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The feed post had grown to 800 words and retold everything the blog article already covers. Feed is for short announcements, so this is now 180 words: the request every reporting team makes, the computed-against-locked marking, one line on why a derived column can be filtered, then a link to the article and the docs. The inline screenshot goes with the detail, leaving the cover.
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title, description, date, author, authorLink, tags, previewImg
| title | description | date | author | authorLink | tags | previewImg | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The column that is not in the table | Derived variables give the EDIT screen columns that do not exist in the table - computed on every read, never stored, and filterable like any other column. The full story is in the article. | 2026-10-27 09:00:00 | Data Controller | https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/data-controller-for-sas |
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./derived-fx.png |
The column that is not in the table
Every reporting team has a version of this request, and it always sounds like a five minute job: "can we have a region column? It is just the state, mapped. And a line value - quantity times price. We do not need it stored, we just need it on the screen."
It is never a five minute job - so Data Controller now does the obvious thing instead. You write the expression, and the EDIT screen shows the column: computed on every read, never stored, marked fx and read-only, so nobody has to wonder whether it is locked or simply has nothing to edit.
The part that took the thinking is that they filter like any other column. That needed a DATA step view rather than a data step, and the reasoning is worth reading: Derived variables: computed columns you can filter on.
Ships with the next release. Reference: Derived Variables.
If a table of yours has been waiting for "just one more column", we would love to hear from you.