Question

I am writing a basic file dump from one database to another. I am using SSIS 2008 and creating several packages to transform the data I have from a MSSQL 2010 database to a MYSQL 5.1 database.

All the connections are set up and records can be tranfered between the two databases but I would like to use temp tables in the transform processes and use the temp table as the MSSQL source in a dataflow task to dump the table in an awaiting MYSQL table.

I have been having problems setting this up. I am using an OLEDB connection and have set the RetainSameConnection property as well as the DelayValidation property to true. When setting up the source figure as the source from the MSSQL database I cannot find the temp table I have created in an earlier task from the control flow. I am using the same connection manager for these two tasks.

Anyone have any ideas or experience with this?

As a simple example one task does..

SELECT * 
INTO #TMP
FROM CUSTOMERS

(This is a simplified example and I relize in this case I could just use the Customers table so bear with me)
Is it possible to use this temp table in a dataflow operation as the source table?

Answer 1

As I mentioned in my comment, not much of a solution and more of a workaround. SSIS uses the shape of result sets to bind properties in tasks. As temp tables are not always available in the database this can cause errors in SSIS even if you set DelayValidation to true.

My solution is to create an SSIS schema in whichever database you’re connecting to. The reasons for doing so are security and clear separation of objects that are only used within SSIS packages – primarily staging tables.

Instead of throwing tables in your dbo schema (you shouldn’t be anyway, shame on you) you’d create them in the SSIS schema. A typical data flow would truncate the table when it begins, load values and perform whatever operations are required, optionally truncating it when complete. As long as the table is always available SSIS can examine the shape of result sets.