Although I ramble on quite a lot on this blog about SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) it may may surprise you to know that I haven't actually written any SSIS packages in quite a while because in my day job I've been engaged on other things.
Of late though that's changed...and I'm back in the SSIS groove. Hence, its given me an opportunty to try out BidsHelper for the first time proper. For those that don't know, BidsHelper is a community-provided tool that eases some of the pain of building SSIS packages (amongst other things).
The features that I am most taken with are:
Here's a screenshot showing both of them in action:
That's incredibly useful stuff, especially the expression indicators. I can't tell you how many times I've been foxed by expressions that I didn't know existed.
Thank you to all the guys that have been involved with this project which, if I'm not mistaken, are all of the following:
Plus I saw some Konesans branded stuff on there which means that one or both of these guys have been involved:
(Apologies if I missed anyone out!)
You can download BidsHelper from here. And why wouldn't you? Its free, you can download and install in less than a minute, and it ... well... it just works.
-Jamie