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SQL Server Data Tools Preview update for Feb 2016

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The SQL Server Data Tools team is pleased to announce an update for SSDT Preview is now available. The SSDT Preview update for Feb 2016 enables SSIS one-designer support for SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 in Visual Studio 2015. This will allow you to develop with a SQL database, AS, RS and IS project for multiple SQL Server versions with one installation of SSDT in Visual Studio 2015.

What's new in SSDT

SQL Server Integration Services enhancement

  • One-designer support for multi-targetting SQL Server 2016 RC0, SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2012!
  • SSIS Hadoop connector supports for ORC format
  • For more information see the Integration Services blog.

SQL Server Analysis Services enhancement

  • Support for display folders for Tabular models
  • Any models created with new SQL Server 2016 compatibility level can be used with SSIS
  • For more information see the Analysis Services blog.

SQL Server 2016 RC0 database programmability support

Get it here: Download SSDT February 2016 Preview for Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2013

  • The version number for the latest preview in Visual Studio 2015 is 14.0.60316.0
  • The version number for the latest preview in Visual Studio 2013 is 12.0.60315.0

Update 3/18/2016:  We have released an updated version of the SSDT February 2016 Preview to correct an issue reported by users that affected the ability to connect to Azure SQL Data Warehouse.  The previous versions, 14.0.60305.0 and 12.0.60304.0, have been replaced by the fixed version at the Download page.

Download Data-Tier Application Framework February 2016 Preview

  • The version number for the latest preview is 13.0.3252.1

Known issues:

SQL Server Integration Services

  • SQL 2016 Project connection manager UI is used when switching to 2014.
  • Project connection manager UI uses 2016 UI instead of 2014 UI if you create the project level connection manager in 2014, switch the target server version to SQL server 2016, then switch it back to SQL server 2014.
  • Script component doesn’t work after switching target server version if script fails to build.
  • Debug in 64 bits mode in SSDT for Visual Studio 2015 doesn’t work if target server version is set to SQL server 2012/2014.
  • Script editor in Visual Studio 2013 may crash when SSDT-BI for Visual Studio 2013 and SSDT for Visual Studio 2015 are installed on the same machine.

Connection dialog

  • Properties change through Advanced Properties dialog may not be retained when the connection is opened next time through History tab.
  • If installing SSDT standalone – without any previous Visual Studio 2015 installation (Community, Pro+, or Express) – Azure login and browse functionality will not be available. To fix, install a version of Visual Studio and update the Azure Tools to version 2.7 or higher.

Temporal Tables

  • Incremental deployment of a in-memory optimized table may fail if table migration occurs. The mitigation is to manually drop System versioning, i.e. the temporal link between two tables prior to table migration to avoid deployment failure.
  • When you create a new temporal table using Project Item template and add columns to it, deployment may fail. The mitigation is not to add any column until the table is deployed first. Once the table is created, you can add columns to the table and deploy it incrementally.
  • When you delete a column from a temporal table using Table designer, adding a subsequent column may not work properly. To avoid it, keep the comma(,) after the last column in the table definition after deleting a column.

Setup

  • If a version of SQL Server 2016 CTP is already installed on the machine, setup may be blocked. This is to avoid breaking components shared by the engine.
  • If installing SSMS Preview, SSDT Preview for Visual Studio 2015, or SSDT Preview for Visual Studio 2013 side by side on the same machine, there may be issues unless all are updated to the latest release.
  • (VS2015) .Net 4.6.1 may not install if there is no version of Visual Studio or the VS Integrated Shell previously installed on the machine. .Net 4.6 will be installed instead.
    • This will result in no Network connections being shown in the new connection dialog.
    • Recommendation is to install .Net 4.6.1 as it contains a number of stability improvements and SQL related fixes.
  • (VS2015) The April 2014 update to Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Known as KB2919355 is required to install the Visual Studio 2015 Isolated Shell. Please install KB 2919355 before you install SSDT on these operating systems.
  • (VS2015) The SSDT Japanese language installer may fail on the first attempt due to an issue installing the Visual Studio 2015 Japanese language pack. Retrying installation should succeed in installing correctly.

