The SQL Server Data Tools team is pleased to announce an update for SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is now available. The SSDT 16.4 release adds support for Schema Compare in SqlPackage.exe and as an API, Integrated Workspace Mode for SSDT Tabular, and as usual has various bug fixes.
Update: SSDT 16.4.1 Hotfix release is available. This includes a fix for Connect Issue 3104154 to ensure Database Unit Tests work as expected.
Get it here:
Download SSDT GA 16.4.1 for Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2013
- The version number for GA in Visual Studio 2015 is 14.0.60923.0 (Direct link: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/mt186501)
- The version number for GA in Visual Studio 2013 is 12.0.60923.0 (Direct link: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/dn864412)
This release will be available through Visual Studio Extensions and Updates notification soon.
Download Data-Tier Application Framework 16.4
- The version number is 13.0.3450.1
- You can also install as a nuget package, e.g. for use in Powershell or your own app integration scenarios:
What’s new in SSDT?
Database Tools
Schema Compare is now supported in SqlPackage.exe and the Data-Tier Application Framework (DacFx) API. To learn more please read Schema Compare in SqlPackage and the Data-Tier Application Framework.
Analysis Services – Integrated Workspace Mode for SSDT Tabular (SSAS)
SSDT Tabular now includes an internal SSAS instance, which SSDT Tabular starts automatically in the background if integrated workspace mode is enabled so that you can add and view tables, columns, and data in the model designer without having to provide an external workspace server instance. Integrated workspace mode does not change how SSDT Tabular works with a workspace server and database. What changes is where SSDT Tabular hosts the workspace database. To enable integrated workspace mode, select the Integrated Workspace option in the Tabular Model Designer dialog box displayed when creating a new tabular project. For existing tabular projects that currently use an explicit workspace server, you can switch to integrated workspace mode by setting the Integrated Workspace Mode parameter to True in the Properties window, which is displayed when you select the Model.bim file in Solution Explorer.
For more information please read this Analysis Services blog post.
Fixed / Improved this month
Database Tools
Connect Issue 3104154 – Database Unit Test fails after installing SSDT 16.4
Connect Issue 1026648 – IsPersistedNullable shows as different in SSDT Comparison
Connect Issue 2054735 – Identity is reset when importing a BACPAC
Connect Issue 2900167 – Running SSDT unit tests leaves temp files behind
Connect Issue 1807712 – Backwards compatibility breakage – AppLocal and Nugetization
Analysis Services & Reporting Services
| Fixed an issues in SSDT where error tip pop ups where in the way when editing DAX for DirectQuery calculated columns |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS tabular grid where the KPI Icon wasn’t showing in measure grid when Windows scaling factor set at high-DPI 200%+ |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS where pasting large table data could make the tabular project unresponsive |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS tabular model editor to mark the model as needing to save changes when renaming connection friendly name |
| Fixed an issue in the SSDT AS tabular projects where width of columns in the manage relationships dialog could not be resized |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS tabular 1200-level models where pasting data from Excel with locale settings like German didn’t treat the comma as the decimal separator correctly |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS projects with some KPI icon sets which could yield an error “Couldn’t retrieve the data for this visual.” |
| Fixed an issue with SSDT AS project properties dialog to anchored correctly when resized at High-DPI scaling |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS projects that may have caused an error upgrading certain models with Pasted tables |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS where pasting full sheet rows from Excel was very slow and created many unwanted columns |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS where large static DataTable expressions parsing and highlight was really slow or appeared to hang |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT AS to add measures and KPI values to the current perspective selected in the editor |
| Fixed an issue in SSDT where data import into AS project from SQL Azure didn’t support schema types other than “dbo.” |
Contact us:
If you have any question or feedback, please ping @sqldatatools on twitter, visit our forum and for bugs please create bug reports on our Microsoft Connect page. We are fully committed to improve the SSDT experience and look forward to hearing from you!
Hi Kevin,
This is yet another release that the screen jumping issue has not been fixed. Please can someone look into this https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/Feedback/Details/2779379.
Thanks Lawrage, I will forward onto the SSIS team and see if they can give a status on this one.
Sorry for the inconvenience. We plan to fix it in Oct release.
Thanks for the update Kevin and Ricky.
Sorry for the inconvenience. We plan to fix it in Oct release.
I use SQL Server Data Tools a lot. Thanks for improving it.
Wondering when high resolution displays will be supported, as a guy in transit , I’m very often in a situation where the next screen that has a lesser resolution than my Surface Pro 4. As a BI developer working onlarge scale Tabular or Multidimensional models the Data Tools (especially the BI related stuff) are one of the tools I (have to) rely on.
The Relationship Dialog within Dimension Usage seems quite messy, if you try to configure dimension relationships, e.g. Referenced Dimensions or Fact Dimensions.
