SQL Server Data Tools Preview update for December 2015

The SQL Server Data Tools team is pleased to announce an update for SSDT Preview is now available. The SSDT Preview update for December 2015 includes bug fixes and enhancements for the new connection experience for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database which was introduced in the November 2015 update. This update also includes the programmability support for SQL Server 2016 CTP3.2 features and enhancements in SQL Server Analysis Service.

What's new in SSDT?

Connection dialog bug fixes

  • Bug fixes for the recent history listing.
  • Resizing of the connection dialog.
  • Adjustment of the default connection dialog size for long database and server names.
  • Change of test connection timeout value to 15 seconds.
  • Proper use of authentication context set in the connection property when loading a database list. 
  • Allowing creation of Azure SQL server firewall rule if the client IP is not registered when loading a database list.

SQL Server 2016 CTP3.2 feature programmability support

  • System-versioned temporal tables are now supported in database projects

SQL Server Analysis Services enhancements

  • Creation of calculated tables.
  • Setting the default for bi-directional cross filters.
  • Please visit the SSAS team blog to learn more.

SQL Server Integration Services enhancements

  • SSIS Hadoop connector supports Avro file format and Kerberos authentication.

Please note that SSIS designer support for SSIS 2012 and 2014 is not yet included in this update.

Get it here:

Download SSDT December 2015 Preview for Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2013

  • The version number for the latest preview in Visual Studio 2015 is 14.0.51215.0
  • The version number for the latest preview in Visual Studio 2013 is 12.0.51214.0

Download Data-Tier Application Framework December 2015 Preview

  • The version number for the latest preview is 13.0.900.80

Known issues:

Connection dialog

  • Properties change through Advanced Properties dialog may not be retained when the connection is opened next time through History tab.
  • If installing SSDT standalone - without any previous Visual Studio 2015 installation (Community, Pro+, or Express) - Azure login and browse functionality will not be available. To fix, install a version of Visual Studio and update the Azure Tools to version 2.7 or higher.

Temporal Tables

  • Incremental deployment of a in-memory optimized table may fail if table migration occurs. The mitigation is to manually drop System versioning, i.e. the temporal link between two tables prior to table migration to avoid deployment failure.
  • When you create a new temporal table using Project Item template and add columns to it, deployment may fail. The mitigation is not to add any column until the table is deployed first. Once the table is created, you can add columns to the table and deploy it incrementally.
  • When you delete a column from a temporal table using Table designer, adding a subsequent column may not work properly. To avoid it, keep the comma(,) after the last column in the table definition after deleting a column.

SQL Server Object Explorer

  • For users using Active Directory Integrated or Active Directory Password connections who are not server administrators, browsing in SSOX is not working.

Setup

  • If a version of SQL Server 2016 CTP is already installed on the machine, setup may be blocked. This is to avoid breaking components shared by the engine.
  • If installing SSMS Preview, SSDT Preview for Visual Studio 2015, or SSDT Preview for Visual Studio 2013 side by side on the same machine, there may be issues unless all are updated to the latest release.
  • (VS2015) .Net 4.6.1 may not install if there is no version of Visual Studio or the VS Integrated Shell previously installed on the machine. .Net 4.6 will be installed instead.
    • This will result in no Network connections being shown in the new connection dialog.
    • Recommendation is to install .Net 4.6.1 as it contains a number of stability improvements and SQL related fixes.
  • (VS2015) The April 2014 update to Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Known as KB2919355 is required to install the Visual Studio 2015 Isolated Shell. Please install KB 2919355 before you install SSDT on these operating systems.
  • (VS2015) The SSDT Japanese language installer may fail on the first attempt due to an issue installing the Visual Studio 2015 Japanese language pack. Retrying installation should succeed in installing correctly.

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!