You might constantly see a warning message that appears like the one below when creating Analysis Services Tabular projects. It basically says, workspace database server ‘ServerName’ was not found.

You’ll have to change this setting from the model properties. The server should be an Analysis Services Server running in Tabular… Read more

I hear you. You’ll use the Execute Package Task. This mechanism of executing one package from another is popularly knows as Parent Child paradigm. Let me tell you, this isn’t new in 2012. There are, however, a few changes to the Execute Package Task. Let’s take a look.

Demoland!

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In DTS, changing package properties was close to impossible (the less we talk about DTS, the better). Package configurations introduced in 2005 solved most of the problems. In 2012, SQL Server Integration Services introduces parameters to make this process even easier. Parameters allow you to change package properties without the… Read more

I frequently attend a few online training events that greatly help me learn new things. Thought I would share, if may be you are interested too. These are all cool people sharing information for free to the community.

• PragmaticWorks Webinars. Training events on the T’s – Tuesday’s…

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Andy Leonard blogged about a gotcha when creating SSIS projects using SSDT yesterday. He showed that you can use any component in SSDT whether or not your SQL Server supports that component. For example, you can create a package with Fuzzy Lookup and deploy to a server running Business Intelligence… Read more

I spotted a new task in SSIS 2012 – Execute T-SQL Statement Task. It executes T-SQL statements, only Transact-SQL statements against SQL Server databases. Cool, but don’t get too excited. Why? Because you can neither parameterize the SQL nor save the results to a variable.

The task editor looks… Read more

There are a few design choices that can make your SSIS packages run super fast when loading data from table A to table B.

SQL Command at Source

OLE DB source editor allows you to choose either a table or a view from a drop down if data access mode… Read more

Howdy! I was flying last week, and for the first time i sat facing a flight attendant. You don’t actually sit face to face with anybody in a flight, because, you know all the seat rows are facing in only one direction. But attendants sit in the opposite direction. That… Read more

Business users are often interested in finding distinct counts in addition to other aggregations. They may want to know the number of distinct customers calling customer support, the number of distinct employees selling business, or the number of distinct products that are being sold. Note the difference between distinct count… Read more

Welcome to another week of SQL Roundup. Just in case you missed, SQL Server 2012 was released this week and you can download the evaluation edition here.

Clever and great improvisation. Create tag cloud style reports using SSRS. (Jason Thomas).

Jen McCown summarizes the agony caused during the… Read more

In this short post, I’ll discuss NoRowsMessage property. When there is no data for a data region, the message you specify for the NoRowsMessage property will displayed to the user instead of a blank report.

I created a report with a tablix and configured the NOROWS property from the tablix… Read more

Following in the foot steps of John Sansom (b|t), I’m going to post a roundup of links from other blogs every Friday. I’ll call this SQL Roundup. John calls his “Something for the Weekend“.

Each Roundup will have no more than 10 links.… Read more

Problem

I’ve a SSIS package. When it fails execution, I want to write a custom message including the package name and error description to a text file.

Solution

One way to accomplish this is to declare a variable, populate it with the message you want, and write it’s value to… Read more

No matter how simple it is, new things come with some confusion; at least until you get used to it. Analysis Services 2012 Tabular is no different. This post will look at steps to create your first Tabular project.

Let’s start with firing up SQL Server Data Tools located under… Read more

I recently had a scary conversation with a user, which can be broken down to:

User: Why would the data have customers with a birth date of MM/DD/2020?

Me: What are you talking about? Lemme take a look.

Me again, this time with a changed voice: Umm,… Read more

Earlier, i discussed FIRST_VALUE() function. FIRST_VALUE() returns the first value from an ordered set of records. Similarly LAST_VALUE() returns the last value for an ordered result set, but you are in for a bit of a surprise if you aren’t familiar with the enhancements to the SQL windows functions. Read more

Charts present summary data in a visually appealing format. Following is a chart for sales over month:

I frequently use a few options along with charts to get most out of them.

Show data labels:

It’ll be easier for the users to quickly read, if the chart shows… Read more

Sometimes you will find the need to import a file to a variable using SSIS. In this post, I’ll use Script Task to read contents of a flat file into a variable.

I’ve created a file called ‘myfile.txt’ with some random text. I’ll configure script task to read this file… Read more

Should an average Jane or Joe professional use twitter?

Yes.

Why?

Because, I’m using it.

Not enough reasons? <grumpy face> I knew you wouldn’t buy this.

Okay, allow me to present why you should:

Advertise.

You might be thinking, “I’m neither an author nor do i have… Read more

Given a customer table:

CREATE TABLE Customers
(CustId INT, OrderDate DATE, OrderAmount MONEY) ;

INSERT Customers VALUES
(1, ’2011-12-03′, 12500)
, (1, ’2011-10-07′, 15000)
, (1, ’2011-09-12′, 16000)
, (2, ’2011-07-11′,… Read more