Environment variables can be created by right-clicking on the environment in question and selecting “Properties.”

In the properties window, select “Variables” so that you can add new variables.

As long as you stay within the 4,000 character limit, you’ll be fine. If you exceed that limit, expect an error message as below:

Clicking on the error message in the highlighted progress window, you can see the full details:

Yep, internally, the SSIS team uses the sql_variant data type, which cannot store an NVARCHAR(MAX) column. Since our string is longer than 4,000 characters (the max limit for NVARCHAR), the data type of the data we are sending must be converted to an NVARCHAR(MAX) which is an incompatible type for sql_variant.

The SSIS team is aware of this and hopefully they’ll be putting in a limit to prevent users from entering anything more than 4,000 characters to prevent the error from happening in the first place, or at least raising awareness of the limitation.

Also of a somewhat unrelated note – if you choose to set a variable to “sensitive” once you save it to the database by clicking the OK button, you will not be able to retrieve its value from within the GUI. Just beware. Treat the sensitive property as if you were working with passwords (which may be a common use of this property anyhow).

First, setup four package level variables:
FilePath – string
SSISFolderFilePath – string
SSISFolderName – string
SSISFolders – object

FilePath should be set to the location where you want to store the packages. Include the trailing slash, and ensure that the location exists.
SSISFolderFilePath should be set to evaluate an expression (EvaluateAsExpression = TRUE), and its expression should be:
@[User::FilePath] + @[User::SSISFolderName]

Then create a connection manager object that points to your MSDB database where you want to extract from. If you want this to be dynamic, perhaps to archive ALL SSIS packages in your company, then this could be made a dynamic connection manager object (by using expressions) and you iterate over each server. For now, we’re only going to use one server.

Once these are setup, the rest is point and click, pretty much. Add an Execute SQL Task to the control flow, and configure it so that it returns a full resultset. See below.

The query for the Execute SQL Task is:

SELECT foldername
  FROM dbo.sysssispackagefolders folders
 WHERE EXISTS (SELECT NULL
                 FROM dbo.sysssispackages pkg
                WHERE pkg.folderid = folders.folderid)

*Note – the above SQL only assumes a flat directory structure. If you have subdirectories in MSDB, you can use a recursive CTE to create a hierarchy resultset.

With the Execute SQL Task set up, you’ll have to shred the results using a Foreach Loop Container. Inside the Foreach Loop Container, we will want to use a File System Task to create directories for our packages if they do not already exist. The configuration for that is below:

Next, we have to create a data flow and attach it to the Foreach Loop Container. The full control flow should resemble the next screenshot.

In the data flow, we have three components – OLE DB Source, Derived Column, and the Export Column transformation. Connect the OLE DB source to your connection manager object, and use the following query against MSDB:

SELECT folder.foldername,
       pkg.name,
       pkg.packagedata
  FROM dbo.sysssispackages pkg
  JOIN dbo.sysssispackagefolders folder
    ON pkg.folderid = folder.folderid

Then, configure the Derived Column component so that it creates one new column, FullFilePath. The following is the expression to use:

(DT_WSTR,500)(@[User::FilePath] + foldername + "\\" + name + ".dtsx")

Then configure the Export Column transformation as the following screenshot illustrates:

The final data flow should look like the following:

The only thing left to do is execute the package. Navigate to the location defined by the FilePath package variable and you should see a directory structure resembling that in MSDB with all of the SSIS packages saved.

If you wish to download the full SSIS package, here you go: http://www.ssistalk.com/ExportSSISPackages.dtsx

Here’s what I’m referring to (note the blue dashed line on the left):

Well, now’s your chance – please vote for Jamie Thomson’s suggestion to add this feature to SSIS. While there, please be sure to leave feedback as to why you would like to see this included.

Vote here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/644668/ssis-snap-to

Some of the immediate changes to highlight in CTP1 are: SSMS is now based on Visual Studio, sequence generators, several new DMV/DMFs (including one to investigate the resultset of a query/sproc without actually executing it), centralized SSIS management, SSIS changes, and others.

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2010/nov10/11-09PASS10PR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

Stay tuned here for some highlights in Denali CTP1, especially around SSIS.

You may also have the following additional error message:
The System Cannot Find The File Specified

Here’s how to fix it, thanks to Silviu Guea, Microsoft.

Create a batch file with the following code. Execute it. Ignore any errors. Try again. If it doesn’t work, you may have to contact Microsoft support or try many uninstall/reinstall combinations. For me, this worked the first time I tried it. Finally, the code:

@rem start batch file
@rem delete the VSTA registry cache from the current user
REG DELETE HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VSTA /f
REG DELETE HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VSTAHost\SSIS_ScriptTask /f
REG DELETE HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VSTAHost\SSIS_ScriptComponent /f

@rem delete the VSTA registration cache for SSIS script task and data flow script component
REG DELETE HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VSTAHost\SSIS_ScriptTask /f
REG DELETE HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VSTAHost\SSIS_ScriptComponent /f

@rem delete the cached files from the HDD
rd /s /q "%AppData%\Microsoft\VSTA"
rd /s /q "%AppData%\Microsoft\VSTAHost\SSIS_ScriptTask"
rd /s /q "%AppData%\Microsoft\VSTAHost\SSIS_ScriptComponent"

rd /s /q "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\VSTA"
rd /s /q "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\VSTAHost\SSIS_ScriptTask"
rd /s /q "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\VSTAHost\SSIS_ScriptComponent"

@rem re-generate the VSTA files for SSIS script task and component
"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\vsta.exe" /hostid SSIS_ScriptTask /setup
"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\vsta.exe" /hostid SSIS_ScriptComponent /setup

@rem end batch file

Download file here: vsta_cleanup.txt

Get the Excel document here: SSIS_Prefix_Naming.xlsx (11 KB)

Note that I have not updated this document for 2008 task/component changes, and some of the abbreviations may have been changed from Jamie’s original list of suggestions to suit the needs of my organization at the time.

You can add your own groupings to the Toolbox window by right-clicking anywhere in the toolbox, and selecting “Add Tab”.

For example, in the data flow window, I can add a new tab (or grouping) for Analysis Services Destination components.

1) Right click on the toolbox background and select “Add Tab”

Add Tab

2) Give it a name.

Name Tab

3) Drag components to the new tab.

Dragging Components

4) Repeat as needed.

Repeat

The final results might look something like this:

Final Results

Also, if you find a post here that you’re using to work on an issue in SSIS 2008, let me know if it isn’t working for you. It could be that I don’t have updated content for use in the SSIS 2008 environment. It’s easy enough to update, I just won’t be able to catch all of the items listed here.

One last thing – the annual MVP Summit is coming up in February. If you have something that you’d like for me to bring to the SSIS dev team in terms of feedback, feature requests, bugs, etc…, let me know and I’ll do my best to present them to the team.

What do you think? Is this something you could see value in having implemented?

Connect submission: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=525805