Importing Projects from SAS Forecast Server

Importing a Single FAR File

These steps are for importing archive projects that have been exported using SAS Forecast Project Manager.

1. From the Projects page in SAS Model Studio, click the menu icon () over the right side of the project list and select ImportForecasting.

   The Import Forecasting Project window is displayed.

2. For the File (zip or far) field, click Browse to provide the file name of the project archive (FAR file) from SAS Forecast Server to be uploaded.
3. Choose between the following options.
   • For the Data field, click Browse to provide the location on the target server where the source data for the project is located.
   • If you do not select a data source for the project, the source data is imported from the FAR file. The input data from the FAR file is the accumulated time seriesan aggregation of transactional data into specified time intervals and sorted according to unique combinations of the default attributes (BY variables) data from the project archive and not the data that was used for original project creation.
4. For the Library field, click Browse to specify the caslib where you want to import the input data set from the project archive. If you do not specify a caslib, the default caslib that is displayed is used.
5. For Location, the folder that was most recently selected is shown, or My Folder if a folder has never been selected. The drop-down list includes My Folder and up to five of the most recently selected folders, if any.

   You have two options.

   • Choose the current selection or one of the drop-down options for storing the project.
   • Click Browse. The Choose a Location window opens for you to choose a different folder to store the project.

     To create a new folder, select My Folder on the left and then click in the upper right corner.

     Select the folder to store the project and click OK to return to the Import Forecasting Project window.

     Note: Many of the folders listed on the left side of the Choose a Location window can be selected but should be avoided. Selecting these folders makes the project visible to other users but does not grant access to all resources used within the project to the other users. This can unintentionally make the project available for other users. It can also lead to errors encountered when other users open and attempt to edit your project. For best results, use either My Folder or a folder that you or your system administrator has created for your use.
6. Click Import to complete the process. The following message is displayed.

   The import process has started. You will be notified when the import is complete.

7. When the import is completed, the project appears in the project page. Before you open the project, follow the instructions in Viewing the Migration Report to learn the details about the migration.
8. After reviewing the migration report, open the project.
9. In the right pane, review the settings for the dependent and independent variables and make any adjustments as needed.

   When importing projects from SAS Forecast Server, the following hierarchy aggregation and time accumulationeither of two processes that are used to convert a time series. (1) Accumulation converts a time series that has no fixed interval into a time series that does have a fixed interval (such as hourly or monthly). (2) Accumulation converts a time series that has a fixed interval into a time series with a lower frequency time interval (such as hourly into daily). Accumulation combines data within the same time interval into a summary value for that time period. values are not supported. The imported project sets these values to Sum of values.

   • Median
   • First Occurrence
   • Last Occurrence
   • Number of Observations
   • None
10. Run the pipeline for the project.

    If you have imported any overrides, they must be resubmitted after the pipeline completes.

See Also

• Importing Project from SAS Forecast Server Fails with Conflict Message
• Project Is Not Created After Importing a FAR File

Creating Multiple Project Archives from SAS Forecast Studio

If you have many projects that need to be imported from SAS Forecast Studio to SAS Visual Forecasting, use SAS Content Assessment to export all of the projects to the FAR file format. This application must be run by the account that was used to install and configure SAS software (Installer user account) on the SAS 9.4 system. For more information about this package, see Understanding Content Assessment in SAS Content Assessment.

After you have downloaded and extracted the latest SAS Content Assessment to the SAS 9.4 system, you can use these general steps to export all of the SAS Forecast Server projects.

1. In the /assessment directory where the SAS Content Assessment is extracted, edit the setenv.yaml file and specify the SASHome path.
2. Edit the metaparms.sas file and specify the SAS Metadata Server connection details and encryption password.
3. Run the following command to generate the contentToBeProfiled.yaml file.

   .\profileContent.exe --generate-content-list

   The contentToBeProfiled.yaml file lists each type of SAS object to be profiled. For more information about the profileContent command, see Executing the Profile Application in SAS Content Assessment.

4. You can edit the contentToBeProfiled.yaml file to remove any SAS objects that you do not want to be profiled. Make sure that Forecast Server Projects remains in the file when you save it.
5. Run the following command.

   .\profileContent.exe --use-content-list

   All of the SAS objects are saved to the /assessment/datamart/profile/metadatalabel_value directory. The SAS Forecast Server projects are located in fs_projects.sas7bdat.

