SAS Visual Analytics Business Reporting Training Course
| Course code | SD-BI-041 |
|---|---|
| Duration | 5 days |
| Level | Intermediate to Advanced |
| Category | Business Intelligence |
| Delivery | Classroom or live online |
| Language | English |
| Certificate | Certificate of completion |
Course overview
Business teams often receive dashboards that look polished but cannot answer the questions behind a monthly performance review, sales exception, budget variance, or service-level breach. Analysts and report developers need to turn governed organisational data into interactive reports that guide decisions without creating a new spreadsheet version of the truth. This course focuses on building SAS Visual Analytics reports that are accurate, navigable, reusable, and appropriate for executive and operational audiences.
Participants work through the SAS Visual Analytics reporting workflow in SAS Viya: locating and assessing available data, shaping report-ready measures, selecting suitable visualisations, and designing report pages around business questions. They create calculated items and aggregated measures, parameters, prompts, filters, hierarchies, geographic analyses, linked objects, and drill-through interactions. The course also covers forecasting, anomaly and trend interpretation, report distribution considerations, and techniques for testing report logic before publication.
Teaching combines instructor demonstrations with guided builds using realistic sales, operations, and finance reporting scenarios. Each participant develops a multi-page interactive business report with documented measures, user prompts, audience-specific navigation, and validation checks. The final day includes a structured review of report design choices and an application plan for transferring the approach to the participant's own reporting estate. Participants receive a certificate on completion of this five-day classroom or live-online course.
The programme is best suited to experienced business analysts, BI developers, reporting specialists, and data professionals who already work with business data and need stronger SAS Visual Analytics design and delivery capability.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Build multi-page SAS Visual Analytics reports from governed SAS Viya data sources
- Create calculated items, aggregated measures, and category hierarchies for business KPIs
- Configure prompts, parameters, filters, and control objects to support user-led analysis
- Design linked visualisations, report actions, and drill-through paths for operational investigation
- Select and configure charts, tables, geographic objects, and narrative insights for defined business questions
- Interpret forecasting, trends, outliers, and reference lines without overstating analytical findings
- Validate report calculations, filter scope, aggregation behaviour, and audience permissions before publication
- Produce a documented interactive reporting prototype and rollout plan for a workplace use case
Benefits of attending
For you
- Build a portfolio-quality SAS Visual Analytics report that demonstrates end-to-end reporting capability
- Gain confidence defending KPI definitions, aggregation choices, and visual design decisions with stakeholders
- Reduce dependence on manual spreadsheet reporting by creating reusable interactive report patterns
- Develop practical evidence for BI developer, reporting analyst, and SAS Viya-focused roles
- Learn to identify misleading filters, incorrect totals, and poorly scoped interactions before users rely on a report
For your organisation
- Deliver more consistent KPI reporting through governed data sources, documented calculations, and reusable templates
- Reduce manual report production effort by replacing static recurring packs with interactive self-service reports
- Improve management decisions through drill-down paths that expose exceptions, trends, and contributing segments
- Lower reporting risk by testing aggregation logic, filter scope, and user access before publication
- Create a common internal approach to SAS Visual Analytics report design, review, and handover
Target competencies
Who should attend
- Business Intelligence Developers — who build and maintain reports for operational and executive users
- Business Analysts — who translate stakeholder questions into measurable KPIs and interactive reporting requirements
- SAS Programmers — who need to present SAS-managed data through self-service visual reports
- Data Analysts — who need to move from ad hoc analysis to governed, repeatable SAS Viya reporting
- Reporting and MI Analysts — who produce recurring management information and need more effective report interaction
- Analytics Managers — who set reporting standards and review the quality of dashboard and KPI delivery
Requirements and prerequisites
Participants should be comfortable working with business data such as transactions, customers, dates, measures, and categories, and should understand basic reporting concepts including filters, aggregations, KPIs, and chart selection. Prior experience navigating SAS Viya or SAS Visual Analytics is helpful, but participants do not need to be expert report authors. Familiarity with SQL-style concepts such as joins, grouping, and calculated fields will support the data discussions. SAS programming, advanced statistics, Python, R, and prior dashboard design certification are not required. Participants should be prepared to work with a supplied SAS Viya training environment.
Training methodology
The course is delivered through short instructor-led explanations followed by structured builds in SAS Visual Analytics. Participants work with realistic business datasets to create measures, assemble report pages, configure interactions, and test results against stated reporting requirements. Facilitated case discussions compare alternative chart, filter, and navigation choices for executives and operational teams. Daily exercises produce working report components, culminating in a peer-reviewed multi-page report prototype and a practical application plan identifying data, stakeholders, controls, and first implementation steps.
