RedGate's SQL Doc and Extended Properties

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RedGate's SQL Doc and Extended Properties

drew.allen

SSC Guru

Points: 76944
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August 22, 2018 at 9:23 am

#372131

I'm working on documenting our SQL data warehouse and am looking at getting RedGate's SQL Doc. I wanted to get more information from people who have used it, especially how well it works with the extended properties. The screenshot on the website only shows the standard MS_Description extended property, but since this is a data warehouse, I wanted to track several properties, including source table, source column name, etc. How easy is it to include extended properties besides MS_Description?
Drew
J. Drew Allen
Business Intelligence Analyst
Philadelphia, PA

Viewing 10 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

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Joe Torre SSChampion Points: 10248 More actions · Answer 1

RG SQLDoc only displays (and updates/deletes) MS_Description extended property name.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734434 More actions · Answer 2

I believe all of our documentation is stored in extended properties. There is more information here: https://documentation.red-gate.com/sdoc3/generating-and-viewing-documentation/what-s-in-the-documentation

I added a few XProps, and got this

Disclosure: I work for Redgate Software.

Joe Torre SSChampion Points: 10248 More actions · Answer 3

Hi Steve,
In the interface I see and can edit MS_Description.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734434 More actions · Answer 4

Ah, in SQL Doc, I can't edit Extended Properties. That seems strange, so I'll pose the question to the team, but I suspect that we just read what's there. The MS_Description is something that MS added, though it's not in Azure SQL Database.

If you add the properties in teh database they exist, but I don't think that we do the editing in the app.

drew.allen SSC Guru Points: 76944 More actions · Answer 5

Thanks. That's what I was afraid of. I still might get the SQL Toolbelt, because I love SQL Prompt and both SQL Dependency Tracker and SQL Doc may be useful for my project despite not reading other extended properties.

Drew

J. Drew Allen
Business Intelligence Analyst
Philadelphia, PA

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734434 More actions · Answer 6

It reads other extended properties. It just doesn't write them. You'd have to do that manually with T-SQL.

BrainDonor SSCoach Points: 19252 More actions · Answer 7

I always thought that it should be configurable with that software.
At my previous job I documented every column, table, stored proc, parameter and so on, using SQL Doc and it made it very easy. It was a brand new system, so there was no existing properties to worry about.
However, at another place I worked they had made extensive use of extended properties but hadn't used the MS_Description - they had created another. So SQL Doc was no use there and I do think it would have made life so much easier for wont of a parameter within Doc.

Steve Hall
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Joe Torre SSChampion Points: 10248 More actions · Answer 8

Steve Jones,
Please make an enhancement request to make SqlDoc able to edit other extended properties.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734434 More actions · Answer 9

Joe Torre - Thursday, August 23, 2018 7:58 AM
Steve Jones,
Please make an enhancement request to make SqlDoc able to edit other extended properties.

Done