How to find what reports, stored processes are used

[dbdinc]

Is there a way in SAS to determine what reports, stored processes, queries, etc. are used, and how often they are used? And, possibly, by what users they are being used?

Is there something like an activity log that migh show this info, and if there is, where is this activity log and how would I use it?

It's frustrating being new to SAS and not knowing where to get info..... I look forward to your replies and assistance. Thanks in advance!!

 

[klaz2002]

If the programmers didn't write the log outputs then you have no way of knowing without looking at the programs. On the bright side, if you could easily tell what macro or program the main SAS code calls then you wouldn't need staff like me (A SAS coder) to help out.

I've known contracts that took years to sort all the code and update them. (Does anyone remember Y2K?)
Klaz

 

[dbdinc]

I did not understand your reply..... id did not seem to answer my question, which was, "Is there a way in SAS to determine what reports, stored processes, queries, etc. are used, and how often they are used? And, possibly, by what users they are being used?

Is there something like an activity log that migh show this info, and if there is, where is this activity log and how would I use it?"

I am becoming a SAS coder and am looking for assistance/informationas to where things like logs might be.

Thanks for replying.

 

[klaz2002]

The answer is NO. SAS does not keep an activity log other than the log that is generated by a sas job in the SAS browser.

That said, I have learned that there are always methods to get the information you seek if you put your mind to it.

In my industry, Clinical trials, we are supposed to document all code. Due to this requirement, my team and I usually write the programs to dump all messages (warning, notes & errors) to a permanent log. We could then theoretically look at this file later and see if there were issues.

If you want to redirect the log outputs when you execute SAS code all you need to write is a Proc Printto statement. This is placed at the top of your code.
ex

proc printto log="c:\temp\logfile.log";
run;

Code*****

*Reset the log outputs back to the default;
proc printto;
run;

Does this answer your question?
Klaz

 

[ChrisW75]

Alternatively, step outside of SAS and look at alternative ways to get the information.
If SAS is on a Unix System for instance, you can scan the system for SAS programs and get some basic information from the operating system such as Last accessed date, date created etc etc. It might be worth asking your server admin people for assistance on this, explain to them exactly what you're trying to do.
If you need to know how often programs are used, you could run the scanning job daily and compare the results and see how often the dates changed to get an idea of how often a job is run.
It all really depends on the system that you guys are running SAS on, but your IT people should be able to help you out.

Also, remember that if the SAS programs are being run in batch, log files are generated and stored, these might be able to help you as well.

I hope that this helps.

Chris
Business Analyst, Code Monkey, Data Wrangler.
SAS Guru.

 

[dbdinc]

klaz and chris,

Thanks for your replies! I just didn't think it would be that frustrating to determine usage, that SAS would have some kind of "built-in" that would do the trick.

In any case, I appreciate your responses.