Question

In VB pseudocode, I’m trying to accomplish the following using SSIS (either 2008 or 2005)

If FileHasAlreadyBeenDownloaded = False Then
    DownloadTheFileFromFTP
End If
ImportTheDownloadedFile

To do this in SSIS I have a script task to check for the file, and if it exists it transfers directly to the DataFlow Task using conditional expressions. If the file doesn’t exist, it transfers to the FTP Task, and the FTP Task transfers to the DataFlow Task.

It seems, though, that I can’t have two tasks lead into one common shared task, because no matter which path the code takes it won’t execute the DataFlow Task. If I make a copy of the DataFlow task and have each path go to its own Task, then all works perfectly.

Is this a documented thing with SSMS that I just haven’t found? I looked through 31 pages of questions on SSMS before posting, so hopefully this isn’t a stupid question.

I also tried using Expressions on the FTP task to set “Disabled=@FileAlreadyDownloaded=True” but that works only in SSMS 2008 and didn’t seem to work in SSMS 2005.

Thanks so much for any pointers on this!

Answer 1

It might be worth trying putting the script task and the FTP task inside a container task, and link the the container to the data flow task on success.