SQL Server Data Tools GA update for June 2016

The SQL Server Data Tools team is pleased to announce an update for SSDT General Availability (GA) is now released. The SSDT GA update for June 2016 added support for the latest updates of SQL Server 2016 RTM, various bug fixes.

 

Get it here: Download SSDT GA June 2016 for Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2013

Download Data-Tier Application Framework June 2016

  • The version number for GA is 13.0.3314.1

 

What’s new in SSDT?

One Installer for SQL Server database and Business Intelligence (BI) tools

  • New unified setup for both Database and Business Intelligence (BI) tools in Visual Studio 2015.
  • Simple to acquire and integrate SQL Server database, Analysis Services, Reporting Services and Integration Services designer developer experience.

Support for multiple SQL Server versions

Monthly SSDT update release for faster response to customer

  • New and unified SSDT download page.
  • Shipping every month on the web.
  • Faster to address customer feedback every month.
  • Light-up support for new Azure SQL Database features.
  • Automatic update notification.

SQL Server Analysis Service Enhancements

Project templates added for Tabular 1200 models in SSDT

  • No longer need two versions of SSDT for building relational and BI projects.
  • Adds project templates for Analysis Services solutions, including Analysis Services Tabular Projects used for building models at the 1200 compatibility level.
  • Includes other Analysis Services project templates for multidimensional and data mining solutions.

Improved DAX formula editing

  • Updates to the formula bar help you write formulas with more ease by differentiating functions, fields and measures using syntax coloring
  • Provides intelligent function and field suggestions and tells you if parts of your DAX expression are wrong using error 'squiggles'.
  • Allows you to use multiple lines (Alt + Enter) and indentation (Tab).

Improved SSDT modeling performance for Tabular 1200 models

  • For Tabular 1200 models, metadata operations in SSDT are much faster. By comparison, on the same hardware, creating a relationship on a model set to the SQL Server 2014 compatibility level (1103) with 23 tables takes 3 seconds, whereas the same relationship on a model created set to compatibility level 1200 takes just under a second.

Improved DAX formula editing

  • With formula fixup on a Tabular 1200 model, SSDT will automatically update any measures that is referencing a column or table that was renamed.

Support for Visual Studio configuration manager

  • To support multiple environments, like Test and Pre-production environments, Visual Studio allows developers to create multiple project configurations using the configuration manager. Multidimensional models already leverage this but Tabular models do not. With this release, you can now use configuration manager to deploy to different servers.

Set default for bi-directional cross filters in tabular models in SSDT

  • This release enables bi-directional cross filters by default for tabular models at the 1200 compatibility level in SSDT. Filters are only auto-generated when the direction can be established with a high degree of certainty. If there is ambiguity in the form of multiple query paths across table relationships, a filter won't be created automatically. See Bi-directional cross filters for tabular models in SQL Server 2016 Analysis Services for details.

Calculated tables in SSDT

  • A calculated table is a model-only construction based on a DAX expression or query in SSDT. When deployed in a database, a calculated table is indistinguishable from regular tables.
  • There are several uses for calculated tables, including the creation of new tables to expose an existing table in a specific role. The classic example is a Date table that operates in multiple contexts (order date, ship date, and so forth). By creating a calculated table for a given role, you can now activate a table relationship to facilitate queries or data interaction using the calculated table. Another use for calculated tables is to combine parts of existing tables into an entirely new table that exists only in the model. See Create a Calculated Table (SSAS Tabular) to learn more.

Translations in SSDT

  • You can now store translated metadata in a Tabular 1200 model. Metadata in the model includes fields for Culture, translated captions, and translated descriptions. To add translations, use the Model > Translations command in SQL Server Data Tools. See Translations in Tabular models (Analysis Services) for details.

Tabular Model Scripting Language (TMSL) supported in SSDT

  • Scripts can easily be generated in SSDT for tabular models at compatibility level 1200. Functionally, TMSL is equivalent to the XMLA ASSL extension that provides multidimensional object definitions, except that TMSL uses native descriptors like model, table, and relationship to describe tabular metadata. See Tabular Model Scripting Language (TMSL) Reference for details about the schema.

