environment variables

Well, having only one disk partition, and only one directory, and running only one application probably ROCKS too, at least for that one application :)
But if you're unfortunate enough to be required to use multiple applications, you might be saddened by certain aspects of environment variables, such as them living in one globally competitive namespace, or them being not covered by the NT security model (AFAIK).
But I grant you, that they solve the portability problem with package configurations, so I was happy to use them nonetheless.
I'd use environment variables (or any other hack in all likelihood), if I could find a solution for the lack of reusability in SSIS -- that is driving us to move as much code as possible outside of SSIS for maintainability. :(

We're always looking for product feedback; what are the aspects of your packages that you wish you could re-use? (Also, it sounds like you're replying to another thread... Was this post misplaced?)

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Cim Ryan wrote:

We're always looking for product feedback; what are the aspects of your packages that you wish you could re-use? (Also, it sounds like you're replying to another thread... Was this post misplaced?)

Cim/Perry,
I'm jumping in on your thread here, sorry about that.

Here's a list of things that could, IMO, be made reusable:
-Data-Flows (the most obvious one)
-Tasks (e.g. an Execute SQL task that calls a auditing sproc)
-A sequence container that carries out a single unit of work
-A For/ForEach Loop (including all tasks within it)
-A configured component
-A group of configured components (http://blogs.conchango.com/jamiethomson/archive/2005/05/26/1470.aspx)
The important point to make is that they shouldn't just be made reusable in the same package, they should be reusable in ANY package. In that sense, each one of them could be a deployable object. Currently the only deployable object is a package - why should that be the case? Why not deploy (for example) a task, or even a component, and then use that in any package?

-Jamie

|||To add to Jamie's excellent list at the lower level,
expressions
I say this because copying and pasting transformations from one Derived Column task to another is tedious, and I tend to believe that copy&paste leads to poor maintainability and scalability.

|||Also, the Aggregate defaults most columns to Group By, it usually misses one out of a long list, and for some reason it always misses the ErrorCode and ErrorNumber, when they are added at the bottom of the output column list from a Lookup Error, so when you finish checking all the columns to group by, you track the Validation error back and find that the Aggregate left those columns unspecified -- which means it is in an invalid state -- so you have to manually set those to Group By.
Actually, sounds more like a bug than an RFE to me, but I don't care what list it goes on if it gets fixed :)
sql