SAS® Viya® for Learners FAQs

Last Updated: June 20, 2019

1. Which SAS® Viya® based products are available?

SAS® Viya® for Learners offers the following products:
▪ SAS Visual Analytics
▪ SAS Visual Statistics
▪ SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning
▪ SAS Visual Forecasting
▪ SAS Visual Text Analytics
▪ SAS Econometrics
▪ SAS Optimization
▪ SAS Data Preparation
▪ SAS Data Quality
▪ Jupyter Notebook for SAS, R, Python
▪ SAS® Studio
▪ SAS® Model Manager
Important Note: Not all products will be required for your course. The latest SAS products are
included to support you in your continued education.
2. Which browser should I use?
For best performance, Chrome is the preferred browser, followed by Firefox and Safari
3. How Do I Edit a Report?
Click in the upper right hand of the Report.
4. How Do I Create My Own Report?
In the upper left-hand corner click and Choose "Explore and Visualize Data".
5. Can I upload my own data? If yes, what type of data and how much?
Data upload is not permitted at this time.
6. Is there sample data I can use?
In the upper left-hand corner click and Choose "Manage Data" and then Select Data Sources. Expand
cas-shared-default and then expand Public or Samples to reach sample data sets.
7. How long are my files and data I copied over to my user folder kept on SAS Viya for Learners?
Your SAS Viya for Learners reservation is specified in the course created by the academic institution
or up to one year. If you are not active for 30 days your data will be permanently deleted and will
not be able to be retrieved. After your section end date (set on SAS Viya for Learners by your
 educator) you will no longer have a course avaialble to select and thereby not be able to access any
software on SAS Viya for Learners.
8. Can I extend my access?
The course owner/creator (your educator) and designated admin (Teacher Assistant) will be able to
extend the expiration date of the course which will in turn extend the student access.
9. What if I have technical difficulties?
Email: If you are experiencing technical difficulties, go to the Help icon and select email. If technical
difficulties prevent you from using the SAS Viya for Learners toolbar menu, send an email to
sasviyaforlearners@sas.com . Please provide as much detail as possible, i.e. url in the address bar of
the screen from which you are having a challenge, within the email so that the technical support
team member can quickly route to the right expert to assist you through to resolution. Chat: Go to
the chat icon to contact our US Customer Contact Center, available during US business hours
(Monday-Thursday from 9am to 8pm and Fridays from 9am to 5pm).
10. What if I have product-specific questions?
If you have product-specific questions, go to the Getting Started icon and select the product of
interest and watch video content or access documentation. In addition, go to Help and Support icon
to check out the product Community. There you can ask questions and get help from a large
community of SAS users.
11. What if I am an Educator and need help developing my course content?
Request curriculum consulting services. Contact a SAS Academic Outreach Program consultant. Gain
Expert advice, free teaching materials, and educator workshops.

https://www.sas.com/en_us/learn/academic-programs/resources/curriculum-consulting.html
For verified Educators only, SAS Viya for learners also includes the course notes for 8 SAS courses.
Teach and learn from the same course content provided to our top global customers.
12. What if I want to learn beyond what I am learning or teaching in my course?
Click the Learn More icon to access web tutorials and options for e-learning.
13. What interfaces are avaialble in SAS Viya for Learners?
Click the icons for SAS Studio or Jupyter to program in SAS, R and Python or leverage SAS extensive
visualization point and click interfaces in SAS Viya.
14. When can I access SAS Viya for Learners?
a. As long as you have an account, educators and professors can access VFL any time (not just
during the days/time the professor sets in course creation).
15. How do I access Sample and SAS Course data?
a. The course data can be found under a folder ‘Courses’: (SAS Content > Courses)
b. The Sample data can be found under ‘Samples’: (SAS Content > Products> SAS Visual
Analytics > Samples)
16. How long is my data kept on SAS Viya for Learners?
a. Your SAS Viya for Learners reservation is specified in the course created by the Educator.
 b. If you are not active for 30 days or your course has ended, your data may be permanently
deleted and may not be able to be retrieved.
17. Can I extend my reservation?
a. The course owner or creator will be able to extend the expiration date of the course, which
will in turn extend the student access.
18. What happens if I am inactive for 30 days or my section end date is reached?
a. If you are not active for 30 days your data may be removed.
b. If your Educator has not extended the section end date, you will not be able to access any of
the SAS Viya for Learners software.
19. Where do I save my work?
a. SAS Studio or Jupyter: File (Home)
b. Viya: Data: SAS Content > My folder\Users; Reports: SAS Content > My folder
20. To write to your home directory from a SAS program:
a. %let homedir=%sysget(HOME); %put &homedir;
21. Can I use SAS Viya for Learners to teach courses outside of my academic institution?
a. No. SAS Viya for Learners is for Academic institution learning only.
22. How do I assign a libname to a directory in SAS Viya for Learners?
a. The only directory available to assign a CASLIB to is /shared/<USERID>/.
b. By default, the casuser’s libname gets assigned to shared/<USERID>/casuser.
23. As an Educator What is the difference between the SAS Courses I select when creating a section?
a. The only difference that your students will see is the starting point of the course. The data
and software available to them is the same for all selected SAS Courses. There are three (3)
interface options in SAS Viya for Learners, Jupyter, SAS Drive and SAS Studio. The chart
below indicates by SAS Course which of the 3 interfaces your student will have as their
starting point. Important to note, once they start, they can easily switch between interfaces
using the orange navigator bar.
b. The starting point per SAS Course selected is:
COURSE NAME INTERFACE
STUDIO 4 SAS Drive JUPYTER
Data Management: Self-Service Data Preparation X
on SAS Viya (DIDP22)
Programming: Programming for SAS Viya X
(PGVY34)
Visualization: SAS Visual Analytics 1 for SAS Viya: X
Basics (YVA183)
Analytics: SAS Visual Statistics on SAS Viya: X
Interactive Model Building (SVSO83)
 Analytics: SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine X
Learning on SAS Viya: Interactive Machine
Learning (VDMO83)
Analytics: Supervised Machine Learning X
Procedures Using SAS® Viya® in SAS® Studio
Analytics: Supervised Machine Learning Pipelines X
Using SAS Viya (CPML83)
Open Source Course- SAS Viya and Open Source X* X
Integration with R and Python: (EVMLOPR)

24. What are CAS Actions and how do I use them?

a. Page discussing CAS:
https://developer.sas.com/apis/cas/actions.html

b. CAS Actions:
https://go.documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmcdc&cdcVersion=8.11&docsetId=allprod
sactions&docsetTarget=titlepage.htm&locale=en

c. CAS Actions by Action Set:

https://go.documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmcdc&cdcVersion=8.11&docsetId=allprod
sactions&docsetTarget=actionSetsByName.htm&locale=en