SQL Server Database Project Enhancements

Comprehensive programmability support for all new features of SQL Server 2016

  • Easy to develop, build and deploy SQL Server 2016 database.
  • Security: Always Encrypted, Row-Level security, Dynamic Data Masking, Transparent Data Encryption, Azure Active Directory.
  • Performance and Hyperscale: In-memory OLTP v2 support, Stretch Data Warehouse.
  • Modern RDBMS: Temporal, JSON, Polybase.
  • Visit what’s new in SQL Server 2016 to learn more.

End-to-End support for Database Lifecycle Management (DLM) & DevOps practice

New Connection Experience for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database

  • Easily connect to any database from your history – from Publish, Schema Compare, Data Compare.
  • Pin favorite connections for easy access.
  • Browse your Azure SQL Databases direct from Visual Studio and simply click to connect.
  • Azure firewall rule creation is automatically handled at connection time. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUHk-o8gjpI for details.

 

SQL Server Integration Services Enhancements

SSIS Designer creates and maintains packages for SQL Server 2016, 2014, or 2012

  • Create, maintain, and debug packages that target SQL Server 2016, SQL Server 2014, or SQL Server 2012. In Solution Explorer, right-click on an Integration Services project and select Properties to open the property pages for the project. On the General tab of Configuration Properties, select the TargetServerVersion property, and then choose SQL Server 2016, SQL Server 2014, or SQL Server 2012.

Reuse Control Flow across Packages by Using Control Flow Package Parts

  • Save a commonly used control flow task or container to a standalone part file (a “.dtsxp” file) and reuse it multiple times in one or more packages by using control flow package parts.

Support for OData V3 and V4 data sources

  • For OData V3 protocol, the component supports the ATOM and JSON data formats.
  • For OData V4 protocol, the component supports the JSON data format.

Column names for errors in the data flow

  • When you redirect rows in the data flow that contain errors to an error output, the output contains a numeric identifier for the column in which the error occurred, but does not display the name of the column. Now the name of the column in which the error occurred can be displayed Advanced Editor and Data Viewer.

Support for Hadoop and HDFS

  • The Hadoop Connection Manager now supports both Basic and Kerberos authentication.
  • The HDFS File Source and the HDFS File Destination support both Text and Avro format. HDFS File Source also support ORC format.
  • The Hadoop File System task now supports the "Within Hadoop" option in addition to the "To Hadoop" and the "From Hadoop" options.

AutoAdjustBufferSize property

  • When you set the value of the new AutoAdjustBufferSize property to true, the data flow engine automatically calculates the buffer size for the data flow.

SQL Server Reporting Services Enhancements

Connectivity improvements

  • Support for Oracle ODP.NET natively
  • Support for Teradata 14.x
  • Support for SAP BW Session Security
  • Support for Personalized Connection Strings

Tree Map and Sunburst Charts

  • Enhance your reports with Tree Map and Sunburst charts, great ways to display hierarchal data. For more information, see Tree Map and Sunburst Charts in Reporting Services.

Modern paginated reports

  • Design beautifully modern paginated reports with new, modern styles for charts, gauges, maps and other data visualizations.

 

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
    June 01, 2016
    As of 2016.06.01 12:28 EST links to download are not updated.
    • Anonymous
      June 01, 2016
      Hi everyone,The download pages are in the process of publishing. Please give it a couple hours. It should be available later today.Sorry for any inconvenience,Abbie
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    today's release 60525 is herehttps://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/mt186501this link is hidden under SECOND link in download page https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt204009.aspx...and is wrongly (as of now) labeled as database tools only
    • Anonymous
      June 01, 2016
      This has been fixed, we just had a delay in updating the page. The download page now only has the GA link. Thanks for mentioning this.
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Same dread question for past 2-3 years, can it ignore column order when comparing schema ...
    • Anonymous
      June 02, 2016
      @whoever - I'd like to feedback on a potential solution for this problem. Can you email me at David dot Atkinson at red-gate.com and I'll provide more information.
    • Anonymous
      June 02, 2016
      The comment has been removed
      • Anonymous
        June 05, 2016
        Are you able to share the backlog with the wider community? Appreciate that this can change regularly but it would be good to get an idea of the specific areas of focus.
        • Anonymous
          June 07, 2016
          I can work with our PM on this. We presented our focus areas to some public user groups and had planned to make it available to more people for transparency. The usual caveats apply: It will be updated regularly and not all things planned for 6 months may make it. But we agree that having some visibility can help all our users understand and influence the path forward.Thanks,Kevin
      • Anonymous
        June 15, 2016
        Will the "IsPersisedNullable"bug also be fixed anytime soon?(https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/1026648/ispersistednullable-shows-as-different-in-ssdt-comparison)I see this bug is still there...Thanks,Charles
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    I'm curious if this version fixes the common issue where a publish gets stuck before it shows up in the data tools operations window, and you can't close Visual Studio without killing devenv.exe. I know that's been a challenge in our team.
    • Anonymous
      June 01, 2016
      Hi James, this is the first we've heard of this issue. Do you have any Connect bug or forum thread about this for reference? You can contact me at kcunnane [at symbol] microsoft [dot] com with more information about this. The first step would be seeing if this repros on the new release. After this, follow these steps to open a bug and send on logging if possible to help us diagnose:Create connect bug with log infoIf this issues is reproduceable on the latest SSDT bits, I'd suggest capturing the event log for what is going wrong and then opening a connect bug for this issue at https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/CreateFeedback.aspx and use the category "Developer Tools(SSDT, BIDS, etc.)". We're trying to track all bugs through connect so that you can tell when we have fixed the issue and we can request more information. Please include the event log (instructions on this below) plus any other useful information you can provide, such as an example of exact steps to reproduce the problem. Gathering an Event Log for SSDTFor diagnostic purposes we would like you to gather an event log for the issue that you are experiencing in SSDT. In order to gather a log and send it to a member of the team, please follow the steps below. 1. Open a new command prompt as Administrator.2. Run the following commandlogman create trace -n DacFxDebug -p "Microsoft-SQLServerDataTools" 0x800 -o "%LOCALAPPDATA%\DacFxDebug.etl" -etslogman create trace -n SSDTDebug -p "Microsoft-SQLServerDataToolsVS" 0x800 -o "%LOCALAPPDATA%\SSDTDebug.etl" -ets3. Run whatever the target/issue scenario is in SSDT.4. Go back to the command prompt and run the following commandslogman stop DacFxDebug -etslogman stop SSDTDebug -ets5. The resulting ETL files will be located at %LOCALAPPDATA%\SSDTDebug.etl & %LOCALAPPDATA%\DacFxDebug.etl and can be navigated to using Windows Explorer.6. Please attach this file when creating the connect bug NOTE - These logs will only be used by Microsoft product team members in order to better diagnose the problem you are experiencing with SSDT and will not be shared elsewhere. If you want to make sure that there is no private information in your ETL file, the SSDTDebug.etl file can be opened and analyzed using the Windows Event Viewer.To do this, open the Windows Event Viewer application. In the right-hand panel, select Open Saved Log. Navigate to the location where you saved the log, open, and review the contents of the trace.Thanks,Kevin
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Please update the links. Not yet available as of 10:00 AM PST
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Thanks! Downloading the ISO now.
