I'm really confused about the functionality of SQL (and files) configurations
in SSIS packages. Unless everything is configured exactly perfectly, SSIS
seems to just progressively try other options without any indication.

It appears to me that DTExec does the following:
try to use a command line configured config file, if it doesn't exist (or
it's an UNC path), silently ignore, without even indicating it was
attempted...
try to use any design time configuration (files, SQL, etc), and if they
don't exist, silently ignore without even indicating they were attempted...
just use values defined in the package at design time.


For SQL config, I would expect to be able to create a SQL config group of
settings, copy that config table to different environments, changing values
where appropriate, and then create a SQL Agent jobs to run the package. In
that job, I would want to change the config table connection
(server/database) with "set variables" to change runtime behaviour and pull
data from the appropriate environment.

However, what seems to be happening is that the current configuration
settings in the package are used get the SQL config, and THEN the command
line set commands are being applied, so any attempted changes to the config
data source are useless.

could somone point me to a good reference that CLEARLY describes what
sequence of events happens during a DTExec run of an SQL package?

I need to know the following:

what rules are used when looking for and applying configs applied from
command line or design time.
when are set variables applied
when are configs applied
explain why do configurations on the command line seem to be ignored if a
config is already defined in the package at design time.
explain why are defined configuration files that don't exist simply go out
in a whimper, with no indication that they were or were not used.

Hi Dwaine,
Welcome to Microsoft MSDN Managed Newsgroup.

Regarding your questions, SSIS 2005 and 2008 have some different behaviors
on processing the package configurations. However I think that you should
be clear of the answers after you read the following two articles to get
more information:
Package Configurations
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141682.aspx
Behavior Changes to Integration Services Features in SQL Server 2008
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb500430.aspx

Here is the extraction for your reading convenience:
==============================================
As the utility loads and runs the package, events occur in the following
order:

1. The dtexec utility loads the package.

2. The utility applies the configurations that were specified in the
package at design time and in the order that is specified in the package.
(The one exception to this is the Parent Package Variables configurations.
The utility applies these configurations only once and later in the
process.)

3. The utility then applies any options that you specified on the command
line.

4. The utility then reloads the configurations that were specified in the
package at design time and in the order specified in the package. (Again,
the exception to this rule is the Parent Package Variables configurations).
The utility uses any command-line options that were specified to reload the
configurations. Therefore, different values might be reloaded from a
different location.

5. The utility applies the Parent Package Variable configurations.

6. The utility runs the package.


The way in which the dtexec utility applies configurations affects the
following command-line options:

+ You can use the /Connection or /Set option at run time to load package
configurations from a location other than the location that you specified
at design time.

+ You can use the /ConfigFile option to load additional configurations that
you did not specify at design time.


However, these command-line options do have some restrictions:

+ You cannot use the /Set option to override single values that are also
set by a configuration.

+ You cannot use the /ConfigFile option to load configurations that replace
the configurations that you specified at design time
============================================

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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This might help:

http://toddchitt.wordpress.com/2008/06/27/ssis_config

(Yes, I know, shameless self-promotion, but it works for me and others have
found it useful.)

=====
Todd C


"dwaine" wrote: