Question

I think the title of the question says it all. I am developing a custom data flow component for SSIS. I would like to use a checkbox list that gets it’s values from a collection (list, enum,… doesn’t really matter) and gives the user the possibility to check several options.
Then I want to get these as a list in my SSIS component…
Does someone have an idea on how this is possible?

UPDATE.

For example I have a list containing {a,b,c,d}. (Let’s say it’s hard coded although in practise i’ll be pulling records out of a database).

I want to give the user a checkbox where he can for example check a and c from the above list.

Then the property in my component now contains: {a,c}.

CLARIFICATION

I have a list of strings. In my UI(Advanced editor if possible), I want to build a combobox with the options being the strings in the list.

The component has a string property. Once the user has made his choices from the combobox, a comma separated string containing the choices is built and passed to the component and stored in the string property.

What I need to know is:

• How do I build a combobox in the Advanced editor (if possible) based
  on the list of strings?
• How do I get the values from the UI back to the component to then
  build my string?

Answer 1

Let me answer first question first:

• as far as I know it is not possible to do this thru Advanced Editor because You can’t host custom UI control in it; or at least I don’t know the way to do it
• note I wrote “custom” because You asked for combobox with multiple selection and such control is not available in .NET; but there is a lot of information on Internet on how to create such control, if you wish

This means that You will have to develop UI form for Your component. To answer to your two question You need to check following sections in this article:

• Design-time Methods of a Data Flow Component – to see how to add custom properties to Your component – You have to override ProvideComponentProperties method
• Developing a User Interface for a Data Flow Component – to see how to make custom UI for your component; You need 2 classes: UI class (registered with Your component) and UI form which is instantiated and used from UI class; pay attention to sample (btnOK_Click handler) it shows You how to save property value from UI to component itself using SetCustomProperty method
• Validating a Data Flow Component – check Validate implementation to see how to access property from component – use CustomPropertyCollection of component metadata

Clarification about passing property values from component to UI and back:

• ProvideComponentProperties in your component tells SSIS what properties your component has
• when user initiates opening of component UI for the first time after opening the package, SSIS instantiates UI class and invokes Initialize instance method and passes ComponentMetadata as parameter
• when user initiates opening of component UI, SSIS calls Edit method of previously created instance of UI class and passes parent window handle, package variables and package connections as parameters
• it is the Edit method where You should invoke constructor of your form and display it – UI class is really simple as You can see in mentioned MSDN article
• form constructor has to have parameters: package connections, package variables and component metadata
• once user clicks OK on your form, You use component metadata SetCustomProperty method to set property to appropriate value (concatenated list in your case)
• to read property value within component code (not UI) use CustomPropertyCollection of component metadata object

And one more thing: since You will create UI for your component, consider using Checked ListBox which is already provided with .NET framework instead of creating custom component.

Provided link is for SQL Server 2008 R2, You can choose different version on top of article if You wish.

Hopefully this is enough for You to continue with your task.