Jessica M. Moss

Tom, an attendee at last weekend’s SQLSaturday Olympia , asked me how to refresh a spreadsheet from within SQL Server Integration Services. My first thought was to turn on the connection’s “Refresh data when opening the file” option in the spreadsheet itself and avoid the situation entirely; however, this may not always be a viable solution. Here are the steps to perform the refresh from within an SSIS package. First, ensure that Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel is registered in the GAC. If not, install the 2007 Microsoft Office system Primary Interop Assemblies . This will need to be done on any machine where you plan on running this package. Next, create a script task in your SSIS package that contains the following code (include your spreadsheet name): Imports System Imports System.Data Imports System.Math Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Imports Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success Dim excel...

Using the default IIS 7.0 installation on Windows Server 2008 does not include all of the role services necessary to install SQL Server Reporting Services 2005. I found this command in an online forum when looking for a list of all the needed role services. (By the way, I apologize, but I can no longer find the post to link back to. If it was you who wrote it, please post a comment with a link back to that post!) Here is the command. I hope it helps you as much as it helped me! ServerManagerCmd.exe -i Web-Server Web-Asp-Net Web-Http-Redirect Web-Windows-Auth Web-Metabase Web-WMI Version: SQL Server 2005

On October 1, 2008, I received notification that I was awarded as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional . According to Microsoft, MVPs are "exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who are awarded for voluntarily sharing their high quality, real world expertise in offline and online technical communities" and quite a few other comments that make me blush. It's always nice to be rewarded for doing what you love to do. MVPs are awarded for their past contributions, but the benefits are applied to the upcoming year. These benefits include access to technical resources and the opportunity to learn from and offer thoughts to Microsoft. I believe the information I provide will be best if it comes from everyone, so I ask you to let me know if you're having any issues or concerns with SQL Server. On a final note, if you have a user group that would enjoy learning about SQL Server BI, or if you have a technical question, or if you just feel like geek...

That would be Richmond in Virginia and Olympia in Washington. :) I'll be speaking at the Richmond Code Camp 2008.2 on October 4 about custom code in Reporting Services. Richmond is my local user community, and I can't say enough good things about the crew that organizes and speaks in that area. I hope to see some familiar faces during the day. The following Saturday (October 11), I'll be presenting at Olympia SQLSaturday about Reporting Services 2008. I enjoy SQLSaturday events because they are all about SQL Server! This one includes talks on Business Intelligence, TSQL, and internals. Both events have a great speaker lineup and should be a lot of fun. Hope to see you there!