Under Appreciated Features

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Under Appreciated Features

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TravisDBA SSCoach Points: 15780 More actions · Answer 1

The Data Collector and CMS (Central Management Servers) both make a DBA's daily life much easier but I am very surprised how many people are not taking advantage of them.:-D

"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"

David Benoit SSC-Dedicated Points: 34562 More actions · Answer 2

As Andy already mentioned, missing indexes in the graphical plan is a huge plus. They are usually pretty accurate or pretty close making it pretty helpful.

I will have to say that sparse columns, for those that have a lot of data, can be a pretty well overlooked feature. There can be some great savings there if the situation is right.

David

@SQLTentmaker

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose” - Jim Elliot

GSquared SSC Guru Points: 260824 More actions · Answer 3

The XML tools are what I see used the least where they could be used more. Both XQuery and For XML have a myriad of uses and improvements over prior tools. But I still see posts in the SQL 2008 forums here where people are instatiating XML objects using the SQL 2000 system procs.

Filtered indexes are definitely a good feature. Work beautifully on large tables with bit fields that need to be filtered by routinely.

There are plenty of others, I'm sure.

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rclark-1124819 SSC Enthusiast Points: 158 More actions · Answer 4

The absolute best, Pivots and for XML path to concat strings.

Oh, and replace...etc.....

fthiemonge SSC Rookie Points: 45 More actions · Answer 5

I'm a big fan of making my own templates in the template explorer. Not many people in my office use them but they are a huge help getting you jump started when writing new code. Being a developer I only have templates for sprocs, tables, and functions, but I can see them being just as useful for other objects. One thing I wish they would contain is some sort of looping interface where for example I could have it prompt me for details regarding all of a new sproc's parameters. When writing the template I don't know how many params a given sproc may have but I know for each I'll need a name, data type, default (optional), input/output type (optional), and description for my header comment. It would be nice to say for a given sproc I have 10 parameters (or 10 grant statements, or whatever, just X number of something that fits a pattern), then have it automatically prompt me for this detail about each member. Maybe they'll provide such functionality in a later version.

Doug Lane SSCrazy Points: 2118 More actions · Answer 6

It seems like hardly anyone noticed, but having indicators in 2008 R2 SSRS is a big deal, especially for dashboards. They save you from having to upload a bunch of custom images, then conditionally control their appearance.

Also, the MERGE command saves me lots of time when I have occasion to use it. It's nice not having to code all that logic into unwieldly parts.

aaron mertes SSC Enthusiast Points: 155 More actions · Answer 7

The feature i use the most would be the ability to highlight a SQL object (table, view, proc) and then click Alt + F1 to see it's definition and parameters when applicable.

WayneS SSC Guru Points: 95460 More actions · Answer 8

fthiemonge (12/17/2010)
I'm a big fan of making my own templates in the template explorer. Not many people in my office use them but they are a huge help getting you jump started when writing new code. Being a developer I only have templates for sprocs, tables, and functions, but I can see them being just as useful for other objects. One thing I wish they would contain is some sort of looping interface where for example I could have it prompt me for details regarding all of a new sproc's parameters. When writing the template I don't know how many params a given sproc may have but I know for each I'll need a name, data type, default (optional), input/output type (optional), and description for my header comment. It would be nice to say for a given sproc I have 10 parameters (or 10 grant statements, or whatever, just X number of something that fits a pattern), then have it automatically prompt me for this detail about each member. Maybe they'll provide such functionality in a later version.

Do you know about Template Parameters?

You have a line like:

set @stoptime = <stop_time, datetime, NULL>

Then press Ctrl + Shift + M and up pops a "Specify Values for Template Parameters" window. Each name and data type is listed, along with the default value. (In the case above, stop_time is the name, NULL is the default value.) If you have multiple occurances of the same name, it's only shown once, but all are replaced with the value when you commit it.

Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes

If you can't explain to another person how the code that you're copying from the internet works, then DON'T USE IT on a production system! After all, you will be the one supporting it!

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nycdotnet Right there with Babe Points: 799 More actions · Answer 9

Passing a table valued parameter to a table valued function. OH YEAH!!!

aaron mertes SSC Enthusiast Points: 155 More actions · Answer 10

yes, i use templates all the time. Big time saver, good call!

Eric M Russell SSC Guru Points: 125560 More actions · Answer 11

As a part time data analyst and part time roaming developer, I see a lot of database, and if I were going to stand up and give a talk about one area that many database developers could improve upon, it would be taking advantage of some of the more robust data modeling features like foreign keys, check constraints, computed columns, unique keys, views both indexed and non-indexed,and even role based security. These are not really new features, they actually pre-date SQL Server, it's just that in 2010 a lot of developers still don't use them. Buggy T-SQL code and bad data can be identified upstream during development or the ETL process, rather than downstream by the end user, if the data model is properly designed not to contain it.

As for SQL Server specific features, a lot of developers don't know about DTA or data management views for gathering performance or system information.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

Charles Kincaid SSChampion Points: 13593 More actions · Answer 12

Running a query across multiple servers in a group.

Filtered Indexes. Makes up for a crappy design that I inheirited and can't (yet) rewrite.

Intellisense. I plan on adding the Red Gate SQL Prompt as I hear that this is even BETTER.

CTE. I don't need the recursion but I use this all the time to make stuff work without temp tables. I did not know that you could put a CTE in a view. I tried it and it worked. Seems reasonable given what a view actually is. I had not seen it stated that it was supported.

Then, IMHO, the best under rated thing about SQL Server is not IN SQL Server at all. It's you lot and this place!

ATBCharles Kincaid

aaron mertes SSC Enthusiast Points: 155 More actions · Answer 13

Good post Charles, the SQL community and this website deserve a lot of credit and praise as well!

ziller SSC Eights! Points: 897 More actions · Answer 14

Being able to use SQLCMD mode in the SSMS I think is a great feature. I tend to write a lot of stand alone scripts, so being able to use sqlcmd variables to span batches and as table names in a From clause is very useful. It has allowed me to write much more reusable code, and a lot less dynamic sql.

MelS-512196 SSC Eights! Points: 842 More actions · Answer 15

MelS-512196

SSC Eights!

Points: 842

December 17, 2010 at 8:52 am

#1264110

CROSS APPLY -- try it you'll like it! 😀