SQLServerCentral.com Community Update for {date}

Problems displaying this newsletter? View online.

Featured Contents

Question of the Day

A Linked Server Alias

The Voice of the DBA

Daily Coping Tip

Do something helpful for a friend or family member

I also have a thread at SQLServerCentral dealing with coping mechanisms and resources. Feel free to participate.

For many of you out there working in a new way, I'm including a thought of the day on how to cope in this challenging time from The Action for Happiness Coping Calendar. My items will be on my blog, feel free to share yours.

Prized PII

If I asked you what specific type of information criminals would like to capture about you, what would be your response? Take a minute and think of something and then leave it in a comment after reading the rest of this.

I know that usually more than one piece of data about me is needed, and while most of this data is probably somewhere in a database, and perhaps leaked in a breach, it's not necessarily organized. I still think it's good to protect information where I can. Every year my wife laughs as people wish me Happy Birthday in Facebook, on a day that's not my birthday. I think any day is as good as any other to wish me well, and so I disclose April 1 to my friends. In fact, I often disclose a slightly incorrect birthday when sites and organizations ask me, unless I have some legal obligation to type in my real date.

There was an article that caught my eye about the data that thieves most often want. It opens with a story about pharmacists using personal data to bill insurance for non-existent medications. The piece then goes on to talk about the value of healthcare fraud and how data related to this is even more valuable than credit card numbers.

That isn't something I'd have expected, though, I do live in the US. With the high cost of healthcare, I shouldn't be surprised. Fraud is big business, and there is a large volume of claims, providers, and statements that people have to review. If you've tried to go through your statements, they often don't seem to be easily relate-able to the treatment you may have received.

I haven't worked with healthcare data, but I suspect anyone that does will need extra protection on their systems, and certainly encryption along with the prevention of PII in non-production environments is important.

I also think this is the type of data that you may want to be more careful about in your own life. Though how you do that escapes me.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Join the debate, and respond to today's editorial on the forums

Featured Contents

Basic Git for DBAs: Ignoring Files and Customizing Your Environment

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from SQLServerCentral

This is the eighth article in a series on the basics of using Git. The other articles in the series are: Basic Git for DBAs: Getting Started with Git Basic Git for DBAs: Sharing Files Through GitHub Basic Git for DBAs: the Basics of Branches Basic Git for DBAs: Making Changes in GitHub Basic Git […]

Email Validation Simplified with Web API and SSIS

Additional Articles from MSSQLTips.com

Email based validation is more than just a simple RFC check, this is where Melissa's Global Email Verification with a web-based API and SSIS delivers valuable data to SQL Server Professionals.

What is a Data Catalog?

Additional Articles from Redgate

A data catalog allows an organization to discover and record the facts about its data, where that data is held and how it used. William Brewer explains the details.

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - 5 Things You Should Know About Azure SQL

John Morehouse from John Morehouse | Sqlrus.com

Azure SQL offers up a world of benefits that can be captured by consumers if implemented correctly. It will not solve all your problems, but it can solve quite...

From the SQL Server Central Blogs - Ignoring Comments in SQL Compare

Steve Jones - SSC Editor from The Voice of the DBA

Recently I had a client that wanted to know how they could use SQL Compare to catch actual changes in their code, but not have comments show up as...

Question of the Day

Today's question (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor):
	A Linked Server Alias
In SSMS, how can I add an alias for my linked server that is different than the name of the SQL Server I am trying to access. In other words, I am on SQL01. I want a linked server to SQL02, but I don't want the name of the linked server to be SQL02. Instead I want it to be FinanceServer.
Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

Yesterday's Question of the Day (by Steve Jones - SSC Editor)

The Git Editor

I want to enable emacs as my editor of choice when using git for commit messages for all repos. How do I do this?

Answer: git config --global core.editor emacs

Explanation: The --global flag is needed for all repos. The core.editor is the value to change. Ref: Customizing Git - https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Configuration

Discuss this question and answer on the forums

Database Pros Who Need Your Help

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.

SQL Server 2017 - Administration

There are no SQL Server instances or shared features that can be updated -2017 - Hi Please Assist. I am trying to install SQL SERVER CU 22 on SQL server 2017. Currently installed CU 20. I am getting this error message: 'There are no SQL Server instances or shared features that can be updated on this computer'

SQL Server 2016 - Administration

Firewall access for Availability Group listeners - Hello experts, I have a noob question as I never feel like I understand enough about networking. Suppose I have a client CLIENT01 that I want to allow to connect to listener MyAG01 (IP 2.2.2.2). Behind MyAG01 (IP 2.2.2.2) are three nodes: MyNode01 (IP 4.4.4.4) MyNode02 (IP 5.5.5.5) MyNode03(IP 6.6.6.6) I can't grant access myself […]

