Microsoft Office files, importing

PROC IMPORT and the Import Wizard 44 SAS DATA Step 52 SAS Enterprise Guide 53 Importing Microsoft Office Files 56 LIBNAME Statement 58 Import Wizard and PROC IMPORT 59 SAS/ACCESS SQL Pass-Through Facility 64 SAS Enterprise Guide 65 Importing XML 68... 

Once the raw clinical data have been imported into SAS, the next step is to transform those raw data into more useful analysis-ready data. Raw data here mean data that have been imported without manipulation into SAS from another data source. That data source is likely to be a clinical data management system, but it could also be external laboratory data, IVRS data, data found in Microsoft Office files, or CDISC model data serving as the raw data. These raw data as they exist are often not ready for analysis. There may be additional variables that need to be defined, and the data may not be structured in a way that is required for a particular SAS analysis procedure. So once the raw data have been brought into SAS, they usually require some kind of transformation into analysis-ready files, which this chapter will discuss. 

Because Microsoft Office is so widely used, it is sometimes necessary for you to import data directly from Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. Excel files make for a poor database, however. First, Excel files are almost guaranteed to come from a system that is not compliant with CFR 21 - Part 11. Second, it is often the case that the Excel files were created in such a way that the data are not WYSIWYG ( what you see is what you get ). In other words, each cell in Excel could be entered with a different Excel format, which you would not see until you either reformat an entire column in Excel or try to have some other software like SAS read the contents of the Excel file. For these reasons, it is best not to accept Microsoft Excel data as a data source for clinical trials if at all possible. 

For the Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, a file format from an earlier version of Excel before Microsoft Office 97 was used, if possible. This was done to provide maximum import capability for Excel users since the more recent versions can read earlier versions. Unfortunately, some of the features used were not supported by the earlier Excel versions, necessitating moving forward to a more recent version. Thus, the actual file version might vary from example to example depending on features supported. 

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