Creating Packages in SSIS Designer

This section describes the tasks that you typically perform when creating SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) packages in SSIS Designer.

SSIS Designer is a graphical tool for creating packages. It is available from Integration Services projects in Business Intelligence Development Studio.

SSIS Designer includes separate design surfaces for building a control flow, data flows, and event handlers in packages. The designer also provides access to the dialog boxes, windows, and wizards that you use to add functionality and advanced features to packages and to troubleshoot packages. For example, from SSIS Designer you can access the Configure SSIS Logs dialog box for implementing logging, the Variables window for adding and configuring variables, and the Set Breakpoints dialog box for setting breakpoints. For more information about the windows, dialog boxes, and wizards that SSIS Designer provides, see SSIS Designer.

A package is created within the context of an Integration Services project. Before you can use SSIS Designer, you need to open an existing Integration Services project or create a new project. When you create a new Integration Services project in Business Intelligence Development Studio, a new package is automatically added to the project. To open SSIS Designer, you double-click a package in the SSIS Packages folder in an Integration Services project. For more information, see Building Solutions and Integration Services Projects.

SSIS Designer has no dependency on the Integration Services service, the service that manages and monitors packages, and it is not required that the service be running to create or modify packages in SSIS Designer. However, if you stop the service while SSIS Designer is open, you can no longer open the dialog boxes that SSIS Designer provides and you may receive the error message "RPC server is unavailable." To reset SSIS Designer and continue working with the package, you must close the designer, exit Business Intelligence Development Studio, and then reopen Business Intelligence Development Studio, the Integration Services project, and the package.

The following table lists the topics in this section.

Topic Description

Using Data Sources in Packages

Describes how to use data source objects in packages.

Using Data Source Views in Packages

Describes how to use data source view objects in packages.

Creating New Packages

Describes how to create a new package by using a template or by copying an existing package.

Creating Package Control Flow

Describes how to create a control flow in a package using the Control Flow tab in SSIS Designer.

Creating Package Data Flow

Describes how to create a data flow in a package using the Data Flow tab in SSIS Designer.

Creating Package Event Handlers

Describes how to create an event handler in a package using the Event Handlers tab in SSIS Designer.

Creating Connection Managers

Describes how to add and configure the connection managers that packages use to connect to data sources at run time.

Reusing Package Objects

Describes how you can copy packages, data sources, and data source views and copy the objects that packages contain.

Using Annotations in Packages

Describes how to use annotations to make packages self-documenting.

Viewing Package Objects

Describes how to view a hierarchical representation of all the elements in a package in the Package Explorer tab of SSIS Designer.

Debugging Packages

Describes features in Integration Services for troubleshooting packages, such as setting breakpoints and using data viewers to display data at run time, and describes the debug environment in Business Intelligence Development Studio.

Saving Packages

Describes how to save packages to the file system and save copies of packages to either the file system or the msdb database in SQL Server 2005.

See Also

Tasks

Creating Packages Using the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard

Concepts

Integration Services Packages

Other Resources

Designing and Creating Integration Services Packages

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance