Originally published at Ramblings from the Flip Side (Site under construction). You can comment here or there.

Today I want to talk about my job, the day job. As a Jack-of-All-Trades DBA, I am responsible for backups, security, production releases, data fixes, architecture, schema approvals, development (both T-SQL and BI), mentoring ( Read more... )

Originally published at Ramblings from the Flip Side (Site under construction). You can comment here or there.

One of the more difficult aspects of dealing with SSIS packages is the need to find files dynamically. Meaning we don’t always know the exact name of the file or the file has the same base name but has dates appended to it, ( Read more... )

Originally published at Ramblings from the Flip Side (Site under construction). You can comment here or there.

Ever run into this error when building an SSIS package? I did, just last week. Here’s the full text of the error:

SSIS package "MyPackage.dtsx" starting.
Error: 0xC002F210 at Cancel Orders, Execute SQL Task: Executing the ( Read more... )

Raise your hand if you have a love-hate relationship with SQL Server and SSIS error messages. I know I do. How terribly descriptive the messages tend to be (not) when you need them the most.

My problem today is an SSIS package that has failed two weeks in a row (it runs weekly) on exporting data to an Excel spreadsheet. The package pulls security ( Read more... )

I just learned an interesting fact about SQL 2k8 SSIS script tasks this morning. Generally, I don't use Script Tasks because I can accomplish with other tasks what most of our devs do with the Script Task. But yesterday I found a situation where my only option was the use of this bugger. So I open it up, expecting to see the same Public Main Sub ( Read more... )

Running an SSIS package via the SQL Server Agent jobs can be an entertaining experience when said package errors out. It gets even worse when the DBA in question uses an Integration Services job step to run the package. I don't know about anyone else, but I've found that the IS job step is only useful for coming up with the syntax necessary to run ( Read more... )

Having a problem renaming or deleting a file / folder that is referenced by SQL Server or SSIS? Here's a tip.

If you're trying to rename or delete a directory folder / file and keep getting a "File being used by another application" error, check to see if you have BIDS (Business Intelligence Development Studio) open. Even after closing the project ( Read more... )

Following up on my previous post, Creating #Excel Templates in #SQLServer #SSIS, this post walks you through how to use that template for new files. I should note that I had to change the data type for the Column_Default from NVARCHAR(4000) to TEXT because Excel didn't like a column length of 4000 characters.

There are two ways to use a ( Read more... )

I've seen a lot of advice on the net lately advising people to use Excel templates for their SSIS packages, but I haven't seen many articles discussing how to create the templates. So here's a quick-n-dirty way of doing the template through SSIS (rather than by hand through Microsoft Office). For no particular reason, let's say you want to put ( Read more... )

Sometimes it's the stupid things that trip you up. Especially when coding ( Read more... )