SAS AF/SCL Modernisation

About 4GL Apps

We help SAS customers migrate, modernise & manifest SAS Apps using modern tools and a standardised development approach

Success Story #1

Allianz Insurance, UK

Enabled a cloud SAS migration through redevelopment of 400 user AF/SCL application used for Financial Modelling, Reporting, and Claims Triangles

• Team: 1 backend (SAS), 2 Frontend (Angular)
• Duration: 8 months

Success Story #2

Department of Work & Pensions, UK

Modernisation of a 10-user AF/SCL Data Management app used for ingestion, transformation / modelling, and publishing of survey / census data.

• Team: 1.5 backend (SAS), 1.5 Frontend (React + Angular)
• Duration: 6 months

Success Story #3

USDA, USA

Functional Proof of Concept and migration plan (with costings) for two large-scale AF/SCL survey processing systems.

• Team: 2 backend (SAS), 1.5 Frontend (React)
• Duration: 3 months

AF/SCL Apps

AF + SCL
Catalog Centric
Manual Deployment

Web Apps

JS + SAS
GIT / DB Centric
Continuous Integration

Project Concerns #1

Topic	Suffering	Prognosis
Inertia	App worked fine for decades. Why change it?	Vastly superior UX and lower maintenance / upgrade costs
Resource Availability	We're all super busy and the developer quit in 1999.	Code review + carefully planned video interviews for minimal customer impact

Project Concerns #2

Topic	Suffering	Prognosis
Scope Uncertainty	The complexity will cost us and take	Phase 0 estimation + regular (functional) deliveries
House of Cards	Our data is sensitive, our infrastructure is brittle - systems access is difficult to obtain	Deliver offsite with sample data, deploy onsite to new environment

4GL Apps Project Approach

• Setup (Phase 0)
• Delivery (Phase 1-X)
• Aftercare

Project Setup (Phase 0)

• Product Research
  • code/doc review, user interviews
• Environment setup
  • GIT repo, sample data, server
• Plan + Estimates (for rest of project)

Project Delivery (Phase 1-X)

• Regular sprints with functional, deployable software
• Documentation / tests updated continuously
• Daily calls with product champion(s)

Project Aftercare

• Testing & Warranty (X days over X months)
• Training
• Ongoing Support & Maintenance
  • https://sasapps.io/support

Documentation

Continuously delivered - NOT end of project

• User Guide
• Admin Guide
• Developer Guide
• SAS Docs (SASjsDoc)
• JS Docs (TypeDoc)

End Result

A user-friendly, accessible, modern UI

• Will run on both Viya and SAS 9 EBI
• Maintainable by generic frontend / backend developers
• Supportable by the client, or any vendor (not just 4GL Apps)

Tools

• SASjs (DevOps for SAS)
• Data Controller (controlled data ingestion)
  • Resulted in a 30% cost saving (~3 months) on DWP project
• SCL Transcoding Kit (re-use of SCL logic, where necessary)

Resources

• SAS Apps Blog Post
• Easy AF article
• UK SAS Forum presentation
• RawSAS post
• Youtube video