Your problem is CASE and implicit conversions..

A CASE expression can only return one datatype. Which datatype to be returned is determined by the datatype presedence. If you have multiple datatypes within...

Not an answer - sry - but I'm curious. What's wrong with the securitymodels already in place?

Why not use either windows authentications or SQL logins security models? Seems to me this...

Noone has yet asked the obvious question...

Why? Why, why, why... Why do you have to use dynamic SQL..?

Have you read this?  http://www.sommarskog.se/dynamic_sql.html

It's...

Carl is correct. For your example with CUSTNO, where that column is the first column declared in the composite index on table2, a separate index on CUSTNO would not grant...

You have two options without a cursor, one for SS2000, the other for SS2005.

SQL Server 2000: You have to use a while loop (or cursor) and a temptable.

SQL Server 2005:...

Here's a snippet of something old I had lying around for automating a 'batch-delivery-thingy' to a given set of servers that implements the 'loop from a list' idea. It shouldn't...

Yes, if you don't have bcp.exe (which is a commandline exe) on your machine, and you cant remote exec it from the server (where I'm sure it is to be...

Mmm yes think it makes sense. Don't have any packaged solution, though.. But some thoughts.. (I'm sure you're aware of all already...)

Being able to run from any instance requires that...

Actually, there's no need to check for existing rows on an update, since if rows do exist, they update, and if not, nothing happens. Updates doesn't risk causing pk violations...

Well, it's not very complicated at all. For each sheet, just choose 'save as' and choose a suitable format (personal pref is semicolon-separated - in office 2003 that's the .csv...

To add new rows:

INSERT db1.dbo.Emp (col1, col2) SELECT col1, col2 FROM db2.dbo.Emp

To update existing rows:

USE db1

UPDATE a

SET    a.col1 = b.col1

FROM  db1.dbo.Emp a

JOIN   db2.dbo.Emp b

ON     a.primaryKey = b.primaryKey

Also, there is more info to...

You can solve this kind of problems with multiple agregates by nesting derived tables. The idea is that you first find one of the MAX values for the group, then...

The question is: manual or automagical? Onetime or scheduled?

For manual singleton jobs (I do this pretty often) I just save the Excel sheet as a skv file and bcp it...

So, what kind of 'flexibility' are you looking for..? There are several 'problems' or 'tasks' within your general description of what you want to do.. (ie find users or find...

If the problem is 'how do I enter dates', then you shouldn't use '01/11/2005 20:00:00' at all.

This format only leads to confusion and problems (is it november 1st or january...