Here is a list of some of the presentations I have given over the years.
| PSI one day neeting on New Developments in the Software for the Pharmaceutical Industry. RSS, London. September 2006 |
A gentle introduction to ODS Statistical Graphics: what they are, how to use them and future plans. |
| PhUSE 2005, Heidelberg. October 2005 |
The ability to use non-proportional fonts in ODS output creates attractive output but increases the complexity of accurate manual pagination by at least an order of magnitude. In this talk, I illustrate why the problem is complex and demonstrate a simple, flexible and reliable solution that is easily integrated into existing workflow. |
| PhUSE 2005, Heidelberg. October 2005 | TS07: Opportunities for efficiency created by the ODS The ODS can greatly simplify the creation of attractive, report-ready output from the SAS System. This talk describes the findings of a feasabilty study into the use of ODS tables in a regulatoiry reporting environment. Colossal savings in coding effort can be achieved. In one case, a program of 14500 lines was reduced to one of seventy. However, these savings may be limited by a rigid adherence to templates defined without reference to ODS functionality. For maxium benefit to the organisation, an entrepreneurial approach from programming managers is required, together with flexibilty from clients from both within the organisation and without. This is essentially a revamped version of my SEUGI 21 presentation. The first half focuses on corporate advantages and the environment that is needed to make the most out of new technologies: and how, in my opinion, most pharma companies fail to maximise the opportunities that new technologies present. The second half is a much more technical examination of how ODS met the challenges it was set in this particular project. |
| PhUSE 2005, Heidelberg. October 2005 | TU03: Using tagsets to provide customised output: a tutorial The ODS is a flexible and reliable method of producing custom output to publication quality. However, using the conventional destinations (RTF, PDF and HTML) some effects and layouts are still difficult or even impossible to achieve. With tagsets, a much greater level of flexibility is achievable. This tutorial will provide a basic introduction to the theory of tagsets and provide some practical guidance on how to go about developing your own tagsets. The example is based on moving TITLE and FOOTNOTE text from the document header to the body of a data table. |
| PSI Computing SIG, Swindon. March 2005 | Practical ODS: What the manual doesn't tell you Tips and tricks picked up over the years: how-to's and time savers, including special characters, identifying style elements, and the public debut of the SRS paginator. |
| SEUGI 21, Vienna. June 2003 | Opportunities for efficiency gains presented by the availability of the Output Delivery System Can the ODS be used in a pharmaceutical reporting environment with existing strict formatting guidelines? Yes, and the savings can be considerable. One example demonstrates a code reduction from 14,500 lines to 70. Not only that, but as a core SAS product, responsibilty for maintenance and troubleshooting passes to SAS Institute, resulting in even greater savings. The ODS isn't perfect, and not all standards can be matched exactly. However, the exceptions are all minor formatting issues. Flexibility from internal standards setters and an entrepreneurial approach from programming managers will ensure an optimum solution for the corporation as a whole. |