Course outline
Day 1: SAS Visual Analytics reporting foundations
- SAS Viya and SAS Visual Analytics architecture for governed reporting
- Navigating the report designer, data pane, and object pane
- Assessing data source structure, metadata, formats, and missing values
- Defining business questions, audiences, and report success criteria
- Selecting report pages, layouts, and navigation patterns
- Using tables, bar charts, line charts, and crosstabs appropriately
- Applying basic object-level and page-level filters
Workshop: Build a first management performance report page from a supplied sales dataset and produce a documented audience-and-KPI design brief.
Day 2: Measures, calculations, and controlled analysis
- Creating calculated items with conditional expressions and date logic
- Building aggregated measures and understanding aggregation scope
- Using distinct counts, ratios, percentages, and period comparisons
- Creating hierarchies for drill-down across product, geography, and time
- Configuring parameters for scenario-based calculations
- Designing prompts and drop-down controls for report consumers
- Testing totals, null handling, and calculation precedence
Workshop: Create a margin and revenue KPI layer with user-selectable period and scenario parameters, then reconcile key totals to a control table.
Day 3: Interactive visual reporting and investigation
- Configuring interactions between source and target objects
- Using linked selections, brushing, and automatic filtering
- Creating report actions and drill-through navigation paths
- Designing detail tables for exception investigation
- Using geographic maps and custom geographic data roles
- Applying conditional display rules and data-driven alerts
- Balancing executive summary pages with operational detail pages
Workshop: Develop an interactive regional performance report that lets users isolate underperforming areas and drill to product-level exceptions.
Day 4: Advanced analytics objects and report quality
- Applying time-series plots, reference lines, and confidence-aware interpretation
- Using forecast objects and reviewing forecast assumptions
- Identifying outliers, trends, and seasonal patterns in report visuals
- Configuring network, correlation, and decision-tree objects where appropriate
- Writing explanatory text, dynamic values, and data-driven narrative elements
- Applying visual design standards for accessibility and executive readability
- Validating filters, interactions, calculation results, and performance
Workshop: Add forecast and exception-analysis components to an operations report and complete a structured quality-assurance checklist.
Day 5: Publication, governance, and workplace application
- Preparing reports for sharing in the SAS Viya environment
- Understanding report access, data permissions, and governed distribution
- Designing reusable report templates and shared object conventions
- Documenting KPI definitions, data lineage, and calculation assumptions
- Managing report change requests and stakeholder sign-off
- Reviewing report performance and reducing unnecessary object complexity
- Planning a phased rollout from prototype to production reporting
Workshop: Complete and present a multi-page SAS Visual Analytics business report, including a KPI definition sheet, QA evidence, and a 30-day implementation plan.
Tools & standards covered
SAS Visual Analytics, SAS Viya, SAS Information Catalog, SQL
A typical training day
| 08:30 – 10:30 | First session |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Refreshment break |
| 10:45 – 12:30 | Second session |
| 12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch and networking |
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Third session |
| 15:00 – 15:15 | Refreshment break |
| 15:15 – 16:30 | Workshop and daily review |
Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.
What the fee includes
- Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
- Full course workbook and materials
- Exercise files, templates and case studies
- Certificate of completion
- Refreshments and lunch (classroom deliveries)
- Post-course application plan
- Facilitator follow-up on request
- Group rates from five participants
How you can take this course
Classroom
Scheduled sessions in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Dubai and Cape Town.
Live online
The same facilitator and materials, delivered live for distributed teams and individuals.
In-house
Delivered privately for your team, at your offices or a venue of your choice, tailored to your context. Request a proposal.
Certification
Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.
Frequently asked questions
Upcoming sessions
New dates are being scheduled. Ask us about the next session or an in-house delivery for your team.
Ask about datesGroup of 5+?
Request in-house delivery or group rates →Related courses in Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence Fundamentals and Reporting Training Course
Business intelligence teams are often asked to turn disconnected operational data into reports that managers can trust and act on. The chall…
IBM Cognos Analytics Reporting and Dashboard Design Training Course
Business users and managers need reporting that answers operational questions without creating conflicting versions of revenue, service, wor…
Kimball Dimensional Modelling for Business Intelligence Training Course
Business intelligence teams often inherit reporting environments built around source-system tables, inconsistent definitions and dashboards …
Google Looker Studio Performance Dashboard Training Course
Business teams often receive reports that look polished but cannot answer the operational questions behind revenue, cost, service, marketing…