Tim Mitchell : SSIS

Eliminating Empty Output Files in SSIS

Tim Mitchell — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:28:00 GMT

So you’ve got some packages that regularly extract data to one or more text files, but you know that from time to time some of the queries will not return any data. However, you find in SSIS that, in a flat file export package, the output file is created...(read more)

Space Sensitivity in SSIS Lookups

Tim Mitchell — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:15:00 GMT

It's been well-documented through myriad blogs and forum posts about the case sensitivity of the comparisons in the SSIS lookup transformation (a good review can be found here ). In a nutshell, a comparison using the lookup transformation is case...(read more)

Upcoming Speaking Engagements for Q4

Tim Mitchell — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:59:00 GMT

In the next few months, I’ll be giving a couple of talks on SQL Server business intelligence. For October, I have the pleasure of presenting for SQL Lunch , a new online learning series pioneered by Patrick LeBlanc . On October 12th, I’ll be discussing...(read more)

Updating Existing Data with SSIS

Tim Mitchell — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:45:00 GMT

I see a lot of questions on the forums about updating existing data in SSIS. When the update is dynamic and is based on elements within your data flow, a common mistake is to use the Ole DB Command within the data flow pane: The above poorly designed...(read more)

Don’t Use USE (in SSIS, at least)

Tim Mitchell — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:20:00 GMT

I ran into a situation this week that brought to light a subtle syntactical error I’d made in creating an SSIS package. I’ve got a client that has given me access to their development server to create some complex extraction queries, which will eventually...(read more)

SSIS Documentation suggestions on Microsoft Connect

Tim Mitchell — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:18:18 GMT

For SSIS developers, the need for proper documentation is crucial. However, the built-in object for documentation, the annotation, is difficult to use. It doesn’t wrap text, doesn’t support varying font styles in a single instance, and doesn...(read more)

SQL Saturday Baton Rouge – Session Evaluations

Tim Mitchell — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:32:00 GMT

I received my evaluation summary from the SQL Saturday event in Baton Rouge earlier this month. This was the first event in which I did more than just one session (and back-to-back sessions at that), and I’d just gotten over the flu as well, so I was...(read more)

SQL Saturday Baton Rouge – Recap

Tim Mitchell — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:45:01 GMT

After a long weekend of travel and speaking, I’m finally able to put my feet up and get a little time to catch up on things. This weekend I travelled to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to speak at SQL Saturday 17, and was pleased with how well everything...(read more)

Why Make Up Test Data? Snag Some Government Data

Tim Mitchell — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:00:00 GMT

… and by government data, I mean the mountain of data recently made available by the G-Men on Data.gov. This site contains what must be terabytes of data on every topic from environmental measurements to crime statistics, from geographical data to labor...(read more)

Speaking at North Texas SQL Server User Group meeting

Tim Mitchell — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:18:00 GMT

For those in or around the Dallas area tomorrow (Thursday) evening, I'll be speaking at the North Texas SQL Server User Group meeting at the Microsoft campus in Irving at 7pm. I'll be giving my talk on Scripting in SSIS, one of my favorite topics. Sean McCown will also be continuing his series on PowerShell in SQL Server at 6pm. If you're a reader of this blog, please catch me after the presentation and say hello.

SQL Saturday 14 - Pensacola

Tim Mitchell — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:07:24 GMT

I’ve just arrived home from a quick trip to Pensacola to speak at SQL Saturday 14 in Pensacola, FL. I’m quite happy with the event; the planning and organization was handled very well, and I believe the event was a big success in the eyes of the attendees.

I flew into Pensacola on American Eagle, arriving at 3:30pm on Friday. I usually dread flying American, but this time wasn’t so bad; the flight was on time and the flight attendant (just one – it was a small plane) was polite and attentive. My rental car company, which shall remain nameless, was less impressive, since I had to deal with the cigarette residue from the previous renter, and I had to return all the way to the ticket counter to report some undocumented damage to the car before leaving. Nevertheless, I did get one good surprise upon arrival: Thinking that I had crossed into Eastern Time, I subconsciously added an hour to the time, only to realize upon arrival that western Florida is actually on Central Time. A free hour!

I got settled into my hotel room, which was about 5 miles from the event location. Note to self: Don’t be cheap, spend the extra $50/night next time and stay nearby. In a nice hotel. Andy Warren and I had tentatively planned to meet before the speaker reception, so I called him and we met up at McGuire’s Irish Pub. It’s a neat little place, and I recommend it if you find yourself near downtown Pensacola. One word of caution: read the signs on the outside of the restrooms carefully. By the way, the ladies room at McGuire’s is quite nice.

The speaker’s reception at the Fish House was a big hit. I don’t know if anyone kept count, but I’m guessing that we had 35-40 people that showed up over the course of several hours. It got a little loud when the peripheral crowds arrived, but a good time nonetheless.

The event itself went well, in my opinion. It got off to a slow start since the building was still locked at 7:45, but there were a lot of volunteers to help out with the heavy lifting. Traffic flow was very good and there were few bottlenecks during registration. According to the last figures I heard, there were 180 or so registered, and 170+ showed up (this included a number of walk-ups). I heard of one speaker that didn’t make it, but it was due to a family issue and Karla was able to adjust the schedule beforehand to allow for this. The book giveaway was done throughout the day rather than at the end, which helped to thin out the end-of-the-day swag bottleneck. Among the items given away was a pass to go on a deep sea fishing trip the day after (Sunday), which I personally would have loved to do but just couldn’t fit it into my Sunday schedule.