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Here are the direct links to the download pages: SSDT VS2015: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/mt186501SSDT VS2013: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dn864412 Abbie
    • Anonymous
      June 01, 2016
      Thanks Abbie!! :)
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    (repost-update bug from previous blog entry)Update: this behavior is confirmed with June 01 60525 SSDT releaseBug report: VS-2015-U2 + SSDT-2016, two fresh installation on Win10 (today) and on Server 2012 (two weeks ago). Both show the same bug:SSRS, Query Designer connected to SSAS cube on SQl Server 2012. When report is created DataSet Structured Query Designed works perfectly. I can switch from Structure to direct MDX and back. Report can be saved , closed and reopened — Query structure is holding. Update: with 60525 "report design" is lost upon save-reopen.If Visual Studio is restarted, DataSet opens ONLY in MDX mode. Switching to structured mode gives: “Changing to design view will result in current query be lost”. If press ok — you bet — all structure is gone.Report itself is running OK, SSDT-2016 still keeps MDX, it is just “structured design” can not be recovered.Compatibility setting in TOOLS>OPTIONS> BI SETTINGS are set to 11.0, No difference if set to 13.0.Target SSRS Server is set to 2008-2014 . No difference if set to 2016.It is the same behaviors for new solution-project-report as well as for reports migrated from VS2013.Thanks.
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Looks like this bug was seen already in CPT3.https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/04bd00de-c884-49f1-aeb2-254acf095282/sql-server-2016-rc3-reporting-services-mdx-problem?forum=sqlreportingservicesSo, it is confirmed.Looks like it is MAJOR bug that prevents report development against SSAS source.Please, address it ASAP.Thanks.
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Thanks for the great work on getting to this release.Unfortunately, I can confirm that the following bug is still reproducable for me with this release https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/2265502/vs2015-crash-when-viewing-sql-file-with-ssdt-bi-dec2015-preview
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Hi,Is there any guidance or recommendations on the installation / uninstallation order with respect to prior preview versions of SSDT?i.e. should we uninstall the older versions (and all RC0, RC1, RC2, RC3 libraries etc.) PRIOR to installing the June 2016 GA version? Or do we uninstall all the old preview versions AFTER installing the June 2016 GA version?
    • Anonymous
      June 01, 2016
      Hi John, you are safe to update from RC0, RC1 etc. For example Visual Studio 2015 Update 2 shipped with SQL Server 2016 RC0 binaries, so a large majority of our customers will be upgrading from that version. There is no need to uninstall anything.Regards,Kevin
      • Anonymous
        June 01, 2016
        Thanks for your response Kevin.Follow-up question:Should we install "Data-Tier Application Framework June 2016" before or after June 2016 GA SSDT?
        • Anonymous
          June 02, 2016
          The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Is there any information about updated Attunity Connectors for Oracle? All my SSIS 2012 projects that use the connectors are currently erroring out with the following: "Error loading 'Oracle.conmgr' : Exception from HRESULT: 0xC001403F."
  • Anonymous
    June 01, 2016
    Can you please get https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt204009.aspx updated with the links? It only has the VS 2015 web installer, which doesn't seem right seeing as you've put the VS 2013 and VS 2015 versions here plus your links allow an offline install.I've left a feedback on that page about the same.
    • Anonymous
      June 02, 2016
      Hi Cody, thanks for raising this. VS2013 installer is in the Previous Releases section linked to on that page. We have pushed the VS2013 update through the Extensions and Updates mechanism in VS2013, so that users will get auto-notified there and be linked directly to the download. If you are a VS2013 user expect this to be how you find the download link, there'll be no need to check the main page.The reason we are not putting additional links on the main page is simplicity - we want one simple, clickable link for most users trying to find the SQL Server tools (including BI). We believe this makes most users lives a lot easier, and is consistent with how the Visual Studio team has their download pages. We received a lot of feedback that the previous version (with lots of text, links and options) was hard to understand for the majority of users. The tradeoff is VS2013 installation isn't as obvious from that page.Thanks again for bringing this up and I hope this helps you understand our approach here.Kevin
  • Anonymous
    June 03, 2016
    Still crashing any time I try to open an SSIS solution or create a new solution. I've even tried installing VS2015 Pro Update 2 from MSDN, repairing the SSDT install, repairing SSMS 2016. Kind of out of ideas here...https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/2781125/ssis-projects-crash-visual-studio
    • Anonymous
      June 03, 2016
      as a follow-up, I also posted the event log. It looks like something related to either Microsoft.Data.Tools.Schema.Sql.CodeCoverage assembly or Microsoft.VisualStudio.Data.Tools.Integration (both are missing)
