Using SSIS BIDS with Visual Studio 2012 / 2013

Welcome to Microsoft Marketing Speak hell. With the 2012 release of SQL Server, the BIDS, Business Intelligence Designer Studio, plugin for Visual Studio was renamed to SSDT, SQL Server Data Tools. SSDT is available for 2010 and 2012. The problem is, there are two different products called SSDT.

There is SSDT which replaces the database designer thing which was called Data Dude in VS 2008 and in 2010 became database projects. That a free install and if you snag the web installer, that's what you get when you install SSDT. It puts the correct project templates and such into Visual Studio.

There's also the SSDT which is the "BIDS" replacement for developing SSIS, SSRS and SSAS stuff. As of March 2013, it is now available for the 2012 release of Visual Studio. The download is labeled SSDTBI_VS2012_X86.msi Perhaps that's a signal on how the product is going to be referred to in marketing materials. Download links are

• Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2012 (SSIS packages target SQL Server 2012)
• Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2013 (SSIS packages target SQL Server 2014)

None the less, we have Business Intelligence projects available to us in Visual Studio 2012. And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals

Today March 6, 2013, Microsoft released SQL Server Data Tools – Business Intelligence for Visual Studio 2012 (SSDT BI) templates. With SSDT BI for Visual Studio 2012 you can develop and deploy SQL Server Business intelligence projects. Projects created in Visual Studio 2010 can be opened in Visual Studio 2012 and the other way around without upgrading or downgrading – it just works.

The download/install is named to ensure you get the SSDT templates that contain the Business Intelligence projects. The setup for these tools is now available from the web and can be downloaded in multiple languages right here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=36843