Contact us:
If you have any question or feedback, please visit our forum or Microsoft Connect page. We are fully committed to improve the SSDT experience and look forward to hearing from you!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2016
    Great news! I can't wait to try out the multi-targetting support.I did notice though that I can still reproduce https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/2265502 on my machine with this preview.
  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2016
    When will this no-longer be a Preview? What's the time frame for RTM? This is really exciting as my team hates having to jump through various editions of Visual Studio. Thanks and keep up the great work!
    • Anonymous
      March 17, 2016
      See my post to Mike for clarity on this, thanks!
  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2016
    Is this included in VS2015 update 2 RC?
    • Anonymous
      March 17, 2016
      As mentioned in my response to Mike (below), the DB tools will be included in the VS2015 Update 2. BI tools are only available via this SSDTSetup.exe release, but we'll begin updating you through Visual Studio Extensions and Updates soon once we remove the Preview tag from this release.- Kevin
  • Anonymous
    March 07, 2016
    Hi,Thank you for this latest release preview. Do you have an ETA on when you are going to RTM this critical software? Because of the continuing slow development and release of the SSDT and SSDT-BI software we are looking at moving to IBM or Oracle databases and tools over the next 18 months. Microsoft has been very bad over the last 2-3 years delivering the RTM version of the SSDT-BI software in a timely manner. This is horrible customer service to companies that are paying thousands of dollars for Enterprise edition, per-core licenses and not getting the tools needed to support it.Can you please focus on delivering RTM, production ready, supported tools before wasting your customer's money on 2016 Release Candidate coding?Thanks.
    • Anonymous
      March 17, 2016
      The comment has been removed
    • Anonymous
      March 17, 2016
      Hi Mike,Thanks for your feedback. As Kevin mentions below we are dedicated to improving the experience going forward and I would love to ask a few follow up questions if you would be open to it. You can reach me on twitter at @kdejonge or kadejo at microsoft.com. Thanks,Kasper de Jonge(SSAS team)
      • Anonymous
        March 17, 2016
        its @kjonge not @kdejonge on twitter :).
  • Anonymous
    March 08, 2016
    Good News. Scripttasks are working again (tested). Some errors could happen during migration (change of SQL Target Version) but this is ok for a preview version. Note that in my case some scripttasks where damaged und must be recreated (inclusive code).
  • Anonymous
    March 10, 2016
    hi, this version can't connect to APS - it's sending a query with NOLOCK hint during the login process which is not supported on APS.Any workaround?David.
    • Anonymous
      March 17, 2016
      Hi David, we're in the process of testing a hotfix. This is due by end of day tomorrow (March 18) and we'll update this blog as soon as we have it. Sincere apologies for the inconvenience.Kevin
  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2016
    Hi,I want to use SQLPackage to install and/or update databases on our customers installations. What is the best way to get the complete tool set to accomplish this task?Thanks,Tony Green
    • Anonymous
      March 17, 2016
      Hi Tony. We're working on a simpler acquisition model but for now if you just want SQLPackage and its dependencies, you can either install SSMS/SSDT or install DacFramework and its 2 dependencies directly. The latest versions are:DacFramework installer (February 2016) Dependencies (SQL Server 2016 RC0):SQLSysCLRTypes.msi x64SQLSysCLRTypes.msi x86SQLDOM.msi x64SQLDOM.msi x86Regards,Kevin
  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2016
    Tried the tool and enjoyed the fact that UI issues present in VS2012 has been fixed (moving objects was a nightmare).Unfortunately, Visual Studio 2015 shell (integrated) that is installed with SSDT does not include source control integration with Team Foundation Server ("Team" menu is missing) and Source Control plug-in selection in options does not include visual studio team foundation server. Is there any way to add team foundation server support to integrate with version control?
    • Anonymous
      March 17, 2016
      Hi Vadim, I believe you can get this by installing one of the free Visual Studio Express Edition versions - you can download these from , with Express for Web being a good choice. Please let me know if this does not resolve your issue, but as far as I know this will install Team Explorer to both the express version and the core which is used by SSDT
      • Anonymous
        June 06, 2016
        Hey Any idea if this issue has been resolved?
        • Anonymous
          June 07, 2016
          Hi Jaco, I haven't personally tested this workaround. The core issue of TFS no longer shipping an integrated shell compatible version has not been changed.
  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2016
    The current SSDT fail to work once you install SQL Server 2016 RC1 on your system. Is there a workaround on this? It's really causing issues and the description on the SSDT page says it should work with RC0 or RC1. It causing some major headache in our testing.
  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2016
