Microsoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.
$139.99
per PC
SAS Enterprise Guide
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
SAS Enterprise Guide is a menu-driven, Windows GUI tool for SAS.
Microsoft Access can be easily implemented with training. It doesn't require expert level skill for basic reporting functions - but can be scaled to a complex database with sophisticated users. Its appropriate to consider if excel needs to be used to create reports, or if there are data entry needs - with corresponding reports.
SAS Enterprise Guide is good at taking various datasets and giving analyst/user ability to do some transformations without substantial amounts of code. Once the data is inside SAS, the memory of it is very efficient. Using SAS for data analysis can be helpful. It will give good statistics for you, and it has a robust set of functions that aid analysis.
Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.
Process time of data is a bit long. It depends on the size of your data and complexity of your project tree.
There is not enough online free training videos.
While working with the project tree sometimes the links between the modules are broken or the order for running the modules get mixed up. You should know your project tree by heart.
I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
It's not all bad, but I don't believe that an enterprise purchase of SAS is worth the expense considering the widely available set of tools in the data analytics space at the moment. In my company, it's a good tool because others use it. Otherwise, I wouldn't purchase a new set of it because it doesn't have some of the better analytical functions in it.
While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
Although I use SAS support for information on functions, these are SAS related and haven't really come across anything that is specifically for SAS EG.
I've not worked hands-on with the implementation team, but there were no escalations barring a few hiccups in the deployment due to change in requirement & adoption to our company's remote servers.
Crystal is easier for report writing, but isn't a database solution. Salesforce is lovely, but much more expensive than an old copy of Microsoft Office. For a small budget, [Microsoft] Access was really the only viable option. I only wish it was easier to write complex reports.
Why I prefer SAS EG: Data processing speed is much faster than that R Studio. It can load any amount of data and any type of data like structured or unstructured or semi-structured. Its output delivery system by which we have the output in PDF file makes it very comfortable to use and share that file to clients very easily. Inbuilt functions are very powerful and plentiful. Facility of writing macros makes it far away from its competitors.
Positive (cost): SAS made a bundle that include unlimited usage of SAS/Enterprise Guide with a server solution. That by itself made the company save a lot of money by not having to pay individual licences anymore.
Positive (insight): Data analysts in business units often need to crunch data and they don't have access to ETL tools to do it. Having access to SAS/EG gives them that power.
Positive (time to market): Having the users develop components with SAS/EG allows for easier integration in a production environment (SAS batch job) as no code rework is required.
