Making output more readable for others - sql-server

I'm trying to make an SQL Query output more readable for our staff. It is a kind of a Warehouse Delivery note. Does not matter if I use Word or Excel or something else.
So I made an SQL Query (MS-SQL 2000 Server), this is working fine. The output obviously is a Table. The first 7 columns containing data that needs to be one time on the print as heading. The next columns containing data that needs to be on a list on the print. Already used PowerPivot to put it in Excel.
To make it some clearer I made a pictures in Excel. The data in the first column contains a "warehouse" number. I need a separate print per Warehouse. As you see, the first 7 columns also containing data concerning the warehouse. The last 3 columns are the products.
I have to put this:
into this, were Column 1 contains the same value. Other value of Column 1 goes to the next page and so on:

Return 2 datasets into your excel workbook, one for the heading values and the other for the details. I'm assuming your first dataset should only return the one row, which means you can reference the values in the data table directly without issue.
Your second table can then be directly inserted into the details section of your spreadsheet and formatted accordingly.

Well, so far it is working now. I used the Grouped Serial Letter function in Word from one Excel Table only. I tried the two Excel table Database Serial Letter version also, but somehow it did not worked. And what did not worked? I dont know, when I run the Database version I only get gibberish output and Errors.
So now I have it that way, that I run a SQL Query, that gives me one Excel Table. After that I run Word and print a Serial Letter

Related

SQL and empty rows in the beginning of the data

Earlier I have always been able to import to SQL Server data having column names on first row and information beginning from second row. However, now I should work with data having different structure and I have not possibilities to fix it, so I have to take it as "given".
In data there is first three totally empty rows. Column names are located on fourth and fifth rows, so that names of first three columns are on fourth row and names of other columns on fifth one. Information itself begins from sixth row.
I have no idea, how to manage with this kind of data structure in SQL environment? Former practices seems to be useless, or at least results have been far away from that what I want and need.

Query SQL database from Excel

I'm attempting to create a MS Query to return data from a SQL database based on a value from a cell in Excel. I have actually successful accomplished this, but only for 1 row. I cant figure out how to get it to copy-down to other rows.
I've created a connection as follows:
Notice that the SQL statement includes a parameter. The parameter is set to point to a specific cell:
I guess this makes sense as I'm only looking to return 1 value per row:The problem is that I have multiple lines to return values for. How do I return a value per row for multiple rows?
I've tried changing the cell reference in the Parameters dialog box, but this does not work as the Excel Table is designed to grow dynamically.
Excel data connections works in a way that every connection has only one SQL Query. So in order to do what you'r looking for, you will need to have many connections, and that's not the "best practice".
However, there are two ways you can solve this situation:
1. Make a single connection with all of the data and create a pivot table based on it. Then use VLOOKUP/INDEX to gather the data to your requested cells.
2. If the data is too big, you can use VBA code to create a smaller Query based on the cells you mentioned and then continue as described on the first option.
Good luck.

Import data from .xls to table by removing unwanted columns? [duplicate]