  • Anonymous
    June 05, 2016
    Updated to the latest SSDT. But it seems that it is not working properly with temporal table. I modified the temporal tables, then I got errors when deploying. I had to manually disable the SYSTEM_VERSIONING, drop the tables and them deploy. Anything wrong?
    • Anonymous
      June 05, 2016
      The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 06, 2016
    The comment has been removed
    • Anonymous
      June 08, 2016
      I saw this last week when I did some dev at a clients who only have VS Shell installed on the machine I was working on. It definitely confused me, I had to check all my transform counts to be sure as they weren't showing up in the flows between the transform tasks.
    • Anonymous
      June 13, 2016
      This has been an issue since VS 2013 at least.. it never was a problem with BIDS for SQL Server 2008 (R2). I've never come across a solution - perhaps the team can inform?
  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2016
    I have tried to open a solution with several SSIS 2012 projects with ProtectionLevel=EncryptSensitiveWithPassword in Visual Studio 2015 but I am only prompted once for the password (instead of 3 times like before in VS2010) and then receiving warnings regarding a wrong/missing password for all but one SSIS project (thus all sensitive fields are empty).Is this an already known bug?
  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2016
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2016
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2016
    I have noticed this in two Visual Studio 2015 installs:SQL Server Data Tools do not show up in Tools/Extensions and Updates and the GA update for June 2016 has not been pushed via notifications.They do correctly show up in Help/About and show version 14.0.60413.0Manually downloading and running the installer correctly updates it to 14.0.60525.0 but it still doesn't show up in Tools/Extensions and Updates
  • Anonymous
    June 13, 2016
    Has anyone noticed the VS2015 SSIS control flow diagram has an odd behavior when the diagram is larger than the screen - the first click on a task or container will shift the selected object to the bottom or right side of the screen and then the second click will re-shift the diagram so that the selected object is often no longer visible. This makes double-clicking (to open the editor or data flow) impossible as the selected object jumps away and you end up clicking somewhere else on the diagram. The only way around this is to right-click and selected edit rather than double left click. This behavior did not occur in VS2013.
    • Anonymous
      June 13, 2016
      The comment has been removed
      • Anonymous
        June 14, 2016
        Just a standard 22" monitor running at 1680 x 1050 native resolution.
    • Anonymous
      June 14, 2016
      The comment has been removed
      • Anonymous
        June 21, 2016
        Any solution to this? I just started experiencing this very issue after updating to the GA release. I have to HD 24" screens.
  • Anonymous
    June 13, 2016
    The comment has been removed
    • Anonymous
      August 31, 2016
      The comment has been removed
      • Anonymous
        September 19, 2016
        Hi Javier - there are no other solutions that I am aware of. The product (developed by Microsoft) doesn't seem to be compatible with the Surface Pro (developed by Microsoft) running Windows 10 (developed by Microsoft...)
        • Anonymous
          October 22, 2016
          The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 21, 2016
    There seems to be one major step backwards from the betas: the "Control flow parts"-feature is only available when the target version is SSIS 2016. In the betas, this was also available for other versions (an I confirmed it worked when deploying it to SSIS 2012). Why was this disabled? As this is a design-time feature, I see no reason to disable this...
  • Anonymous
    July 21, 2016
    There is a bug with Hierarchys not being deployed to tabular models in this version, anyone else having the problem and/or seen a fix?
  • Anonymous
    July 26, 2016
    Hi,I have this unfortunate combination of developing a SSIS project in VS2013 and when deploying I discover that the database is SQL 2012.So I've just installed this patch on VS2013, and now I'm currently at version 12.0.60629.When restarting the PC and reopening the project, there is no such a TargetServerVersion property on the General tab of Configuration Properties. My VS is in French, and there is no General tab.I tried to create a new project from scratch, but it's the same thing.Please, advise: how to get it on VS2013?Do I really need to migrate to VS2015?Thanks in advance.
    • Anonymous
      July 27, 2016
      Yes, backwards compatibility for SSIS is only in the VS2015 version. We'd strongly recommend you update to using that version for SSIS development - it's where active bug fixes and support for multiple SQL versions is available.Thanks,Kevin
  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2017
    Requesting for setting my facebook of m.facebook.com/home.F immediately.
    • Anonymous
      March 16, 2017
      Help me