SAS BI Prompts: Gettin’ User Friendly
When creating prompts in SAS Business Intelligence or SAS Enterprise Guide, the value the database or your code uses to populate the field may not be user-friendly. Certainly you want your user community to think you are that cool BI developer tucked away in cubical B7-2. Hey I think you can even get yourself a cool black leather jacket and some boots if you use prompting tips like this one.
BI Prompts from Losers
I’ve talked before about creating cascading prompts and date prompts but those were more of an overall discussion. Here’s an example of something that would be a common way to express the values for a chart output. At your site – everyone may understand the terminology so I’m just using these values as an example. Feel free to leave some comments telling me how you’ve used it.
Building Cool Prompts
In the Prompt Type and Values pane, modify the Formatted (Displayed) Value for the variables. Double-click in the field and add the value you want the user to see. No code changes are need – this only controls what the prompt has in the drop-down (see above). The code still expects to receive the Unformatted value (HBAR or VBAR).
This is one of those little touches that makes your work stand out from others (i.e Rock Star!!). Use it where it makes sense.
Last Tip: Double-check your spelling if you are spell-check-dependent like someone whose post you may be reading. No one wants their output to be a Pig Chat.
Keep your prompts easy to understand to ensure your end users can follow along effortlessly. That’s how you become a Prompt Rockstar!