   Note: This command can be run multiple times for different deployments identified by the METADATALABEL in metaparms.sas. The METADATALABEL value is used as a directory name in the output path.

   See metaparms.sas in SAS Content Assessment for more information.

6. Run the following command.

   .\publishAssessedContent.exe --datamart-type profile

   This aggregates and publishes your data marts. Publishing is a required process for all SAS Content Assessment actions. Resulting data sets are tagged to indicate what deployment they are associated with.

   For more information about the publishAssessedContent command, see Executing the Publish Application in SAS Content Assessment.

7. Use a browser to log in to the SAS Viya 4 platform.
8. Click in the upper left corner and select Manage Environment. This opens SAS Environment Manager.
9. Click in the left column and import the fs_projects.sas7bdat file from the /assessment/datamart/profile folder. For more information, see Making Data Available to CAS in SAS Data Explorer: User's Guide.
10. Click in the left column and import the SAS_9_CA_Profile_for_SAS_Forecast_Server.json file from the /assessment/packages/profile/ folder. The content is imported to the Public folder by default. See Import Page in SAS Environment Manager: User's Guide for more information.
11. Open the report in SAS Visual Analytics and select the Projects tab. The SAS Forecast Server projects are listed.
12. Select the projects that you want to export from the filters on the left.
    
13. Click and select ExportData.

    The Export Data window is displayed.

14. For File type, select Comma separated values (*csv). Leave all of the columns selected and make sure Detailed data is not selected.
15. Click Export. You are prompted to specify the location on the local drive and the name of the CSV file to be saved.
16. Edit metaparms.sas file and change the user to the Forecast Server: Administrator account.
17. Run the following command, specifying the location and name of the CSV file.

    .\createFARPackages.exe --source-file filename.csv.

    Note: This command cannot be run if any of the other content assessment commands are processing.

The FAR files are created and saved to /assessment/FARPackages.

/assessment/FARPackages/Production/Default

See Also

• Executing the Create FAR Packages Application in SAS Content Assessment
• SAS 9 Content Assessment

Batch Import of Project Archives from SAS Forecast Server

The SAS Viya platform provides a command-line interface (CLI) to batch import all of the projects that you have exported from SAS Forecast Server,

To perform this task, you need to download and extract the SAS Content Assessment tool and the SAS Viya CLI. The SAS Viya CLI used in these steps is supported only for Windows and Linux.

• SAS Viya CLI
• SAS 9 Content Assessment

Before you start this task, you need to determine the location of the trusted certificate. Contact the SAS administrator if you need any assistance. For more information about the trusted certificate, see Provide the Path to Your Bundle of Trusted CA Certificates in SAS Viya Platform: Using the Command-Line Interface.

After you have followed the steps in Creating Multiple Project Archives from SAS Forecast Studio, you can import all of the projects to the SAS Viya platform using these instructions.

1. Navigate to the directory where the SAS Viya CLI is extracted and install the visual-forecasting plug-in.

   sas-viya.exe plugins install --repo SAS visual-forecasting

2. In the /migration directory where the SAS Content Assessment is extracted, issue this command:

   importFARPackages.exe --create-profile --sas-viya-path path_to_sas-viya.exe

        --source-location ../assessment/FARPackages 

        --destination-caslib MyCaslib 
   

        --destination-cas-server cas-shared-default

   The --source-location argument is required to specify the location of the project archives exported from SAS Forecast Server, after following the steps in Creating Multiple Project Archives from SAS Forecast Studio.

   As an alternative, you can specify a CSV file for the source location. The CSV file must contain the source location of the project archives and optional values for the destination caslib and CAS server. The CSV file has a three-column format. The column names are case insensitive and are shown in the first line in this example.

   location,caslib,CAS server
   ..\migration\far-files\Multiple_CityDay.far,Public,cas-shared-default
   ..\migration\far-files\Sales.far,MyCaslib,cas-shared-default
   ..\migration\far-files\PriceData_Shared.far,MyCaslib,cas-shared-default

   The CSV can be used when you need to import multiple FAR files in batch but specify different caslibs and CAS servers for the input data set for each project. The example above shows how to import three FAR files, two of them using a separate caslib (MyCaslib). The input data set for all three projects are set to use the same CAS server.

