I have some packages that are being used to load a data warehouse db using SQL CDC. The design is roughly based on the codeplex example solution for using CDC.
The basic structure consists of a Master package that sets the lsn interval variables, verifies that the interval is valid then calls two different child packages 1 for each database that is being pulled from and passes them the interval variables.
Short of eliminating these child packages and moving their content into sequence containers in the master packages is there any way that I can used Bids to debug the packages?
The packages cannot be run separately as they depend on the master to set the interval variables.
I use a script task in the child package to set the variables to the expected values and then run the child package on its own. That way you can debug it in BIDS. So in this instance you would set the interval values in a script task. You then make the task the first thing to run in the package (you could put everything else in a seqence container) and then run the child package in BIDS.
The other way that I have done this in the past is to set the default value of the variables in the child package but I prefer the script task – it is cleaner: when I’m done I delete the task and my package is as before.
If you aren’t sure what the variable values should be then you can run the master package and get the values from it by looking at the locals window and then set your package up using these values. I hope this helps someone.