Chapter 12
Using the SAS® Information
Delivery Portal
Section 12.1
Overview of the SAS
Information Delivery Portal
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 SAS Information Delivery Portal has many features,
including the following:
 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.
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SAS Information Delivery Portal
Page
Portlet
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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 – Links
Links are content that are accessible using a universal
resource locator (URL).
Link
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...
Content Types – SAS Information Maps
SAS 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 Reports
SAS Reports are reports that have been stored in the
SAS Report Model format.
SAS Reports
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Content Types – Stored Processes
Stored 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 – Alerts
An 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 – WebDav
Xythos
 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 Classification
The content contained within the pages and portlets can
be classified as one of the following:

Public

Group

Personal.
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Public Content Classification
Public 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 Classification
Group 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 Classification
Personal 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 Servers
The SAS Information Delivery Portal can potentially use
any or all of the following application servers:
SAS Metadata
Server
Read metadata for all repository
objects and write metadata for
some repository objects.
SAS OLAP Server
View multidimensional information
maps and reports.
continued...
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...
Interaction with SAS Application Servers
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SAS Workspace
Server
Publish packages and retrieve
published packages. Execute
stored processes with package
results. View relational information
maps and reports.
Stored Process
Server
Execute stored processes with
streaming results.
...
Section 12.2
Using the SAS
Information Delivery Portal
Using the SAS Information Delivery Portal
The SAS Information Delivery Portal is started from your
browser by entering a specific URL.
On the classroom machines you use:
http://localhost:8080/Portal
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Using the SAS Information
Delivery Portal
This demonstration illustrates some basic
capabilities of the SAS Information Delivery Portal.
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Define
Data Libraries
Create
Stored Processes
Register
Source Tables
View and Analyze
Data
Define
Target Tables
Create
Information Maps
Metadata
Create
ETL Jobs
Create Reports
Create
OLAP Cubes
Use the Information
Delivery Portal