    After installing SSDT 14.0.60316.0 I'm not longer able to run an SSIS package on my computer in Visual Studio 2015. I receive the following error.Failed to start projectMethod 'SaveAndUpdateVersionToXML' in type 'Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Project.DebugEngine.InterfaceWrappers.Sql2014ApplicationClassWrapper' from assembly 'Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.VsIntegration, Version=13.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91' does not have an implementation. (Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.VsIntegration)
  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2016
    Does SSDT 2016 include a way of deleting columns without unchecking "Block incremental deployment if data loss might occur"?I'm aware of the workarounds (using a post deploy script to copy data to a temporary table, or making the change manually before running the SSDT publish), but neither of them are really acceptable for our workflow.
  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2016
    After installing RC1, cubes don't build anymore for me. I get the following error:Method not found: 'Void Microsoft.AnalysisServices.DeploymentEngine.ConfigurationSettings.ExtractFromObjectModel(Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Database, Boolean)'.I've been working with every version you guys have up until now and it's been great, please send a fix soon as you can. Glad I still have my RC0 installer laying around.
    • Anonymous
      March 30, 2016
      Aaron,A workaround is to delete the folder "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.AnalysisServices.DeploymentEngine". I did that and worked.
  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2016
    Hi,I have installed SQL Server 2014 Development and VS 2013 both updated with all known packages. After installing this preview SSMS crashes when trying to use The "Edit 200 records ..." function. with more complex tables. Known issue or shall I post this in Connect? What data should be added to such a post?
  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2016
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2016
    I'm facing same error Aaron. It began when I upgraded sql server 2014 to 2016. I upgraded my SSDT as well, but no luck.
  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2016
    I'm facing same error Aaron. It began when I upgraded sql server 2014 to 2016. I upgraded my SSDT as well, but no luck.
  • Anonymous
    April 01, 2016
    Where are we at on RC2? Does this work with that or should we was for a different version?
  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2016
    Great to see that VS2015 now supports BI development for 2012-2014-2016! No need for different versions od Visual Studio anymore :)But I do have one question: I installed the Microsoft Attunity Oracle connector V3 today but it does not appear in the SSIS toolbox in VS2015. If VS2015 truly supports 2012-2016 it should work shouldn't it?Cheers,Erik
  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2016
    Sorry if I'm missing some of the notes that have been dropped here lately, but I could definitely use some direction from the team.We're in the process of moving everything to SQL 2014. We're using VS2012 with TFS 2012, and I'm upgrading us tomorrow to TFS 2015 Update 2. We were going to hold off on moving to VS2015 because of these SSDT/BI tools being in preview state. What version should I run in my scenario since we're not going to be moving to SQL 2016 any time soon?
    • Anonymous
      April 05, 2016
      The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    April 08, 2016
    Hi Team;I've been previewing SSAS Tabular '16 for a new client and have come across some issues with the versions of visual studio 2015 DT available. Starting a tabular project, I can build a simple two-table model (the connection wizard imports these two tables just fine), however once there are tables placed in a model, Model -> Process -> Process Partition/Table/All results in absolutely nothing happening in the UI. Also using Model -> Existing Connections -> Process results in nothing happening at all. The project will build, however deploying results in "Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object." in the output window.I have tried 2016 RC2, RC1 and now RC0 (all through Azure deployed on a Windows 2012 R2 VM), with different versions of SSDT and the results are consistently the same. I access the Azure VM through RDP. I have also tried installing a base version of Visual Studio 2015 before installing SSDT and the results are all the same. Anyone have any suggestions? I would love to use the functionality available in SQL Server 2016 for this client, and successful tests in the RC's available will help drive that decision.Thanks - Sean
    • Anonymous
      April 10, 2016
      Sorry for the double post - the first one didn't show up
  • Anonymous
    April 08, 2016
    Hi Team;I cannot seem to process or deploy a model (or process a table/partition) in SSDT for Visual Studio 2015 with SQL Server 2016. I have tried RC2, 1 and 0 on an Azure prepackaged VM. I have also tried installing standard visual studio 2015 before installing the SSDT add-on. All combinations seem to result in the same outcome. Selecting Model -> Process -> Process Table / All / Partition results in nothing at all happening in the UI of Visual Studio. Deploying a model from VS to SSAS results in "Object reference not set to instance of an object" (our favourite) in the output window. I have tried creating a new model from scratch at all three compatibility levels, as well as opening an existing model from VS2013 (SQL Server 2014) and upgrading it. I can restore an existing SSAS database through SSMS and process that no problem - this seems to be a VS issue.Any thoughts? Appreciated - Sean