SQL Server Data Tools July Update

The SQL Server Data Tools team is pleased to announce an update for SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) is now available. The SSDT update for July 2016 adds bug fixing and enhanced support for SQL Server 2016 features such as Always Encrypted and Temporal Table. This update also introduces a 'safe installation' experience. It aims to guarantee the installation of SSDT update will not break existing applications or SQL Server engine that have shared the same components in the past through the new component isolation approach.

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

This release will be available through Visual Studio Extensions and Updates soon.

Download Data-Tier Application Framework (June 30 2016)

  • The version number is 13.0.3370.2

What’s new in SSDT?

Database Tools - Always Encrypted enhanced support Always Encrypted is a highly anticipated security feature in Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2016. Always Encrypted allows clients to encrypt sensitive data inside client applications and never reveal the encryption keys to the Database Engine (SQL Database or SQL Server), significantly enhancing security.

What's in this release

For a guided tour of Always Encrypted in SSDT, see this blog post. This release adds full support for Always Encrypted through our core APIs and command line tool (SqlPackage.exe). You can build and publish database projects with full support for all Always Encrypted features.

Limitations:

  • In this release, actions that require Azure Key Vault are not supported inside SSDT, but are supported from our SqlPackage.exe command line tool. Database Publish and Data Viewing/Editing scenarios, involving column master keys stored in Azure Key Vault, will not work in this release.
  • Generation of column master keys and column encryption keys is currently not supported. Use SSMS or Powershell to create these keys.

What's coming soon

  • Support for Azure Key Vault in SSDT. You will be able to publish databases using column master keys stored in Azure Key Vault through the UI, view encrypted table data, and do all other actions that are supported in this release when using column master keys, stored in Windows Certificate Store.
  • Improved support for setup of encryption through SSDT.

Database Tools - Temporal Table enhanced support in SQL Server Data Tools

Temporal tables have also received significantly improved support in SSDT this month. Previously there were a number of incremental publish scenarios that would be blocked for temporal tables. This month, we have simplified the experience by unlinking temporal tables before alterations and re-linking once these have completed. This means that Temporal Tables have parity with other table types (standard, in-memory) in terms of the operations that are supported.

Database Tools - SqlPackage.exe and installation changes

We're making changes to isolate SSDT from SQL Server engine and SSMS updates. Full information is in this blog post.

Fixed / Improved this month

Database Tools

Fixed: from now on SSDT will never disable Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) on a database. Previously since the default encryption option in a project’s database settings was disabled, it would turn off encryption. With this fix encryption can be enabled but never disabled during publish.
Increased the retry count and resiliency for Azure SQL DB connections during initial connection
Fixed an issue where if the default filegroup is not PRIMARY, Import/Publish to to Azure V12 would fail. Now this setting is ignored when publishing
Fixed an issue where when exporting a database with an object with Quoted Identifier on, export validation could fail in some instances
Fixed an issue where the TEXTIMAGE_ON option was incorrectly added for Hekaton table creations where it is not allowed.
Fixed an issue where Export took a long time exporting with large amount of data due to a write to the model.xml file after data phase completed caused contents of the .bacpac file to be rewritten
Fixed an issue where Users were not appearing in the Security folder for Azure SQL DW and APS connections

Analysis Services & Reporting Services

SSMS & SSDT: Fixed a SxS issue with MSOLAP OLEDB provider where only the 32-bit provider was getting installed, impacting 64-bit Excel 2016 connecting to SQL Server 2014 (did not repro with ClickOnce installs from Office365, only MSI Excel install)
SSDT: Fixed an issue for a corner case to be more robust when upgrading AS model with pasted tables from 1103 to 1200 compat-level that could give error "Relationship uses an invalid column ID"
SSDT: Fixed a SxS issue when SSDT-BI 2013 on same machine, could no longer import data in AS model after uninstalling SSDT 2015 (cartridges shared registry setting)
SSDT: Improved robustness to address issues\crashes when the connection to the AS engine is lost (i.e. SSDT left open overnight and AS server recycled, or other cases where the connection is temporarily lost)
SSDT: Fixed issues with dialogs opening on different screens than VS in multi-monitor scenarios
SSDT: Fixed/enabled support for pasting from HTML tables (grid data) in AS model pasted tables
SSDT: Fixed issue where upgrade failed to upgrade an empty pasted table to 1200 (used only as container table for measures)
SSDT: Fixed an issue with upgrading AS tabular model with pasted tables to 1200 to work around an AS engine issue with CalcTables (which are used for Pasted Tables in 1200), to perform a process full on the new calc tables after the upgrade
SSDT: Fixed an issue where canceling creation of new AS 1200 model calculated table with incomplete DAX expression could crash
SSDT: Fixed an issue importing 1200 model from AS server into SSDT AS project when DB name and a table name were the same
SSDT: Fixed an issue with editing KPI measure in 1103 tabular model
SSDT: Fixed an Object reference not set exception hit while pasting a KPI measure in the grid for an AS 1200 model
SSDT: Fixed an issue where a column in a calculated table could not be deleted from the diagram view in 1200 models
SSDT: Fixed an Object Reference not set exception when viewing the model.bim project file properties while in code view
SSDT: Fixed an issue with pasting data into AS model grid to create pasted table yielded incorrect values on international locales using comma as decimal separator
SSDT: Fixed an issue opening 2008 RS project in SSDT and choosing to not upgrade it
SSDT: Fixed issue in 1200 compat-level models calculated table UI when using default formatting for column type to allow changing the formatting type from the UI

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!