. This can be scheduled to ensure that Tableau is retrieving the most up-to-date information from SAS.

Here is a video demonstrating the process described above (sorry, no audio):

Filed in: Data Visualization, SAS, Tableau | Tags: , ,

Patrick Spedding

About the Author (Author Profile)

Patrick Spedding is Senior Director of BI R&D for Rocket Software, and IBM Champion for IBM Collaboration Solutions. He is also a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Eastside Radio in Sydney, Australia. Prior roles include Director of Product Management for IBM Cognos, Director of Field Marketing for Cognos, Founder of Tableau partner See-Change Solutions, and SAS Solution Manager for BI and Strategy Management. Patrick's qualifications include an MBA degree in Marketing (AIU), Diploma in Management (University of Michigan), BSc (Hons) in Mathematics (Loughborough University, UK), Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management (FAIM), and member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD). Find Patrick on Google+

Comments (4)

  1. Victor

    Hi Patrick,

    Thank you for the article!

    Just wonder if you checked how does this approach work with SAS formats? Can Tableau read data from SAS dataset which uses formats?

    Thank you,
    Victor
    News Corp Australia

    • Hi Victor, thanks for your comment. Yes, I have considered this, in fact it is one of the areas I covered in my presentation at TCC13. As requested by Tableau Software, I will be writing up all the various approaches and techniques for SAS/Tableau integration into a Whitepaper which Tableau will be publishing. So watch this space! You may also like to review a previous post which covered handling SAS dates

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