Professional SQL Server™ 2005 Integration Services

2.6. The SSIS Package Designer

The SSIS Package Designer contains the design panes that you'll use to create a SSIS package. The tool contains all the items you need to move data or create a workflow with minimal or no code. The Package Designer contains four tabs: Control Flow, Data Flow, Event Handlers, and Package Explorer. One additional tab, Progress, also appears when you execute packages. In this chapter, you'll mainly explore the Controller Flow tab. Unlike SQL Server 2000 DTS, where control and data flow were intermingled, control flow and data flow editors are completely separated by these tabs. This usability feature gives you greater control when creating and editing packages. The task that binds the control flow and data flow together is the Data Flow task, which you'll study in depth over the next two chapters.

2.6.1. Controller Flow

The controller flow is most similar to SQL Server 2000 DTS, since it contains most of the tasks you're used to in SQL Server 2000. It contains the workflow parts of the package, which include the tasks and precedence constraints. SSIS has introduced the new concept of containers, which was briefly discussed in Chapter 1. In the Control Flow tab, you can click and drag a task from the Toolbox into the Controller Flow designer pane. Once you have a task created, you can double-click the task to configure it. Until the task is configured, you may see a yellow warning on the task.

After you configure the task, you can link it to other tasks ...