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Saturday, 1 March 2014

SSIS 2012 with Team Foundation Server - Part II

Case
I have installed Team Explorer and setup Visual Studio to use it. What's next?

Solution
In Part I you read:
A) Install Team Explorer for Visual Studio 2010
B) Install Team Explorer for Visual Studio 2012
C) Setup Visual Studio to use TFS

This second part covers:
D) Adjusting development process



D) Adjusting development process
Because you can now work with multiple developers on the same project, you have to make some arrangements with your fellow developers, like:

1) Get latest version project
Get the latest version of the project on a regular basis. Otherwise you will miss new packages, project connection managers and project parameters. Do this for example each morning or before you start developing. There is also an option in Visual Studio to automatically get the latest version of the solution when opening it.
Get everything when a solution or project is opened.

















2) Get latest version package
Get the latest version of a package before editing it. There is also an option in Visual Studio to automatically get the latest version of a package when checking it out.
Get latest version of item on check out.

















3) Adding new package to project
When you add a new package to the project, the project self will be checked out. First first rename the new package, save it and then check in the project and the new (empty/clean) package. Otherwise your fellow developers cannot change project properties or add new packages.
Adding new package will check out the project























4) Disable multiple check out
Working together on the same file at the same time is nearly impossible, because it's hard to merge the XML of two versions of a package. Therefore you should disable multiple check out in TFS or check out your package exclusively (not the default in TFS).
In Team-menu click Team Project Settings, Source Control

Uncheck the multiple checkout box






































5) Don't check in faulty packages
Try not to check in package that doesn't work. Especially when you work with the project deployment model, with which you can only deploy the complete project.
Don't check in faulty packages



















6) No large/complex packages
Don’t make packages to large/complex. Divide the functionality over multiple smaller packages, because you can’t work with multiple developers on the same large package at the same time.

7) Sensitive data
The default Package Protection Level is EncryptSensitiveWithUserKey. This will encrypt passwords and other sensitive data in the package with the username of the developer. Because your colleagues will probably have different usernames they can't edit or execute packages that you made without re-entering all sensitive package data.
The easiest way to overcome this, is to use DontSaveSensitive as Package Protection Level in combination with Package Configurations. Then all the sensitive data will be stored in the configuration table or file and when you open the package all this data will be retrieved from the configuration table or file.
If you're using the Project Deployment Model in combination with sensitive parameters instead of Package Configuration, then the easiest workaround is to use EncryptAllWithPassword or EncryptSensitiveWithPassword with a password that is known within the developmentteam.

8) Development standards
When you're developing with multiple people (or someone else is going to maintain your work) then it's good to have some Development Best Practices like using prefixes for tasks and transformations or using templates. This makes it easier to transfer work and to collaborate as a team.

9) Comments
When you check in a package, it's very useful to add a meaningful description of the change. This makes it easier to track history.
Check in comments

















10) Branching, Labeling and building
Beside versioning and checking in/out packages there are more interesting functions in TFS that are probably more common in C# and VB.Net programming, but worth checking out. Here are some interesting links about TFS and SSIS:

 

 



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Please use the SSIS MSDN forum for general SSIS questions that are not about this post. I'm a regular reader of that forum and will gladly answer those questions over there.

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