When creating SQL Agent jobs to execute SSIS packages we can choose the level of logging to be captured. Different settings are more beneficial under the right circumstances so it’s important to understand the differences to make the right decision. These settings control the internal logging done by SSIS. This is out of the box […]
Uploading into a SharePoint list from an Excel document is straightforward to do, but populating multi-value fields isn’t so easy. This can be solved using Power Automate and I wanted to share how easily it can be done (⚠️ Warning: lots of images ahead). In brief, we’ll be doing the following: Let’s take an order […]
One particular performance issue with SSIS data flows can fly under the radar – spilling to disk. This isn’t clearly visible through regular debugging or execution so can go unnoticed. And it hurts. Paging to disk is bad for performance. Disks are much slower to access than memory, so we want to keep our data […]
Implicit conversion happens in SQL Server when the engine detects a mismatch in data types and automatically converts from one type to another. This can be helpful as it makes different types interchangeable and is generally transparent to the client, but it can come with issues. Usually the downside from implicit conversion is seen through […]
When using data flows in SSIS packages we want the flow to be fast and fluid. Improving performance of the flows will vary in different packages, but one element can consistently help – tuning memory utilisation. In this post we’ll look at tuning the memory utilisation by altering the number of rows passing through the flow concurrently. […]
Having persisted with Windows 11’s context menu for long enough, it’s time to concede. I find it too restrictive and slows down the muscle memory. If you yearn for that touch of Windows 10 back in your life, read on. Reverting from the new style context menu should look something like this: But it isn’t. […]
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 […]
Andy Brownsword 