   The optional arguments are described below. The values for these arguments are used if they are not specified in the CSV. If a different value is specified in the CSV, then that value overrides the specification from the command line.

   --destination-caslib

   optional argument that specifies the destination caslib for the input data set to if you do not want it to be saved in the default caslib.

   --destination-cas-server

   optional argument that specifies the destination CAS server for the input data set if you do not want it to be saved to the default server.

   After this command is issued, a series of messages follow that detail the processing of this command.

3. When prompted to Enter the Service Endpoint:, enter the endpoint name for your deployment for the SAS Viya platform, for example:

   https://production.example.com

   You are prompted to enter the fully qualified path to the trusted certificate for the deployment.

4. When prompted, enter the fully qualified path to the trusted certificate for the deployment.
5. When prompted to enter the credentials for this host, enter the user ID and password for your deployment of the SAS Viya platform.

   The remaining messages indicate the number of FAR files that are being imported and lists each file individually as they are imported.

Log in to SAS Model Studio to view the projects that have been imported. See Viewing the Migration Report to determine the results of the import for any of these projects.

See Also

• Project Is Not Created After Importing a FAR File

Importing a Single Project Archive from SAS Forecast Server

After using SAS Content Assessment to create FAR files to import from SAS Forecast Server, you can selectively import single FAR files rather than importing all of them at once. Use the visual-forecasting plug-in for the SAS Viya CLI to import individual FAR files.

1. Navigate to the directory where the SAS Viya CLI is extracted.
2. Install the visual-forecasting plug-in.

   sas-viya.exe plugins install --repo SAS visual-forecasting

3. Create a profile for the environment that you want to use, for example:

   sas-viya.exe profile init --sas-endpoint https://production.example.com --colors-enabled --output json

   For more information, see Command-Line Interface: Instructions when Downloading the CLI in SAS Viya Platform: Using the Command-Line Interface.

4. Run this command to log in to the SAS Viya CLI.

   sas-viya.exe auth login --user username --password password
   

5. Run this command to import a single FAR file from the /assessment folder in the SAS Content Assessment path.

   sas-viya.exe visual-forecasting import --file  path_to_FAR_file 
        --dc MyCaslib --ds cas-shared-default
   

   These arguments are optional:

   • --dc specifies the caslib to import the input data set if you do not want it to be saved in the default caslib.
   • --ds specifies the CAS server to save the input data set to.

See Also

• Project Is Not Created After Importing a FAR File
• Provide the Path to Your Bundle of Trusted CA Certificates

Viewing the Migration Report

When the migration of a SAS Forecast Server project is complete, the project tile is displayed on the Projects page in SAS Model Studio. The success of the project migration is shown by these indicators on the project tiles.

• — the project has migrated successfully to SAS Visual Forecasting. There might still be some components that did not migrate. Check the migration report for more information.
• — The project could not be migrated. You can check the migration report to determine why the project was not migrated. You might be able to make changes to the project in SAS Forecast Studio to enable the next migration to be successful.

  After the import of a project fails, the project shows on the page. If you switch to Table view, the data source for the project is displayed as -.-.

Follow these steps to open the migration report for a project.

1. Navigate to the Projects page in SAS Model Studio. Projects that have been migrated from SAS Forecast Server have this indication on their tile: .
2. Right-click the project and select View reportsMigration reports.

   This opens the Migration Report window.

   • If the migration was partially or completely successful, the window shows metadata about the project, including the date on which the project was migrated, the FAR file name, and the user name for the person that migrated the project.
     Note: Notice the Shared with field. If the project was shared in SAS Forecast Studio, it is now labeled Private in the report. You need to re-create the permissions for the project. See Sharing Projects for complete instructions.

     The left side of the window lists the components of the project. Beside each component is one of these status icons:

     • — The component was partially migrated.

       It is common to see this icon with filters that are skipped. Some filters are skipped because they were created internally by SAS Forecast Server and are not used by SAS Visual Forecasting.

     • — The component was not migrated. Select this component to download the log and collect more details about the problem.
     • — The component was successfully migrated.
   • If the migration was not successful, the window provides a link to download the log.
3. Click the tabs to view detailed information about each component. Use these tools for viewing the migration logs.
   • — Downloads the log for either the component or the full migration report
   • — Displays the component log in the window