Hi Tom, please create Connect bugs and we’ll raise with the relevant teams. Is this specific to Analysis Services projects? If you have specific dialogs or components that cause trouble let us know – link the Connect bugs here and we will send them on.
Thanks,
Kevin
Hey Kevin, can you please provide the correct Product Name, I have difficulties to locate the “Data Tools” product on Connect.
Thanks,
Tom
Hey Kevin,
here is the link to the item on connect
https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/3104164/ssdt-bi-ssas-md-messed-dialog-on-surface-pro-4-high-resolution-dpi
Thanks
Tom
Please introduce an ‘edit measures’ capability in SSDT Tabular similar to the one in Power Pivot for Excel because currently it’s not easy to, say, edit the table location of a measure.
Copying/Cutting and pasting a measure from the measure grid in one table to another is not even possible.
Neither is it possible to drag-and-drop a measure from one table to another using Tabular Model Explorer.
Import/export of selected objects and drag and drop support is definitely needed to help us be more productive, because it’s natural to want to build one tabular solution and then leverage parts of it in other tabular solutions.
Please keep improving SSDT Tabular!
Great feedback Mohammed. I’ve let the team know your thoughts and we will certainly take them into consideration.
Feedback really helps us!
I’ve been getting some seriously odd behaviour since the previous upgrade with the publish tool attempting to drop columns from my target database that exist in both my database model and in my target database
Hi Andrew, can you provide more information about how you’re publishing (SqlPackage, VS, MSBuild), the settings you’re using, the schema of the table in both the source and target databases, and the differences between the script produced by the previous working version and the current version? Thank you!
I am unable to switch an existing SSAS Tabular model to Integrated Workspace Mode – I see the property there but it’s grey and doesn’t allow me to change it to True.
Sounds like a bug, you can create a connect bug and upload your model.settings file (it’s a hidden file in your project directory). As a work around you might be able to rename that file (same as deleting but you’ll have a back up just in case). This is a brand new feature, so we need all the feedback we can get! I’ll look into this on our side as well.
Seriously… Yet another release and no IgrnoreColumnOrder, it takes a year to add such a simple, yet impactful thing??
https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/Feedback/Details/1221587
It’s up to 67 upvotes, yet 2900167 has a whopping 2 and it gets fixed?? hell 1026648 only had 35. Neither of these are key to actually adopting DACPAC, only minor if that.
+1. We have to be extra cautious in our pull requests because of this. It doesnt seem like a hard one to implement.
hi,
when does SSDT support APS/PDW autocomplete (intellisense)? these is also a drag and drop issue that we can’t drag object into the query window.
thanks, Dave
Does this new version fix this issue: Reporting section (with ReportViewer control) is missing from Visual Studio 2015?
Hi Kathy, is there a Connect bug tracking this? ReportViewer is distributed with VS2015 – it is not bundled in SSDT updates. Any fixes related to this would likely be in a Visual Studio update.
Thanks,
Kevin
Dear,
SSDT sql server unit tests are great. Just want to know there is a way to code coverage stored procedures and have smart tests (PEX) built-in?
Hi Luciano. For Code Coverage support please take a look at the Developer Pack released by Ed Elliott – blogs are https://agilesql.club/blog/Ed-Elliott/2016-01-14/T-SQL-Code-Coverage-In-SSDT and https://the.agilesql.club/blogs/Ed-Elliott/2016-04-08/SQLCover-Code-Coverage-For-SQL-Server-T-SQL. These integrate with unit tests to support code coverage. Pex/Intellitest is not supported for SQL Unit Tests.
Regards,
Kevin
SSDT For VS 2015, has a bug that still isn’t fixed for SSAS Tabular in 1103 mode, if your model has a hierarchy, and you edit the hierarchy or if you modify anything in the perspective dialog that has a hierarchy on that object, they are all removed with no way of returning them, this has caused us to abandon VS 2015 for pre 2016(1200) cubes. Note that the bug does not happen when working in 1200 mode. I did submit a connect item called VS 2015 SSDT since I couldn’t find reference on Connect but I have seen others posting of the issue since June on the web. We deliver Warehouse and Cube solutions for our customers which range from SQL 2012-2016 so we were really excited to have a single set of unified tools, just can’t use them 🙁
Fantastic! Local integrated tabular workspace! Much needed feature for years! I always wondered why Power BI Desktop and DAX Studio could use the tabular model loaded into memory by the Power BI desktop application, yet SSDT wouldn’t either create its own tabular workspace nor could it connect to the workspace created by Power BI for its workspace.
Man, this feature has been desperately needed for years! It was always a pain having to explain to management why I didn’t need a development server for database development, yet, I needed one for tabular models…
Thank you big time.
Hi,
I’ve posted a defect few months ago (https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/2906200) and was told on the 15/09 that it was fixed and would be part of the next release.
However, I’ve tried this one and STRING_SPLIT is still not recognised by SSDT.
Could I know when will this fix be released please?
Except that very good job 🙂