In the first part of this series, we learned SSMS productivity tips & tricks. Including drag column names, object explorer details. Furthermore, I demonstrated vertical scroll mode, BooksOnline shortcut & multiple batch execution. Surely all these productivity tips you should have tried to improve your work efficiency.

Countless developers are using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to develop & design databases at work. Without any benefit of the doubt – SSMS IDE bundles with several amazing features and tools for developers. Alas, few of us really know valuable features and hidden tips and tricks within SSMS. Definitely, learning these SSMS productivity tips […]

APPLY operators (CROSS APPLY & OUTER APPLY) brings a lot to programming in SQL Server. Different use cases can be implemented using APPLY operators. One of the most used UNPIVOT data operators can also be implemented with the CROSS APPLY operator. This tech-recipe post demonstrates how to UNPIVOT data using CROSS APPLY in SQL Server.

Importing and exporting data from flat files is a common task among developers & DBA. Different methods are available to import-export flat file data in SQL Server. Well-known methods include – BCP, SSIS Packages, OPENROWSET, BULK INSERT queries, and tools. However, the simplest one is doing it within SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio). Using Import […]

SQL Server’s process command BULK INSERT to load data from a user-specified file format into database tables. Specified file format can have any column & row terminator, for instance – pipe, space & comma. Furthermore, this tech-recipes post demonstrates how to import CSV files using BULK INSERT in SQL Server.

APPLY operators (CROSS APPLY & OUTER APPLY) were introduced in SQL Server 2005 edition. Importantly, with APPLY operators, now it is easier to join Table-valued function to base tables based on the join condition. Although APPLY operators different from SQL JOIN. In the case of SQL JOIN, we can not join to Table-valued function. CROSS […]

SQLCMD is a command-line utility to connect and execute SQL queries from the command prompt. Using SQLCMD we can only connect to SQL Server instances. Importantly we can run ad-hoc as well as interactive script plus automating SQL scripts execution. This utility is pre-installed with SQL Server installation. Instead of relying on SSMS for quick […]

SQLCMD is a command-line utility to connect and execute SQL queries from the command prompt. Using SQLCMD we can only connect to SQL Server instances. Importantly we can run ad-hoc as well as interactive script plus automating SQL scripts execution. This utility is pre-installed with SQL Server installation. Instead of relying on SSMS for quick […]

SQL Server supports the legacy package deployment model as well as the new project deployment model. We can deploy single/ multiple SSIS packages and ISPAC file from SQL Server (SSMS). Most importantly, the legacy package deployment model lacked many features like deploying multiple SSIS packages together. SQL Server 2016 onwards, we can deploy multiple SSIS […]

An essential skill to know, how to Import SQL Server table to Excel. Using it for pivot table analysis and reporting within Excel. Every developer must be acquainted with this. Importantly, most customers and business users are comfortable using Microsoft Excel for data analysis. Without any doubt, Excel provides an array of rich features with […]

ISPAC file & SSIS packages can be deployed from the command line. This can speed up the deployment and help in automating the deployments. ISPAC file referred to as deployable output file generated from SQL server integration projects. When we build SSIS project it creates an ISPAC file under the bin folder. Besides, deploying SSIS […]

Database diagrams are visual representations of underlying table structure and their relationships. Generally referred to as ER (Entity-Relationship) diagram. With database diagrams, we can easily identify the list of tables in a database and their association through the type of relationships. Moreover, it also provides the overall structure with listed tables, their keys and relationships.