Parameters in Paginated reports allow for us to tailor report contents based on user selected criteria. These were inherited from Reporting Services as a precursor to the slicers and filters in Power BI reports. Coming from a Reporting Services background I have a soft spot for pre-defined paginated reports. However these parameters can sometimes get […]
The UNION and UNION ALL operators allow us to combine results, but there’s no guarantee that each set of results uses the same data types. So what data types are returned? For the longest time I thought the data types from the first set of results were used for the final results. That’s not the case. Understanding how this […]
When restoring a database in different environments we may stumble across orphan users. This typically manifests through failed connections to the database. Here we’ll have a quick look at what the issue is and 3 ways to fix it. What are orphaned users When users are created in a database they’re mapped to the login […]
When ingesting files in SSIS via Flat File Connections, a consistent format is key. Sometimes that isn’t the case. Here we’ll look at an example where the carriage return (CR, \r) may or may not be included in the file. The problem A file format can change as easy as tweaking the file in an editor […]
When constructing or investigating a SSIS package we can run into a variety of issues. To help resolve there are various techniques which can be used to troubleshoot the package. Whilst we have the Progress tab for the package to tell us what’s happened during execution, it’s usually more effective to debug packages in flight. […]
I recently had an issue when sourcing data in Power BI from a server which was accessed by a DNS alias. Here I’ll demonstrate the issue and how to resolve it. After entering the server details, we could be greeted with the message below: The server name provided does not match the server name on […]
Connecting different versions of SQL Server can allow us to combine or transfer data between environments. This can become a challenge when the versions are really different. Have you tried to connect SQL Server 2008 to a SQL database in Azure? – it can throw up a few curve balls. In this post we’ll look at how […]
Rounding out T-SQL Tuesday for 2024, Kevin’s invitation brings it together with the Festive Tech Calendar (more on that at the end), and asks us to write about a Microsoft Data Platform announcement that could be considered a gift. For context, this post is targeted at developers or engineers who don’t have the time to dig into SQL Server […]
When handing data we can make use of temporary tables to aid with separation or performance. However, they don’t always play nice with Integration Services packages. If we set a source to call a procedure returning the contents of a temporary table we’ll see an error like below: The process is unable to determine the […]
SQL Agent jobs allow us to schedule and automate tasks on a SQL Server instance. Crucially, when things go wrong we need to know about them. That’s why we use notifications. Setting up Operators and job Notifications is as expected on a Managed Instance. However, when it comes to sending the notifications we may have […]
Andy Brownsword 