The SQL Server Data Tools team released version 16.4 on Tuesday, and it comes with a number of fixes and improvements.
Cheif among these is an integrated Workspace Mode for SDDT Tabular, as well as support from Schema Compare in SqlPackage.exe.
SQL Server Data Tools 16.4 Release Notes
Before we get into the full changelog for this build, it’s worth going into more detail about the new Workspace Mode. SDDT Tabular now supports internal SASS instances and starts automatically if the mode is enabled.
This allows users to add data to the model designer without an external server instance. The feature appears in the Tabular Model Designer dialog when creating a new project.
The feature appears in the Tabular Model Designer dialog when creating a new project, where you can tick to enable.
In addition, a number of fixes came from Microsoft Connect:
- “SSDT: temporal tables broken in VS Data Tools July update 14.0.60629.0, ‘Value cannot be null. Parameter name: reportedElement.’
- IsPersistedNullable shows as different in SSDT Comparison.
- Identity is reset when importing a BACPAC.
- Running SSDT unit tests leaves temp files behind.
- Backwards compatibility breakage – AppLocal and Nugetization.”
The team also addressed some issues with analysis and reporting services. The list is very long, so we’ve just highlighted some of the most important below:
- “SDDT: Error tip pop ups were in the way when editing DAX for DirectQuery calculated columns.
- Fixed an issue in the SSDT AS tabular projects where width of columns in the manage relationships dialog could not be resized.
- Pasting large table data could make the tabular project unresponsive in SDDT AS.
- SSDT AS: pasting full sheet rows from Excel was very slow and created many unwanted columns.
- Fixed an issue in SSDT AS tabular model editor to mark the model as needing to save changes when renaming connection friendly name.”
These improvements should make SQL Data Tools more usable, well rounded and address some minor annoyances. You can see the full list on the project’s team blog.
