One of the greatest features of SSIS is its support for package configuration, which allows properties of objects in the package to be changed without opening the package. For example, you might want to have the ability to enable or disable checkpoints in your package. Note that although you could include properties of connection managers in your configuration, SSMS provides direct support for editing them because it is such a common task.
You’ll set up a package configuration in Exercise 6.4.
Exercise 6.4: Creating a Package Configuration
In this exercise, you’ll create a package configuration.
Choose SSIS Package Configurations. Select the Enable Package Configurations check box, and then click Add. This will start the Package Configuration Wizard.
Click Next. Configuration types control where you want to store the data, with the options being an XML file, an environmental variable, the registry, SQL Server, or a variable in a parent package. For this exercise, you’ll use the XML option, so you’ll need to enter a name in the Configuration Filename text box and use the Browse button to place it some-place convenient. Click Next.
The only thing you want to make configurable is the CheckPointUsage property (shown here). Find the property, check the box next to it, and then click Next.
You then name your configuration-we’ll call ours Config1-and then click Finish. Then click Close on the Organizer dialog box. Save, build, and then deploy the revised package. You’ll see a new step in the deployment process that allows you to change the property that you enabled for configuration.
Earlier we mentioned modifying connection managers from SSMS. To see how that works, switch to SSMS and run your package. You can see in Figure 6.7 that you can edit any of the connection managers easily before continuing to run the package.
Figure 6.7: Changing connection managers