Sapling SAP
Get started

The first ten minutes

The walkthrough on paper: the sample study, a first plan, three decisions, a proposal, the PDF and Word, in ten minutes with no AI, R or command line.

You need VS Code (version 1.85 or newer) or Positron, and the Sapling extension. You do not need an AI, R, SAS, Node.js or the command line. Quarto (free) is only for the PDF. Check at any time with Sapling: Check What Sapling Needs. What stays on your computer and what an AI would be sent: docs/data-and-ai.md.

The same steps are in Help → Get Started → Sapling: the first ten minutes.

  1. Open the sample study. Run Sapling: Open the Sample Study, choose a folder. A folder sapling-sample-study appears and opens. It is SYNHTN01, a made-up hypertension trial: a protocol written by the Sapling authors and dummy data (30 subjects per arm). Nothing is real or belongs to anyone.
  2. Make the first plan. Run Sapling: New SAP from Protocol (USDM)… and press Enter at the one question. sap.qmd opens as a page.
  3. Read the page. The yellow cards are the open decisions: where the protocol is silent and you must choose. The bar at the top counts them.
  4. Answer three decisions. Run Sapling: Work Through the Open Decisions. Read the question and the protocol sentence, pick an option, press Decide and write what follows. Do three. Your name and today's date are recorded.
  5. Accept a proposal. Run Sapling: What Is Missing (proposals from templates), open the Sapling panel (the sprout in the side bar), tab Inbox. Press Show, then Accept on a card. ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z) takes it back.
  6. Add an efficacy table from a template. Run Sapling: Add an Analysis from a Template, pick Efficacy by MMRM, and answer the three questions (the endpoint, the population, the visit).
  7. See its shell. In the page, hover the new table and click the table icon: the empty table as it will be produced.
  8. Build the PDF. Run Sapling: Build PDF. Without Quarto you are told so; use Open Preview to the Side for an HTML view and install Quarto (quarto.org) later.
  9. Export Word. Run Sapling: Export Word (.docx) for Review.
  10. Optional: run it. Open Run and check in the Sapling side bar (or run Sapling: Show Run and Check). It says in plain words what running needs: for R, DataStep Studio for R (the dsr command), R and its packages; for SAS, DataStep Studio and a window connected to SAS. Each missing item has one button. Check reads the results of a run and traces each problem back to the block of the plan or the rule of the specification; with an AI connected, Ask the agent to find the cause puts one tested proposal in the Inbox, which only you accept or decline. Skip this step: nothing above needs it.
  11. Tell us how it went. Run Sapling: Give Feedback: four questions, and a text you copy or save.