Data analysis and data visualization is the primary service available. The tool is interesting to learn and quickly apply to the data. They provide training also on how to use the tool. They also provide consultancy services as per needs of the client. The service is very quick and has good support.
For writing out longer code creation for shaping data on complicated reports, the clean UI is helpful. If exploring data though, SAS Studio would be better suited given its easier interface for GUI graph building.
I would like to see advance interactions with external databases to be able to kill ongoing queries from SAS. As of now, you can stop pretty much any ongoing process besides the one running on a remote database (killing SAS/EG doesn't stop the remote process)
When creating prompts for programs, it would be nice to be able to have conditional prompts (based on the selection of other prompts). The prompts are clearly a recent feature and constantly under development but I wish it would be more powerful.
More of a SAS metadata issue but when loading SAS/EG (first connection to the server), it takes a few seconds which feels like a long time. I really don't understand why the initialization of the session can take so long. Don't get me wrong, this has no real impact on productivity but that 10s delay just feels really like eternity when you want to run some code in a new session.
It's not all bad, but I don't believe that an enterprise purchase of SAS is worth the expense considering the widely available set of tools in the data analytics space at the moment. In my company, it's a good tool because others use it. Otherwise, I wouldn't purchase a new set of it because it doesn't have some of the better analytical functions in it.
Although I use SAS support for information on functions, these are SAS related and haven't really come across anything that is specifically for SAS EG.
I've not worked hands-on with the implementation team, but there were no escalations barring a few hiccups in the deployment due to change in requirement & adoption to our company's remote servers.
I have not used other products because I am satisfied with Analytica's services. I can say it is very easy and the best tool for data analysis and data visualization. Their support service is also quick and good. They provide training and also consultancy services for their tools. Hence it is becoming more popular.
Python-based platforms like Pandas or Spark are very good too at displaying data and do exploratory analysis. I definitely prefer them to SAS EG. It's just too slow, and doesn't let you peek into the data very easily. Lots of clicking, and I'd rather just write some code, rather do clicking.
