Engelsrud.com

I attended a 30 minute webinar this morning hosted by Pragmatic Works founder Brian Knight to introduce the newest release of their BI Documenter tool.  The newest version introduces three new areas of functionality to an already very useful toolset.

1. The ability to create and compare snapshots of objects
2. Impact analysis across SQL Server, SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS
3. Data profiling within the created documentation

Some of these features are discussed in this short video:

In addition to the three big ticket items listed above, there also seemed to be some rather major improvements to the user interface, an addition of SSIS package pictures to the documentation created, and  the ability to create and document database diagrams within the tool set.  Quite a list of new features!

Bottom-line, this looks like a solid tool that will really be helpful to better leverage all of the metadata associated with SQL Server, SSIS, SSAS, and SSRS.  Taking this a step further and adding SharePoint/Performance Point integration as well will really round out the offerings and truly provide one place to gather all pertinent business intelligence and data lineage information.

Note: This is the first installment of what I hope turns into a series of posts highlighting very simple tasks within SSIS.  It seems like in a lot of cases there is a lot of information out there on the very complex or complicated tasks, but very little on the basics.  This is my effort to help out others that are working on learning SSIS but have not yet mastered all aspects of the tool.

The Data Viewer functionality within SSIS is a very useful feature which can be used to solve data related problems within a package.  With that, the main use and most common application of this functionality is troubleshooting data issues during the SSIS development lifecycle.

In an effort to allow developers the ability to see data as it flows through the SSIS pipeline, SSIS utilizes the Data Viewer.  The Data Viewer can be added to any path within the package data flow and it can display the data output in a variety of formats.

Setting up the Data Viewer is a Simple SSIS task – simply right click on the data path (success or failure) and select “Data Viewer” from the menu.  You can then easily add a Data Viewer to the stream, run the package, and see the data output. 

Setting Up the Grid Data Viewer and Results

The following video shows this process and the results using the Grid Data Viewer.  The grid is the most commonly used of the four types of Data Viewers and allows the developers to see raw data in columns and rows.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCGWU_UBeMg

It is important to note that when the package is run with a data viewer in place, you can either allow the data to continue down the path to completion by clicking the “Detach” button on the data viewer window.

Showing the Histogram Data Viewer Results

Along with the Grid Data Viewer, developers can also make use of the Histogram Data Viewer.  This viewer is used for numeric columns and can help give insight as to how data is distributed across a range.  The Histogram Data Viewer can be seen in action in the following video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKCZ-DYbkVU

Showing the Scatter Plot Data Viewer Results

Another Data Viewer that can be used with numeric data – actually two numeric columns are needed – is the Scatter Plot Data Viewer.  This viewer can help uncover relationships between the two selected numeric columns.  Once again, the following video will show the configuration and results of the Scatter Plot Data Viewer.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=275_zW4pPy4

Showing the Column Chart Data Viewer Results

Unlike the Histogram and Scatter Plot Data Viewers, the Column Chart Data Viewer can be used with numeric or non-numeric data.  The purpose of this viewer is to show a summary of the values within a particular column in the data flow.  As in prior sections, this viewer is shown in action in the following video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLN5opE7GlQ

My project manager has been kicking around the idea of using the Scrum methodology for some upcoming data warehouse projects and as such, I decided I better do a little research to figure out how it will apply to me as a developer.  In looking for something on the web to quickly explain the key concepts, I stumbled across this video from Brian and Devin Knight at Pragmatic Works. 

While the video isn’t all inclusive and left me with a lot of questions, I think it did a good job of illustrating the basics – not just in academic terms, but in a real life scenario that I was able to apply to my current situation.

Definitely worth the 5 minutes…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUsDZ4CBu6I

Blogs are funny things. At times, writing and documenting my life on this website has seemed really important. I wanted people to read it, to like it, to really want to see the next post – the next installment of my life. However, in looking back, most of what I’ve written has been really trivial, here are some examples:

Another great workout today. 6 miles on the treadmill – tempo run. 2 miles easy (9:23 pace), 3 miles short tempo (7:47 pace), and 1 mile easy (9:2 pace) for a total of 6 miles. (link) – September 28, 2007

Being that yesterday was a rest day, today kicked off the actual workouts for my triathlon aspirations. My first workout was a swim workout and, while I have been swimming on and off for a while, it was a challenging and satisfying workout. Here are the details… link – December 10, 2008

I’m using this post to simply test windows live writer and see if I like using this to write and publish my blog content. So far, this is a great little tool.
I’ll keep working with it to see if it is going to be worthwhile. link – August 22, 2007

And on and on it goes… Aaron worked out… Aaron ran… Aaron Swam… Not very enlightening. Not even a very honest or open look in to my life. With that, there are a few posts that are very meaningful to me and important to the story of my life, like this one:

…the doctors were ready to fill me in on what was wrong with me, why I was feeling so lousy and what we needed to do to make things better. What they found was not good. When the Surgeon did my Gallbladder surgery he must have accidentally nicked my Abdominal Aortic Artery, so for the last week I had been bleeding into my belly. They called my condition a “Psudeo-Anurism”, meaning I was bleeding into my belly, but it was in a confined area; this is what was keeping me from bleeding to death. They rushed me (by Ambulance, code 3) to St. Joe’s hospital in St. Paul and I was in surgery less than an hour later. link – March 8, 2006

This was an important time in my life and I am so glad that I have it documented here and I can look back to this point in my life as a reminder of where I have been, what I have gone through, and why it is so important that I keep moving forward in a positive way. Everything can be taken away. This is a lesson that took me a long time to learn, but one that I’ll never forget…

So, on to the new…

As I said, when I look at the posts I have made (almost 300 at this point!) I think they reflect one part of my life, but maybe not the part that should be reflected. While I guess it’s ok that this blog shows how far I’ve run (or haven’t run), or how many hours I’ve logged in the pool, or how much I weigh – I think I can do more. I mean really, no one cares about this crap and – most importantly – in 10 years I won’t care about it either. If I’m going to take the time to write, shouldn’t it be meaningful?

So, with that, I am making a commitment to improve the quality, depth, and content of my blog posts. I’m going to write about things that are important to me – not what I think might be important to others…

Aaron