Installing R from Expert Analytics

Overview

Expert Analytics (EA) allows users to install R and required pacakages with one click of a button but users may already have R installed and only need the additional packages to work with EA.

This simple step by step guide will help you download and install R manually if you want to manage this process yourself or show you how to get EA do it for you. It’ll also show you how to use packages that are not installed in the default folder.

Steps to Follow

1) Download R installer manually

- Get the installer directly from the R site.  http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/

- There is a link on the download site to previous installers, it will bring you to http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/old/

- For the current version of R supported by EA, version 3.1.0, you can get it from http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/old/3.1.0/

2) Copy R installer to RUNR folder

- Copy the EXE file for the R installer (e.g. R-3.1.0-win.exe) to the folder %TEMP%\sapvi\RUNR

3) Modify DownloadR.bat

- The DownloadR.bat file is called by the EA application in order to download the installer for R. Modify it so that it does not download the installer for R.

- Search for DownloadR.bat in your installation directory. If you are using a 64bit install then choose the file that exists in the R64 folder, otherwise choose the one that is in the R32 folder.

- Typically, the file is located here C:\Program Files\SAP Predictive Analysis\Desktop\plugins\com.sap.pa.runtime.config_1.18.0.201407211912-1096\resources\R64\DownloadR.bat

- Comment out line "IF EXIST %TEMP%\sapvi\RUNR\R-3.1.0-win.exe del %TEMP%\sapvi\RUNR\R-3.1.0-win.exe" and save the file (note: in later versions of the product this R-3.1.0 will be different)

4) Open PA

- Open PA and select the menu option for "Install and Configure R"

5) Install R through EA

- Follow the normal process to install R from EA by clicking on the "Install R" button (see image below)

- Instead of downloading the installer for R the product will use the installer you copied into %TEMP%\sapvi\RUNR

- Once R is installed additional packages required by EA will be automatically download.

6) Wait for Success

If you get a dialog like below popping then the install has worked successfully, phew!