I spoke again on SSIS Scripting, and the session was full and seemed to be well-received. I neglected to plug in my laptop during setup – and believe me, a warning message stating “Your battery is at 7% – plug into a power source immediately” will throw a kink into the best presentation. I had an issue with the resolution on the projector which kept me from going full-screen on my VM, and this slowed me down during the demos. Despite these minor glitches, everything else went well, and we had some excellent questions and good discussion during and after the presentation. If you’re interested, I’ll be publishing the slide deck and code on my website in just a while.

I talked to several attendees during and after the event, and all of them that I spoke with spoke very highly of this SQL Saturday event. Those who attended were gracious, attentive, and polite, and I got the sense that they felt their time was well spent.

I did get to meet a number of people whom I’ve “known” for months or years but had never had a face-to-face chat, including Jack Corbett, Steve Jones, Brad McGehee, and Ken Simmons. I also got to visit with several folks that I had met at previous events, including Rodney Landrum, Karla Remail, Nathan Heaivilin, Pam Shaw, Jessica Moss, Joe Healy, and a number of others. I also shared a flight home on Sunday with Brad McGehee, so he and I got to visit for a while as we waited to fly back to Dallas. It’s great to share the company of these smart folks, because it 1) makes for interesting conversation and 2) gives me hope that I’ll collect a few IQ points by osmosis. For me, this event was also an experiment in personal networking, but that will be covered in another post.

My hat is off to Karla and the volunteers from the Pensacola SQL Server User Group. This event was well planned, organized, publicized, and executed. I’m hopeful that we can replicate this event, and its success, in the Dallas area sometime next calendar year.

Four new SSIS Videos on JumpstartTV.com

Tim Mitchell — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:06:00 GMT

I've got four new SSIS videos published on JumpstartTV.com:

Expression Language Basics

Secure FTP File Transfer in SSIS

SSIS Lookup Transformation Basics

SSIS Lookup Transformation - Lookup Failures

If you're not familiar with JumpstartTV.com, I would encourage you to stop by and give it a try. There are scores of short (3-5 minutes) videos that are all free, and are each targeted toward a specific task. You can even suggest topics for new videos. You can leave comments for each video, and we appreciate all comments as this is the best way for us to improve content.

Presentation Notes from SQL Saturday

Tim Mitchell — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:18:04 GMT

For those who were in my session on SSIS Scripting at SQL Saturday Tampa last weekend, I have posted the examples and slide deck on my website. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

SQL Saturday Tampa

Tim Mitchell — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:04:42 GMT

I’m sitting in the Tampa airport waiting for a flight back home from SQL Saturday 10 in Tampa. There was a good turnout at the event; the last news I heard was that over 300 had registered initially, and that there were close to 200 that actually showed up. I got to visit again with several people I worked with at the last SQL Saturday event, and met several people (Devin Knight and Jonathan Kehayias among them) who I “knew” from Twitter and blogs but hadn’t actually met before. I had the opportunity to hang out with Andy Warren and Chris Rock again, and had drinks with Rodney Landrum, Karla Remail and others at the after party. For this event I presented a session on using the SSIS script component to read and write unconventional data files. I was pleasantly surprised with the turnout; I had the first timeslot of the day, and Brian Knight was presenting at the same time, so I expected at best a moderately sized audience. As it turns out, by the end of the presentation there were people standing in the aisle, and there were lots of great questions and some good discussion at the end.

I spent most of the rest of the day dropping in on various sessions and taking pictures of presenters and attendees. Since SQL Saturday didn’t yet have a presence on Facebook, I created a new group and posted pictures of the event and after party; you can find the pictures posted here, and if you have any pics to add (of this event or any previous SQL Saturday), please add yourself to the group and feel free to add your images.

There were a couple of minor logistical issues at the beginning, but everything worked out well and we ended up with a successful event. The sessions I was able to listen in on were well done, and it appeared that most of the attendees stayed for the entire day. All told, another successful SQL Saturday event. I’m now even more excited about the possibility of bringing this to the Dallas area.

Presenting at SQL Saturday Tampa

Tim Mitchell — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:51:34 GMT

I received word earlier today that I’ll be presenting at the upcoming SQL Saturday event in Tampa, Florida on January 24. I got to present at one of the first SQL Saturday events last year in Jacksonville and it was quite a well run event. A good lineup of content along with a significant attendee turnout made for a highly successful event, and I hope the Tampa event will match the success of the previous experience.

As an aside, I’m hoping to use what I learn attending and presenting these two conferences to put together a similar event. I’ve had some talks with Andy Warren, one of the founders of SQL Saturday, and he’s very excited about the growth of this community event. I pinged my local SQL Server gang (North Texas SQL Server User Group) about the possibility of bringing SQL Saturday to Dallas, and I got a lot of positive responses. So if you’re in the Dallas area and would like to be a part of an upcoming SQL Saturday event, please let me know.