Grouping Tasks and Containers

If a package has many tasks and containers, the control flow designer can become crowded, making it difficult to view all the control flow items in a package at one time and to locate the item with which you want to work. SSIS Designer includes a collapsible grouping feature that can conserve space on the work surface and make it easier to work with large packages. You select the tasks and containers that you want to group, group them, and then expand or collapse the groups to suit your work. Expanding a group provides access to the properties of the task and containers in the group. The precedence constraints that connect tasks and containers are automatically included in the group.

Groups can also be nested, making it possible to create groups within groups. The design surface can implement multiple un-nested groups, but a task or container can only belong to one group, unless the groups are nested.

When a package is saved, SSIS Designer saves the grouping, but the grouping has no effect on package execution. The ability to group tasks and containers is a design-time feature; it does not affect the run-time behavior of the package.