Error - can any one help on ho wto solve the issue [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]The conversion of a char data type to a datetime data type resulted in an out-of-range datetime value. IES 10901

SQL Server 2016 - Development and T-SQL

Export nvarchar(4000) to Excel - I'm trying to use the SSMS 18.7.1 Export Wizard to export to an Excel 2010 xlsx file. Per this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/integration-services/load-data-to-from-excel-with-ssis?view=sql-server-ver15 you should have "first few rows" with > 255 characters in that field. I can see that in the mapping to Excel it will create a data type as LongText for it. During run I […]

Development - SQL Server 2014

Inflow / outflow report per day - Hello, I have two simple tables: Invoices InvoiceID Date Value and PaymentsReceived PaymentID Date Value I want to generate a report which will display day by day the cashflow (total invoices - total payments received).

SQL 2012 - General

SQL services not starting after upgrading TLS 1.0 to TLS 1.2 - when we are upgrading TLS 1.0 to TLS 1.2 , SQL services are not starting

SQL Server 2012 - T-SQL

not able to use my user defined function - I have a function I have created and need some help in how to use it in a query: CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnGetSeconds] ( @TimeFormatted varchar(max) ) RETURNS decimal(10, 2) AS BEGIN RETURN (SELECT (LEFT(@TimeFormatted,2)*3600) + ROUND(DATEDIFF(MS, 0, '00' + RIGHT(@TimeFormatted,LEN(@TimeFormatted)-2))/1000.0,0) AS 'TimeSeconds') END --Need to use it in the query below: select [call_id], [call_time], --convert […]

How can I exclude records from this table? - How do I exclude the "Appointments" that are not adjacent to a "Discharge"? This is a patient with doctor visits and hospital discharges. If you order by the VisitDate, you will see a chronological record for the patient. I need to identify the last doctor visit before discharge then, the next appointment after discharge for […]

SQL Server 2019 - Development

If SQL Agent Job takes longer than @X minutes, get notified. - If Agent Job takes longer than @X minutes, we want to be notified. What is the best way to implement this?

Reporting Services

Report based on dynamic columns - Hi all, Can anyone help please? I am trying to do the below report, but not going anywhere with it. I have got 5 org levels: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, Level 5 And i would like to see the report from manager's point of view, so if a manager is at […]

Unable to create report in VS 2017 - I have downloaded and installed Visual Studio 2017 and can connect to SQL Server databases but I'm not able to create a report solution/project. I thought I installed data tools (?) Thanks for any help!

SSRS 2016

SSRS site settings security and Home folder Security - I am rewriting 100 or so reports on a SSRS 2012 server and migrating to a SSRS 2017(2016) server. I cannot find a good reference showing what site settings security is in relation to our users security groups and how that interacts with Home folder security. On SSRS 2012 not sure how it was originally […]

Powershell

Get data from last line and merge into data stream before removing - This script reads thru a file and removes the last line, but before it does that can I grab a value from that last row and add it into my output stream? The value in the last line as an eye-catcher of $X and then grab the values from the 3rd position until it hits […]

Integration Services

Disable Package Expression - Hi SSC, I've got 2 Project Variables which I use to control wether a package should run or not through the Disable Package Expression so I've got myself some neat and tidy Project variables let's call them [$Project::DISABLE_TILDE_RELOAD] and [$Project::DISABLE_ARCHIVE_RELOAD] If I have only one of them, for example [$Project::DISABLE_TILDE_RELOAD] , the expression @[$Project::DISABLE_TILDE_RELOAD] […]

T-SQL (SS2K5)

conversion of excel formula to case statement in tsql - Hi all, need your help on conversion of excel formula into case statement. i tried but missing only one case. below is excel formula: =IF(AND(Q141="EndOfDay", AD141="EndOfDay",V141=""),8, MIN(8, IF(OR(Q141="EndOfDay"), 0, IF( AND( OR(Q141= "Paused", Q141= "PlannedBreak", Q141= "Completed"), AD141="EndOfDay" ), MAX(0,T141-7), IF(Z141="",0, (ROUNDDOWN(Z141/10000,0)+(ROUNDDOWN(RIGHT(Z141,4)/100,0)/60)+(ROUNDDOWN(RIGHT(Z141,2),0)/(60*60)) ) - (ROUNDDOWN(J141/10000,0)+(ROUNDDOWN(RIGHT(J141,4)/100,0)/60) +(ROUNDDOWN(RIGHT(J141,2),0)/(60*60)) ) ))) )) Thanks Abhas

This email has been sent to {email}. To be removed from this list, please click here. If you have any problems leaving the list, please contact the webmaster@sqlservercentral.com. This newsletter was sent to you because you signed up at SQLServerCentral.com.