The way that we did it was

• Set up a domain level account to run MSSQLSERVER and SQLSERVERAGENT.
• Give the account bare minimum priviledges on the network.
• Set up an Exchange mailbox for...

I would go further and say that "wrong" tends to be a matter of opinion rather than hard fact.

The general recommendation is that you don't use sp_ as a prefix for stored procedures because internally SQL Server will look in the MASTER database first causing a cache miss.

I'm with...

One plus point on using prefixes is that you are unlikely to use a reserved word accidentally.

Given the plethora or languages out there it becomes ever easier to do this.

I...

My blast everything into a table then index it method works because data is inserted into my intermediate table at maximum speed with no overhead for maintaining any indices.

When the...

I think the CASE in order by statements causes recompiles but I couldn't swear to it.

I prefix stored procedures with usp and functions with fn.

To be honest I have moved...

One method that I did use in the past was

• Upload data into an intermediate table (NOT a temp table) with no indices and no checking whatsoever.
• Create indices on intermediate table...

I'm not sure I understand the problem.  As Phil says, at the end of the month before the cleardown for the next months data simply run the DTS to copy...

I hate the idea of using positional arguments for code.  How the hell are you supposed to know what ORDER BY 3 means without trawling through the code?

The argument put...

I would avoid using CHAR fields because they ALWAYS use the amount of space allocated where as the VARCHAR only uses the space it needs.

Secondly I presume you have a...

If you have two or more SQL Statements that are dependent on each other then I would wrap them up into a transaction.

If you are just running a single statement...

What did I learn? Well first, not to tell my wife my estimate, but instead double it and then add 2 hours.

Always at least double your estimates for management

From the data you supplied you would get an empty value for Employee 2 city error because there is no city entry.

You don't need to write one, you simply use sp_depends.

SELECT empid ,

  empname,

  Address,     

    MAX(CASE(errlog.FieldName='Address' THEN errormessage ELSE '' END) AS CityError ,

  city ,   

  MAX(CASE(errlog.FieldName='City' THEN errormessage ELSE '' END) AS CityError ,

  state, 

    MAX(CASE(errlog.FieldName='State' THEN errormessage...