I’m happy to announce that I have been selected to present
at the SQL PASS Summit in Charlotte, North Carolina this October.   I’ll be delivering a session entitled “Data Cleansing in SQL Server Integration Services”, in which I’ll cover various ways to detect and cleanse dirty data using tools built… Read more

Tomorrow at 10am (11am EDT), I’ll be joining together with my good friend and SSIS Design Patterns coauthor Andy Leonard for a free one hour webinar to discuss scripting in SQL Server Integration Services:

Join SQL Server MVP Tim Mitchell and Andy Leonard as they discuss and demonstrate scripting in…

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I’m happy to announce that I’ll be doing a tour of the 4 SQL Server user groups in central Colorado next week.  I’ll be speaking at these four user groups:

Monday (3/18): Northern Colorado Database Professionals

Tuesday (3/19): Boulder SQL Server User Group

Wednesday (3/20): Colorado Springs SQL Server User… Read more

Since the release of Visual Studio 2012, business intelligence developers have been limited in how much they could use this tool due to the fact that it did not support BI project types (SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS).  Today, that limitation is now gone with the release by Microsoft of SQL… Read more

Note: This will be the first post in a short series on using Object typed variables in SQL Server Integration Services.

When defining variables in SSIS, the ETL developer has several data type options to choose from depending on the information to be stored in each variable.  Included in the… Read more

Since I started regularly attending SQL Saturday events some five years ago, I’ve sat in on a number of professional development sessions by Andy Warren, Buck Woody, Don Gabor, and others.  Each one offered different bits of advice based on his or her own experience, but there… Read more

Earlier this week, my employer, Artis Consulting, welcomed a new addition to our team.  Technical expert Erin Welker (b|t), a very well known and experienced business intelligence professional, has joined the BI practice here at Artis.  Erin brings a great deal to the table –… Read more

I’m going to Nottingham, England, fabled home of Robin Hood, where I’m going to eat fish and chips and talk about SSIS.  How’s that for tying seemingly unrelated topics together?

I’m happy to report that in addition to my full-day preconference seminar at SQLBits, I’ll also be delivering a… Read more

I’m happy to announce that I’ve been selected to deliver a full day of training at the upcoming SQLBits conference in Nottingham, England.  This will be my first time taking part in SQLBits (in fact, it will be my first trip to the U.K.) and I’m very much looking forward… Read more

OK, I’m not really going to break it.  I’m just going to beat it up a little bit.

This Thursday evening, I’ll be working my home turf at the North Texas SQL Server User Group monthly meeting, presenting “When ETL Goes Bad: Handling Errors and Anomalies in SSIS” at 6:15… Read more

Frequently I am asked how to properly use SQL Server Integration Services to handle ragged flat files, an example of which is shown below.  In this small sample file, you can see that we are dealing with medical data that has an inconsistent format.  As shown, the rows in the… Read more

With the year 2012 now in the rear view mirror, and while I’m still in the midst of my holiday vacation (two whole weeks! Feels very strange…) , I thought I’d take stock of my tasks and accomplishments of the past year.

Sharing knowledge

I must sound like a broken… Read more

Do your civic duty, and vote today! 

Voting is now open for SQLBits, to be held in Nottingham, UK this May.  This event is probably the best-known SQL Server event outside of the US, and unlike most other such events, they use a popular-vote model for general session selection.  I’ve… Read more

For at least a year, I’ve been considering changing blog platforms.  I set up my blog on TimMitchell.net using BlogEngine.NET several years back, a decision I made based primarily on the fact that this tool was built on ASP.NET and SQL Server as opposed to the LAMP platform used by… Read more

I received notification that I have received the Microsoft MVP award for 2013, my fourth consecutive year to receive this distinction.

As always, I am grateful to my friends at Microsoft, the MVP program in particular, as well as my many friends and acquaintances in the SQL Server community.  It’s… Read more

I received notification that I have received the Microsoft MVP award for 2013, my fourth consecutive year to receive this distinction. As always, I am grateful to my friends at Microsoft, the MVP program in particular, as well as my many friends and acquaintances in the SQL Server community.  It’s…

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I’m back home after a long week attending and presenting at the SQL PASS Summit in Seattle.  This was the best event yet, in my opinion, and for me it was certainly the busiest.  For the second year in a row, our SSIS Design Patterns team was invited to deliver… Read more

I’m back home after a long week attending and presenting at the SQL PASS Summit in Seattle.  This was the best event yet, in my opinion, and for me it was certainly the busiest.  For the second year in a row, our SSIS Design Patterns team was invited to deliver… Read more

I’m happy to announce that the book I’ve been working on for the past two years is complete and has been released for sale as of today.  I got the unique privilege to work alongside SSIS rock stars Andy Leonard, Jessica Moss, Matt Masson, and Michelle Ufford Read more

I’m happy to announce that the book I’ve been working on for the past two years is complete and has been released for sale as of today.  I got the unique privilege to work alongside SSIS rock stars Andy Leonard, Jessica Moss, Matt Masson, and Michelle Ufford Read more