I have talked about tools for SQL server a few times in the past. You can read some of what I wrote here and here.
Since writing those last articles, I have come across more tools here and there. Over the past few weeks, I came across three that stood out and I wanted to give them a quick shout out.
SSMS Tools Pack: I have already written about this tool. It was recently updated and the functionality has been improved since I last wrote about it. Not only did that functionality improve, but the feature set is better now too!. Go give it a try.
SSIS Reporting Pack: This tool is available on Codeplex. This is one of those things that could be queried from TSQL, but this gives an interface (SSRS reports) for you to browse the information. The same kind of reporting pack would be very useful for SSRS. I know people ask from time to time for this kind of information in both products. Hence the usefulness of these tools would be pretty high.
SQL Treeo: Straight up, this tool was created to add customization to the tree view that you get with the default SSMS. Some (many) find that the inability to customize this tree is inadequate. This tool allows you the ability to create custom folders for the various objects. This lends itself to being able to sort the tree in SSMS a bit differently. Also, it can lead to being a bit more productive for many database professionals.
Check the tools out. Test them and see if you like them. Let the creator of each of these tools know what you think about their product. Other than writing about the tools, I personally have no affiliation with any of the tools. But I do think they would be good tools and are certainly worth the effort of testing for yourself.
