Question

I have the following SELECT statement in my SSIS 2008 OLE DB source:

SELECT      dbo.Inventory.VendorFullSKU AS SKU
        ,   Product.Name AS 'Title'
        ,   dbo.ProductVariant.Price
        ,   dbo.ProductVariant.SalePrice
        ,   dbo.Inventory.Color AS Meta1
        ,   dbo.Inventory.[Size] AS Meta2
FROM        dbo.Inventory 
INNER JOIN  dbo.ProductVariant 
ON          dbo.Inventory.VariantID = ProductVariant.VariantID 
INNER JOIN  dbo.Product ON ProductVariant.ProductID = Product.ProductID
WHERE       (dbo.Inventory.VendorFullSKU <> N'')
ORDER BY    SKU

After running the package, my resulting flat file is not sequenced in the order I expect it to. There are no transformations being done to the data.

The flat file contains the columns in the below mentioned order.

Price, Title .. followed by other fields

However, I want the columns to be in this order within the flat file as defined in the query.

SKU, Title, Price, SalesPrice, Meta1, Meta2

How do I ensure that the fields in the flat file are sequenced the same as my select statement above?

Answer 1

You have to redefine the column order on Flat File Connection Manager Editor.

Assuming that your flat file connection manager is defined as FILE_Items at the bottom of the package on the Connection Managers tab.

Double-click the connection manager FILE_Items to open Flat File Connection Manager Editor. Click Advanced tab page.

To generate the files as per the query, the columns should be defined in the order shown below. If the columns are not in this order, then the generated flat file will not match your requirements.

You cannot rearrange the order of the columns because there are no options like move up or move down but you can Add /Delete them to modify the order according to your preference using the buttons New and Delete displayed below.

New button also has options like Insert Before and Insert After.

Caution:

Make sure that you also set the correct data types and other properties appropriately when rearranging the columns.