I need to import sheets which look like the following:
March Orders
***Empty Row
Week Order # Date Cust #
3.1 271356 3/3/10 010572
3.1 280353 3/5/10 022114
3.1 290822 3/5/10 010275
3.1 291436 3/2/10 010155
3.1 291627 3/5/10 011840
The column headers are actually row 3. I can use an Excel Sourch to import them, but I don't know how to specify that the information starts at row 3.
I Googled the problem, but came up empty.
have a look:
the links have more details, but I've included some text from the pages (just in case the links go dead)
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlintegrationservices/thread/97144bb2-9bb9-4cb8-b069-45c29690dfeb
Q:
While we are loading the text file to SQL Server via SSIS, we have the
provision to skip any number of leading rows from the source and load
the data to SQL server. Is there any provision to do the same for
Excel file.
The source Excel file for me has some description in the leading 5
rows, I want to skip it and start the data load from the row 6. Please
provide your thoughts on this.
A:
Easiest would be to give each row a number (a bit like an identity in
SQL Server) and then use a conditional split to filter out everything
where the number <=5
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqlintegrationservices/thread/947fa27e-e31f-4108-a889-18acebce9217
Q:
Is it possible during import data from Excel to DB table skip first 6 rows for example?
Also Excel data divided by sections with headers. Is it possible for example to skip every 12th row?
A:
YES YOU CAN. Actually, you can do this very easily if you know the number columns that will be imported from your Excel file. In
your Data Flow task, you will need to set the "OpenRowset" Custom
Property of your Excel Connection (right-click your Excel connection >
Properties; in the Properties window, look for OpenRowset under Custom
Properties). To ignore the first 5 rows in Sheet1, and import columns
A-M, you would enter the following value for OpenRowset: Sheet1$A6:M
(notice, I did not specify a row number for column M. You can enter a
row number if you like, but in my case the number of rows can vary
from one iteration to the next)
AGAIN, YES YOU CAN. You can import the data using a conditional split. You'd configure the conditional split to look for something in
each row that uniquely identifies it as a header row; skip the rows
that match this 'header logic'. Another option would be to import all
the rows and then remove the header rows using a SQL script in the
database...like a cursor that deletes every 12th row. Or you could
add an identity field with seed/increment of 1/1 and then delete all
rows with row numbers that divide perfectly by 12. Something like
that...
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlintegrationservices/thread/847c4b9e-b2d7-4cdf-a193-e4ce14986ee2
Q:
I have an SSIS package that imports from an Excel file with data
beginning in the 7th row.
Unlike the same operation with a csv file ('Header Rows to Skip' in
Connection Manager Editor), I can't seem to find a way to ignore the
first 6 rows of an Excel file connection.
I'm guessing the answer might be in one of the Data Flow
Transformation objects, but I'm not very familiar with them.
A:
Question Sign in to vote 1 Sign in to vote rbhro, actually there were
2 fields in the upper 5 rows that had some data that I think prevented
the importer from ignoring those rows completely.
Anyway, I did find a solution to my problem.
In my Excel source object, I used 'SQL Command' as the 'Data Access
Mode' (it's drop down when you double-click the Excel Source object).
From there I was able to build a query ('Build Query' button) that
only grabbed records I needed. Something like this: SELECT F4,
F5, F6 FROM [Spreadsheet$] WHERE (F4 IS NOT NULL) AND (F4
<> 'TheHeaderFieldName')
Note: I initially tried an ISNUMERIC instead of 'IS NOT NULL', but
that wasn't supported for some reason.
In my particular case, I was only interested in rows where F4 wasn't
NULL (and fortunately F4 didn't containing any junk in the first 5
rows). I could skip the whole header row (row 6) with the 2nd WHERE
clause.
So that cleaned up my data source perfectly. All I needed to do now
was add a Data Conversion object in between the source and destination
(everything needed to be converted from unicode in the spreadsheet),
and it worked.
My first suggestion is not to accept a file in that format. Excel files to be imported should always start with column header rows. Send it back to whoever provides it to you and tell them to fix their format. This works most of the time.
We provide guidance to our customers and vendors about how files must be formatted before we can process them and it is up to them to meet the guidlines as much as possible. People often aren't aware that files like that create a problem in processing (next month it might have six lines before the data starts) and they need to be educated that Excel files must start with the column headers, have no blank lines in the middle of the data and no repeating the headers multiple times and most important of all, they must have the same columns with the same column titles in the same order every time. If they can't provide that then you probably don't have something that will work for automated import as you will get the file in a differnt format everytime depending on the mood of the person who maintains the Excel spreadsheet. Incidentally, we push really hard to never receive any data from Excel (only works some of the time, but if they have the data in a database, they can usually accomodate). They also must know that any changes they make to the spreadsheet format will result in a change to the import package and that they willl be charged for those development changes (assuming that these are outside clients and not internal ones). These changes must be communicated in advance and developer time scheduled, a file with the wrong format will fail and be returned to them to fix if not.
If that doesn't work, may I suggest that you open the file, delete the first two rows and save a text file in a data flow. Then write a data flow that will process the text file. SSIS did a lousy job of supporting Excel and anything you can do to get the file in a different format will make life easier in the long run.
My first suggestion is not to accept a file in that format. Excel files to be imported should always start with column header rows. Send it back to whoever provides it to you and tell them to fix their format. This works most of the time.
Not entirely correct.
SSIS forces you to use the format and quite often it does not work correctly with excel
If you can't change he format consider using our Advanced ETL Processor.
You can skip rows or fields and you can validate the data the way you want.
http://www.dbsoftlab.com/etl-tools/advanced-etl-processor/overview.html
Sky is the limit
You can just use the OpenRowset property you can find in the Excel Source properties.
Take a look here for details:
SSIS: Read and Export Excel data from nth Row
Regards.

