We use environmental variables which point to a standardized package configuration db and table on each of our servers. Then all of our SQL connections are in the package...

Did you look into using the TechNet Virtual Labs: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs

I used those for my practice exams way back when for SQL 2008.

MWise

Jeff Moden (8/17/2015)

We do. It's also...

As pointed out above, using SELECT INTO will not copy over any of your indexes or keys nor permissions. You'll need to capture all of them and recreate them...

This expression "E:\\Reporting\\Delivered_Reports\\ExcelName_"+

((DT_WSTR,4)Year(GETDATE()))+

RIGHT("0"+((DT_WSTR,2)Month(GETDATE())),2)+

RIGHT("0"+((DT_WSTR,2)Day(GETDATE())),2)+".xls"

Evaluates to E:\Reporting\Delivered_Reports\ExcelName_20150602.xls. I've confirmed that in a test package and attached screen shots.

Are you setting this to a variable? If so, make sure that the scope is...

Why not just put it as the next step in your job after the DB back up and configure your job to skip or fail if the back up step...

Try it with GETDATE() instead of @[System::StartTime].

MWise

You need to make sure that the package setting and connection settings for DelayValidation is set to TRUE. Also, I would stay away from mapped drives unless your server...

You can set the SourceConnection property of the task to an expression which would just be your variable. There are two way to get there in the designer.

The Expressions...

This can all be done in SSIS (if that's the tool that you choose to use). Here's a general list of steps.

variables:

Current Date - as an expression to return current...

So here's my example of a poorly architected RBAR process. It's an import of external data to a OLTP system. It loads an average of 3K records at...

LOL! Jeff have you been listening in to my meetings? None of our SQL people would choose SSIS. Which is exactly how I felt when I first started...

Jeff, I hear what you are saying but the original question was about using SSIS. So that choice has already been made. If one of my developers put...

Its not an SSIS best practice because SSIS has built in tasks that already do this without having to write or maintain a single line of code. The data...

I would not recommend rolling your own code to use FSO to create a fixed width file - that is definitely NOT a best practice. Either use BCP or...