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| Data Controller - 2025 Recap | A recap of the features delivered in Data Controller for SAS over the 34 releases of 2025 | 2025-12-31 12:00:00 | Allan Bowe | https://www.linkedin.com/in/allanbowe/ | ./releases2025.png |
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In 2025, Data Controller’s theme was making governed, auditable data change easier to roll out — especially on SAS Viya — while continuing to invest in metadata/catalog capabilities and accessibility.
What is Data Controller?
Data Controller is a SAS-powered web application for adding, modifying, and deleting data in target tables—while keeping control with data owners via a review/approve workflow and a full audit trail.
Under the hood, it’s designed for multi-user, production-friendly operation (locking, security, approvals, and repeatable update logic), and it supports multiple SAS environments (including SAS 9 and Viya).
2025 at a glance
Across calendar year 2025, releases moved from v6.12.2 (27JAN25) to v7.2.5 (09DEC25).
Key themes:
- Viya deployments became dramatically simpler, including "streaming app" deployment improvements (frontend in SAS Files), sensible defaults, and compute-context-aware setup.
- Data Catalog expanded to include SAS catalogs and associated objects / entries, with corresponding storage changes and migrations.
- Accessibility work accelerated, culminating in high Lighthouse scores, improved screen reader support, and CI checks to keep it that way.
1) Viya: from "deployment project" to "quick start"
A major through-line of 2025 was reducing the friction of getting DC live on SAS Viya:
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Content Security Policy (CSP) hardening & UI refactor
The UI was refactored to comply with Viya’s default (and strict) CSP, with deploy-flow improvements targeted at Viya. -
Better defaults for single-user installs
DC began defaulting the physical deployment path and SAS Drive location in ways that reduce the need for pre-provisioned shared directories in straightforward scenarios. -
Compute-context-aware installs & streaming deploy maturity
Releases in early June focused on ensuring deployment actions happen with the selected shared compute context, and then delivering a streaming Viya version that can self-configure key deployment choices during setup.
2) Extending the Data Catalog: SAS catalogs + objects
On June 11, 2025, v7.0.0 introduced a major upgrade to cataloging:
- Explore SAS catalogs and their objects, including created/modified attributes
- Store catalog + object data alongside existing catalog entities (libraries/tables/variables)
- UX improvements like additional counts and reducing the need for manual refresh steps after table configuration changes
This aligned well with DC’s broader approach to metadata: DC’s optional data + catalog scan is designed to track how your SAS estate changes over time (including storing history using SCD2 patterns).
3) Accessibility + UX: measurable improvements (and staying power)
2025 saw repeated, explicit investment in accessibility:
- v6.14.5: "significantly improves accessibility (lighthouse) scores" and also included a practical SAS hook-related robustness fix (
%GLOBAL SQLRC;) for embedded DI Job usage. - v7.1.0: a frontend-only release focused on accessibility (Lighthouse 100%) and screen reader support, plus a small grid interaction improvement (Excel-like deselection).
- v7.2.0: introduced a Lighthouse accessibility check pipeline to keep accessibility from regressing.
4) Internationalisation + "real world" data correctness
A few 2025 changes were about getting the "last mile" right in global SAS estates:
- Handling national-language datetime formats
- Metadata navigation sorting improvements using linguistic sort sequences
5) A 2025 customer story: AFA Insurance
During 2025 we also detailed the Data Controller use case with AFA Insurance (Sweden). They describe using Data Controller primarily for steering/mapping/control tables, where:
- End users perform the mapping themselves in DC
- Approvals are done directly in production without needing fixed programs
- Filters are used so users focus only on "new signals" that need mapping
They call out the approval workflow and history/audit as standout features, and also mention value from dropdowns, hooks, and lineage.
2025 Release Highlights
We would like to thank all of our customers for their continued support and feedback.
Our mission is for Data Controller to be secure, simple, and fast - when loading ad-hoc data into SAS.
If you'd like to try it out, just go ahead and perform an installation - the base product does not require a paid license.
We're also happy to provide complementary deployment support, just reach out.