Chapter 12

Using the SAS® Information Delivery Portal

Section 12.1

Overview of the SAS Information Delivery Portal

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SAS Information Delivery Portal The SAS Information Delivery Portal provides an interface to access enterprise data, applications, and information.

The SAS Information Delivery Portal is built on top of SAS BI Architecture provides a single point of entry provides a Portal API for application development.

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SAS Information Delivery Portal

The portal's personalization features, which enable you to organize your portal desktop so that it contains only the information you need, in the format that makes the most sense to you.

The ability to subscribe to publication channels that deliver continually updated information to your desktop.

A secure environment for sharing information with other users.

The SAS Information Delivery Portal has many features, including the following:

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SAS Information Delivery Portal

Portlet

Page

...

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SAS Information Delivery Portal The Information Delivery Portal uses pages and portlets to organize information. A page is a Web page in the SAS Information Delivery

Portal that contains portlets. Each page is represented by a tab in the portal's navigation bar.

Portlets are the rectangular components of a portal page and are used to organize content.

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Content Types Some of the main content types that can be added to portlets are links SAS Information Maps SAS Reports Stored Processes Alerts.

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Content Types – LinksLinks are content that are accessible using a universal resource locator (URL).

Link

...

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Content Types – SAS Information MapsSAS Information Maps are user-friendly metadata definitions of physical data sources that enable business users to query a data warehouse to meet specific business needs.

SAS Information Map

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Content Types – SAS ReportsSAS Reports are reports that have been stored in the SAS Report Model format.

SAS Reports

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Content Types – Stored ProcessesStored Processes are SAS programs that are stored in a central location and can be executed from the portal, creating reports that include the most current data.

SAS Stored Process

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Content Types – AlertsAn alert is an automatic notification of an electronic event. Alerts are displayed in the Alerts Portlet on one of your personal portal pages. Alerts can be used to notify you that a stored process has finished executing in the background and that the results are ready to view.

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Other Content Types

Content Type Description

application A Web application that has been made accessible from the portal.

file A file of any type. Files might be available for viewing if your organization has installed the portal with the Xythos WebFile Server.

package A collection of structured and unstructured content that has been published using the SAS publishing framework.

publication channel A channel that has been established using the SAS publishing framework and can be used to publish information to users and applications.

syndication channel A channel that provides syndicated, continuously updated Web content.

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What Is WebDav?WebDAV is a set of extensions to HTTP, the HyperText Transfer Protocol, to allow remote collaborative authoring.

HTTP does a very good job of letting users browse content already published on the Web, but it is not very good at allowing users to post their own content.

WebDAV makes the Web writable as well as readable, in a standard, interoperable, way.

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Xythos – WebDavXythos is a secure WebDav server uses a relational database is not required for the SAS Information Delivery Portal,

but some important features are not supported if Xythos is not part of the installation.

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Content ClassificationThe content contained within the pages and portlets can be classified as one of the following: Public Group Personal.

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Public Content ClassificationPublic content is content that has been shared with the portal's Public group so that all portal users can access it. You can share content with the Public group and then edit and delete that content only if you are designated either as a content administrator for the public group or as a portal administrator.

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Group Content ClassificationGroup content is content that has been shared with a group of portal users so that all users in the group can access it. You can share content with a group and then edit and delete that content only if you are designated either as a content administrator for the target group or as a portal administrator.

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Personal Content ClassificationPersonal content is content that you created. If you have the appropriate level of authorization, then you can create pages, collection portlets, WebDAV navigator portlets, and links.

After you create these items, you can access them from the portal, edit them, remove them from your personal portal, use the Search tool to find them, or delete them permanently. Other portal users cannot access your personal content.

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Interaction with SAS Application ServersThe SAS Information Delivery Portal can potentially use any or all of the following application servers:

SAS Metadata SAS Metadata ServerServer

Read metadata for all repository Read metadata for all repository objects and write metadata for objects and write metadata for some repository objects.some repository objects.

SAS OLAP ServerSAS OLAP Server View multidimensional information View multidimensional information maps and reports.maps and reports.

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continued...

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Interaction with SAS Application Servers

SAS Workspace SAS Workspace ServerServer

Publish packages and retrieve Publish packages and retrieve published packages. Execute published packages. Execute stored processes with package stored processes with package results. View relational information results. View relational information maps and reports.maps and reports.

Stored Process Stored Process ServerServer

Execute stored processes with Execute stored processes with streaming results.streaming results.

...

Section 12.2

Using the SAS Information Delivery Portal

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http://localhost:8080/Portal

Using the SAS Information Delivery PortalThe SAS Information Delivery Portal is started from your browser by entering a specific URL.

On the classroom machines you use:

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This demonstration illustrates some basic capabilities of the SAS Information Delivery Portal.

Using the SAS Information Delivery Portal

Register Source Tables

DefineData Libraries

CreateETL Jobs

DefineTarget Tables

CreateOLAP Cubes

View and AnalyzeData

CreateStored Processes

Create Reports

CreateInformation Maps

Use the InformationDelivery Portal

Metadata