Zencos Team Presents Papers at the 2017 SESUG Conference

The Zencos team is presenting multiple papers at the SouthEastern SAS User’s Group (SESUG) in November. The conference is celebrating their 25th year by having the event at the SAS Campus in Cary, NC. You can register for the event until November 7, 2017.

The papers submitted this year are focused around using SAS Viya, SAS Visual Analytics, and machine learning techniques. But our knowledge base is much wider so we are also explaining how to administer a SAS Visual Analytics deployment and even a hands-on workshop for PROC DS2. The Zencos Data Science team welcomed several new members this summer from the NC State Advanced Analytics program.

Here’s the abstracts from our papers. If you see us at the conference, please introduce yourself!

Using the Force of Python and SAS Viya on Star Wars Fan Posts

Presenter: Grace Heyne 

The wealth of information available on the internet includes useful and interesting data, and it is easy to gather using the connection between SAS Viya and Python. Since the announcement at SAS Global Forum 2016 that SAS Viya supports running CAS actions within Python, SAS programmers have been exploring the many ways that SAS works well with Python. With easy transitions between the Python language and SAS, this connection allows programmers to use the best of both languages to build more powerful tools for data analysis. This paper includes specific examples of ways to use both SAS and Python together in Jupyter notebooks to leverage Pythons data collection, cleaning and management tools along with gathering data from the web and perform necessary transformations to prepare and analyze the data.

Churn the data around. A machine learning approach to understanding why customers leave

Presenter:  Sean Ankenbruck 

Customer attrition is a common problem that affects companies across a variety of industries. Companies value profitable customers that are consistent and engage in long-term interactions that contribute to a high customer lifetime value. Identifying and understanding the factors that influence customer churn allows companies to gain a competitive advantage. This paper discusses a data-driven approach to identify important factors that influence churn and classify individuals based on their predicted likelihood to churn. It will also provide a visual analysis of churn rates across various customer groups. The entire process is accomplished using SAS tools such as SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning.

From Words to Actions: Using Text Analytics to Drive Business Decisions

Presenter:  Reid Baughman 

Companies from a variety of industries collect free–form text data that can be used to identify new patterns and relationships. Because unstructured text data does not fit the standard row and column format, it can be more difficult to analyze and utilize. This growing array of data has the potential of yielding new insights for companies seeking to better understand customers and gain an edge relative to competitors. By transforming free-form text data into a structure that can be analyzed and visualized, analysts can use supervised and unsupervised data mining techniques to shed new light on old business problems or develop fresh insights. Call center transcripts, medical records, practitioner’s notes, survey responses, or any free–form response fields can all hold valuable insights for any organization This paper will outline an example of how to manage and transform free–form text data, apply advanced analytical methods to extract useful patterns, and develop actionable insights.

Wait, I don’t want to be the Linux Administrator for SAS Visual Analytics!

Presenter:  Jonathan Boase 

Whether you are a new SAS administrator or switching to Linux an environment, you have a complex mission. This job becomes even more formidable when you are working with a system like SAS Visual Analytics that requires multiple users loading data daily. Eventually, a user will have data issues or create a disruption that causes the system to malfunction. When that happens, what do you do next? In this paper, we will go through the basics of a SAS Visual Analytics Linux environment and how to troubleshoot the system when issues arise. 

SAS Visual Analytics Tricks We Learned from Reading 100s of SAS Community Posts

Presenter:  Tricia Aanderud 

After you know the basics of SAS Visual Analytics, you realize there are some situations that require unique strategies. Sometimes tables are not structured right or become too large for the environment. Maybe creating the right custom calculation for a dashboard can be confusing. Geospatial data is hard to work with if you haven’t ever used it before. We looked through 100s of SAS Communities posts for the most common questions. These solutions  (and a few extras) were extracted from the newly released Introduction to SAS Visual Analytics book.

You as a Brand: Tips for Managing Your Data Career

Presenter:  Tricia Aanderud 

Yes! You are a brand. The branding you advertise to the target market (your manager and colleagues) is very similar and just as important as the branding that goes into a product or company. All brands require management to be successful. During this talk, we will review how you establish your brand, using social media to promote your brand, and simple ways you can maintain your brand. You will walk away with some strategies you can implement immediately.

Hands-On Workshop: Hello World! – Getting Started with the SAS DS2 Language

Presenter:  Jonathan Boase, Tricia Aanderud 

DS2 is an object-oriented programming language that is used for advanced data manipulation and data modeling applications. DS2 features extend the DATA step capabilities by adding variable scoping, user-defined methods, ANSI SQL data types, and user-defined packages.   In this Hands–On Workshop, you’ll write some DS2 programs to familiarize yourself with the language. You’ll have some ideas of ways to upgrade or expand your existing code when you return to the office.