SSIS Package that removes or ignores multiple rows in flat file

I'm learning how to develop SSIS packages for ETL systems this week. One of my first objectives is to discover different ways to import flat files into a database. As this is pretty straight forward for the most part, I've been playing around with different flat files that contain a variety of data.
One issue I ran into today was with a Excel document that contained data in the first row, the header information in the second row and foot information in the last couple of rows. What I want to import into the database is the header and all the rows leading up to the footer. I do not want the first row and I do not want the footer.
My current solution is to create a Data Flow task in Advance Settings and OpenRowSet with "Sheet1$A2:I20000". This allows me to open the sheet I want, select the second row (where my header resides) and then select all other rows that are between A2 and I20000.
This solution also allows me to read the header information (which I want) and all the rows that follow for importation. Unfortunately, this also selects the footer rows and doesn't seem optimize for good performance as the package has to scan a massive range of rows regardless if there is data in those rows or not.
The screenshot below contains the Excel sheet that I'm trying to import based on the MS SQL sample database. The rows I want to remove or ignore are circles with the red box. Everything else not circled is what I want to import.
Any thoughts on how I can ignore the first row, read the second row for my header information, read the rows that follow the header for my data set and then ignore the last couple of rows that I'm deeming as the footer?
Addition Information About This File
The first row will never change.
The header row will never change.
The data set after the header will change values, not data types.
The first column of footer will never change.
The second column of footer will change values, not data types.
The rest of the footer columns will never change.
I figured out the solution to my own question.
I used the Conditional Split as shown in my diagram to filter out the rows I didn't need. For example, I put a condition that checks if the first column of data (member_no) was < (less than) a number. If TRUE, it goes to my OLE DB. If False, it goes nowhere. This prevented the "SUM TOTAL" from being passed to the database.
I also edited my start range with 'Sheet1$A2:I' as opposed to 'Sheet1$A2:I20000'. That way the package scans until there is no records to scan and stops (I assume).

SQL import wizard drops leading zero

I've read all the posts about prefixing the numbers with ', and setting IMEX=1 in the connection string; nothing seems to do the trick for me.
Here's the setup: Excel column with mixed data - 99% numbers (some start with 0) 1% text.
PROGRAMATICALLY mporting into SQL Server 2005 table / column type - varchar(255).
Import works fine locally, but once i move the code to production (GoDaddy), it drops the leading 0's in the column.
Any ideas?
p.s. I knew about the registry change solution, matter of fact - the value was set to 0 on my dev box, but the answer made me realize that the value wasn't set on the PRODUCTION SERVER :)
The ISAM driver only samples the first 8 rows, but you can change that behaviour through a registry change:
http://sqlserversd.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/ssis-excel-values-import-as-nulls/
But yes, using Excel for machine-to-machine data transfer is a nightmare...Is there no other way you can be sent the data?
Yes. The Excel driver only sample the 1st 8 rows to determine the data type.
This means that it assumes the column is numeric is "bob" does not appear in rows 1 to 8.
The target table column datatype is irrelevant.
Ths issue has been there for a long time, I saw it in 2003 the first time.
BOL notes on excel import
We usually save the file as a .csv file or .txt file and then the issue doesn't occur.
There is a quick and tricky way for this. following these steps BUT first copy all the data / columns and rows from the actual excel sheet into another excel sheet just to be of the safe side so that you have the actual data to compare with.
Steps:
Copy all the values in the column and paste them into a notepad.
Now change the column type to text in the Excel sheet (it will trim the preceding / trailing Zeros), don't worry about that.
Go to Notepad and copy all the values that you have pasted just now.
Go to your excel sheet and paste the values in same column.
If you have more than one column with 0 values then just repeat the same.
Now your excel document is ready to be imported with Zero Values :).
Happy Days.

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