Here’s an extremely helpful little tip that my friend, Ken Hendrix, showed me the other day. Currently, to execute a single SSIS package in BIDS, you have to open the Solution Explorer, right-click the package, and click Execute. If you’re debugging a lot or do not have your Solution Explorer open, this can sometimes be a little inconvenient. So Ken came up with a Macro that you can add to your tool bar that will allow you to execute your open package with a single click. 1. The first step is to...
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With the release of R2 came a couple of pretty nifty new expressions in SSRS. The LookUp function allows us to perform a look up against a separate data set in our report using a field in our source data set where there is a 1 to 1 relationship. Likewise, the LookUpSet function allows you to do a look up values in a separate data set where there is a 1 to many relationship. The LookUp and LookUpSet functions are useful when you cannot write a query to join our two data sets together. So maybe we...
Thanks to all of the attendees that showed up for my webinar yesterday. I had a great time speaking and I hope everyone enjoyed the webinar and maybe even learned something. If you missed the webinar, Reporting on a Cube with SSRS 2008, have no fear! There is a recording available for you to watch. Just head over to the Pragmatic Works CMS site and create a free account. Not only will you be able to watch my webinar from yesterday, you’ll also be able to check out tons of other great webinars fr...
Tomorrow (7/21) I’ll be speaking on reporting on an SSAS cube with SSRS 2008 at 11 a.m. EST. It’s a completely free event hosted by Pragmatic Works and it last about an hour. In this session I’ll give you an introduction to reporting on a cube with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). You’ll learn about some of the advantages of using your cube as a source for your SSRS reports, how to build reports based on your cube with minimal knowledge of MDX, as well as a few tricks you can use to increas...
One of the downfalls to SSIS package configurations is that it does not natively allow you to encrypt your sensitive information, such as a connection string or a variable, that you may be configuring with an outside package configuration. There are some work-arounds that you can impliment that will allow you to automatically encrypt and decrypt stored passwords, but its not pretty. The good news is that now, with BI xPress , SSIS developers can easily and automatically encrypt any configured pr...
If you read my blog you know from time to time I will blog about an exceptional third party SQL tool. Previously I’ve blogged about Task Factory and BI xPress , two amazing SSIS development tools. Well this week I figured I would talk about a killer SQL documentation tool called BI Documenter . BI Documenter allows you to quickly and easily document your entire BI environment. So unlike the other popular tools out there, BI Documenter will document SQL Server databases (2000, 2005, 2008 & R2...