When the official statistical body of South Africa, Statistics SA (Stats SA), needed to implement the new SAS 9 Enterprise Intelligence Platform (EIP), the organisation turned to SAS Institute, which assigned one of its partners, Qinfo, to assist. Stats SA took a strategic decision to move its business from PC-based processing and analysis to an enterprise-based solution. A project team consisting of resources from Stats SA and Qinfo was established to do the SAS 9 EIP installation, a pilot migration project from version 8 to version 9 and user training on the new environment and tools.
With metadata management connectivity is established to various data sources, access is controlled, processing is made easier with Enterprise Guide and reporting is revolutionised with the integration of Microsoft Office and SAS9.
Says Ronelle Brandt, from Stats SA: "We have multiple data sources which need to be accessible to calculate statistics and indicators and produce the required reports. Due to the confidentiality of the data, security is of critical importance in our environment."
The project was not without teething pains, and Brandt says initially there was a lack of experienced resources to assist with the implementation in the 64-bit environment. Training was an integral part of the change management of the project, and partner Qinfo combined generic training material with specialised needs.
The main benefits of the new system include connectivity to various data sources, security and ease of use, version control, as well as integration with Microsoft Office. Working with very sensitive information, the organisation is, with effective security built in, able to ensure more easily that only specific and allowed users are able to access data sets. "We produce indicators which are important to the economy; there is simply no room for error, and no room for a security breach. We are very happy with the security built into the system as it allows us to stringently control various data sets and user permissions associated with these," says Brandt.
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