Professional SQL Server™ 2005 Integration Services

4.6. Data Viewers

Data viewers are a very important feature in SSIS for debugging your data pump pipeline. They allow you to view data at points in time at runtime. If you place a data viewer before and after the Aggregate transform, you can see at runtime the data flowing into the transform and what it looks like after the transform happens. Once you deploy your package and run it on the server as a job or with the service, the data viewers do not show. Anytime the package is executed outside the designer, the data viewers won't show. There are four types of data viewers:

• Grid: Shows a snapshot of the data in grid format at that point in time

• Histogram: Shows the distribution of numeric data in a histogram graph

• Scatter Plot: Shows the distribution of numeric data using an x- and y-axis

• Column Chart: Displays the occurrence count of discrete values in a selected column

To place a data viewer in your pipeline, right-click on one of the paths (red or green arrows leaving a transform or source) and select Data Viewers. The Configure Data Viewer dialog box will appear, as shown in Figure 4-39. Select what type of data viewer you wish to use and optionally give it a name. You can go to the other tab that's named after what type of data viewer you're using to select what columns will be used in the data viewer.

Once you run the package, you'll see the data viewers open and populate with data when the package runs the transform that it's attached to, as shown in Figure 4-40. The package ...